posted on July 3, 2001 10:43:52 PM new
For some reason there is not "reply to topic" in the recent Q&A Article with Norm H.
So... Here I go!
Coming from Egghead Mr H. knows the heritage of Yahoo Auctions, probably knows me as well as we did alot of work with Onsale Auctions which is where Yahoo was born of. I am sure he is also aware why Onsale moved away from the P2P platform. Atop that, I am also sure he knows much more about the egghead/onsale merger which effectively ended up having the opposite effect at both Egghead auctions (whcih used to be Surplus Direct) abd Onsale basically pushing uBid to the top.
Yahoo's had many issued, I know, I and Tom (name withheld) had alot of coorespondance between us when the movement of the Onsale Exchange occured. Yahoo has never "recaputured the magic" that was Onsale.
Percentages and such aside Yahoo will never in a million years overtake eBay, Onsale may have. Onsale actually had eBay worried as they WERE focused in online auctions and the leader in B2C auctions.
eBay has site loyalty for starters of both sellers and buyers, they are FOCUSED. Yahoo is everything BUT focused. Support was horrid enough that most core vendor groups were alientated early on. Atop that, Yahoo does not actively drive traffic at the auctions. Anyone whos been in the auction game any amount of time realizes that this is an IMPERATIVE. People wont just click some little link or bolded link. Onsale was #1 as they expended heaps of advertising money as did Egghead Auctions. eBay expends considerable money driving traffic as does uBid.
If you went www.yahoo.com and 1/3rd of the entry point page said "auctions" traffic would instantly jump.
There are many auction sites in the past who have made a better mouse trap than eBay as far as the site software goes. However, they do just that. They dont risk expending capital to drive the traffic and that instantly means the core sellers are wasting their time. When C/Net struck deal with Race Computing for Auction Gate and made C/Net auctions they bannered the site on C/Net's home page. In a week we made more sales happen that we ever saw in a week at any other site from Onsale to eBay to uBid or elsewhere. The MOMENT they removed that bannering of the new feature and made it part of their link header traffic died and I do mean died.
I hope Mr H. reads this. There is just no way that Yahoo will ever make an effective run at eBay. The traffic in auctions MUST be driven and its why 99.95% of all auctions sites fail. The moment Egghead mated its auction site with Onsales and all in one place what happened? Both egghead and Onsale lost the auctions market share shortly thereafter and its VERY understandable to a business such as ours as to why. We are in the trenches performing the fulfillment. Often what the "top" see's is not what the "bottom" see's and more often than not the "bottom" see's things in the real light as they are DEALING with it, not just page after page of figures or problems.
The web does NOT make well for profits in a top-down corporate view, never has, its why 99.95% of web retail cant run a profit yet 16 zillion small businesses can. Corporate America blames it on overhead, consumer confidence and all forms of other issues. The reality is the small business SEES the consumer, touches the consumer and KNOWS whats needed to run a profit and make a site work.
eBay does listen to the core vendor groups, or did. Now they are cranking down on regulations and excersising more controls, I'd guess that this will have the exact opposite effect of what they think will happen. To me, a blind man can see the long term results.
But what of Yahoo?
Yahoo should NOT in any way shape or form engage in P2P auctions. We were at the Onsale site and we were the first "anchor business" at the Onsale Exchange, was wonderful! Sold as well as eBay and in many cases better. uBid outsells it 8:1 MINIMUM for us, easily an 85% sell through.
The P2P auctions market is LOCKED and I dont care if lightning strikes eBays servers and they are down for 2 weeks you will not see Yahoo "take off". The SPECIALIZATION is NOT there. eBay does SALES thats ALL they do. Yahoo does everything and then some and does not FOCUS, never has in fact.
Everyone's all suprised at .com stocks taking such dives. Its not surprise at all since between day traders and the fact that all that "web money" is PERCIEVED value NOT true WORTH. GM has assets as does Kodak. Yahoo or this one or that one has nowhere near the "assets" that are tangible, touchable and REALLY EXIST.
So ooo's and ahh's aside again, no surprise here, the fact is the overheads of sizeable web businesses outweigh the true capital assets of the company in question, almost any of em'.
But back to Yahoo. Why in the world would anyone think Yahoo auctions could take on eBay? No way. Want it to happen? Scrap Yahoo search engines, and all the other services and do auctions only. Thats the only way and even at that probably wont work.
Take Fair Market (please), another compnay who comes out with "lofty statements" and signs places such as MSN, Dell, CompUSA, Lycos, Ziff Davis and many others. Certainly between all of them a HUGE prospective consumer base, yet, they flopped. Why did they flop? Easy, Lofty statements are as valuable as the capital assets, worth NOTHING. They played favorites, they could care less about what sellers or buyers for that matter concerns are, just the contracts.
I'd love to see the song and dance that was used to sell MSN and others into paying $20,000 a month (granted, peanuts to these companies and tax deductible). I'd probably have wet my pants. What they dont realize is to the avg. sellers/small businesses out there FM made MS, Dell, ZD etc. look like absolute fools.
Yahoo should not be in P2P auction sales at all. They simply WILL NOT succeed, no way.
HOWEVER!!!! Yahoo SHOULD go into Business to consumer auctions and do some FOCUS on it. Start rotating lots of banners out there, sure make it accessible via the Yahoo home page but ALSO a totally seperate entry point so it looks rather "independent" and "focused".
Now ya got something as there IS a market in B2C auctions and buyers need not worry about consumer confidence and the natural Yahoo traffic base can be used to "jump start" it.
We wont vend at Yahoo as it is, its ridiculous. If Yahoo wants B2C auctions, where do we sign up?
If Norm actually reads this by all means I am willing to expend time and go into some detail. Email'sh me at [email protected]
Signed: WhyNot!
posted on July 5, 2001 07:51:23 AM new
For all your comments on why Yahoo will never make it in P2P auctions, the fact is until January, we found Yahoo fantastic – and would still be using Yahoo if the “attitude” hadn’t changed so dramatically. I didn’t mind the charge for posting, although I thought a FVF would have been much wiser, but I could live with the listing fee – BUT when all of the sudden auctions were and are being cancelled right and left for their mysterious “TOS” violations with no refund for the auction……when one never knows when they might be violating a “TOS”, that did it for us.
Yahoo, before January, was an easy going, laid back, happy place to sell. Overnight, it turned into hell on earth. “TOS” cancellations, no more links to your web site, and on and on. THAT is what drove me away from Yahoo – the attitude and rules – not the charging, and not the amount of sales we were able to do. Last year on Yahoo we out sold anything we had ever done on eBay and would have stayed exclusively with Yahoo – but the attitude/rule change drove us off.
Yahoo Problems:
1. Attitude (no seller friendly any longer)
2. “TOS” violations
3. Cancellation of web site links in ones auction
I can live with the charges
My elder son (who is an adult) was running over 1,000 auctions on Yahoo, prior to January. When the changes came in, and the attitude changed, he also left, never to return.
