zzyzx000
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posted on September 4, 2001 07:29:24 PM new
I was helping a frien set up a Yahoo account today and learned something I hadn't heard here before:
To participate in Yahoo Auctions either as a buyer or seller, you must get a Yahoo Wallet.
What this means is there is no more using another's credit card # as in the old days when they didn't check except to see if the credit card was valid and hadn't been used on Yahoo before.
To get a Yahoo wallet you must give them the whole 9 yards and they check it all. So I guess that's good news to whoever is left here selling.
As for me, I'm anticipating the demise of listing fees and a return to Yahoo. I must admit I find the whole site very handy and seem to use Yahoo Finance, Maps, Search, and clubs on a daily basis.
I think YaFool Auctions already knows the right answers because their recent survey was multiple choice and their choices included getting rid of Listing fees and improved listing tree as 2 of the most important things that need to be done.
So with luck, they will welcome us back before X-mas. I will be happy to pay them 5% of my sales so long as they only get paid when I make a sale.
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bidsbids
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posted on September 5, 2001 07:59:32 AM new
Let's hope you are right. My gut feeling is that you are right on and I feel the same way. A return to the old Yahoo style ( plus a fair FVF ) would put a lot of free auction sites in a more hopeless position than they are in now.
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olhickory
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posted on September 5, 2001 01:57:25 PM new
Agreed, but the survey said "reduce" not "eliminate" listing fees. I can't imagine that they would eliminate them entirely - that's like swinging from one extreme to the other. I for one am happy that I'm no longer seeing ads for Viagra in Disneyana categories.  Elimating listing fees altogether would bring some of that stuff back - for now it's just sitting in Yahoo Classifieds.
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zzyzx000
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posted on September 5, 2001 02:58:57 PM new
You think like a traditional YaWho worker. You think everything must be automated to work without human intervention.
How about using a portion of the FV fee to police the site with real people and penalize those who abuse it?
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bidsbids
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posted on September 5, 2001 04:11:44 PM new
How about a listing fee of 2 or 3 cents and a 5% FVF? Think of all the nickel and dime baseball card auctions running on Bidville that will have to stay over there with a very small listing fee at Yahoo. I'm also in favor of a no listing fee policy with a FVF of 5% and a 25 cents minimum FVF fee, that also will keep out the 5 or 10 cent auction items.
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zzyzx000
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posted on September 5, 2001 04:16:38 PM new
So what do you have against other people's low priced stuff? the beauty of the computer is you don't have to look at baseball cards if you don't want to.
If you just want to see high priced baseball cards and like to browse, then it makes sense to devise a listing tree that accommodates certain subcategories. I've been crying out for years about the listing trees. They all suck big time and that includes ePay.
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sasoony
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posted on September 6, 2001 12:10:06 PM new
Nothing against low priced items but they're usually overpriced when there are no listing fees.
Too many sellers listing the same overpriced items over and over. Buyers don't like looking at the same "stale" listings over and over.
Yahoo doesn't have enough traffic to justify their current listing fees. But I would rather see the fees cut in half or reduced than have my items buried under pages of free listings (Bidville is already offering this option).
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zzyzx000
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posted on September 6, 2001 12:26:59 PM new
That's what I hate about K-mart and Walmart. Same old cheep crap. I think there should be a law outlawing that stuff, so i don't have to see it.
Or take their license away so we all have to shop shop at Neiman-marcus.
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bidsbids
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posted on September 6, 2001 05:35:41 PM new
Nobody wants to see hundreds of thousands of baseball cards that cost a nickel or a dime. Yahoo wants to be a little like ebay this time and not a wharehouse of penny ante items that it can never hope to make a cent on. What's wrong with every sale having a 25 cent FVF or greater. On a $5 item that is very little but on a dime card that's too much. Let the very low end items stay on lonely outposts like Bidville where they belong. I'd personally like to see a $1 minimum start price on any item at most auction sites. On ebay I'd really like to see a $5 minimum start bid on every item. For lesser items the sellers can group items into lots that can start at the $5 minimum.
Do you really want the same exact Yahoo as before, the you that failed to make a dime for Yahoo and failed?
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zzyzx000
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posted on September 6, 2001 05:58:05 PM new
"Nobody wants to see hundreds of thousands of baseball cards that cost a nickel or a dime."
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They have them that cheap? If I was a buyer I might like that. But I agree Yahoo shouldn't have to go the whole 9 yards for 5% of a nickel.
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"Do you really want the same exact Yahoo as before, the you that failed to make a dime for Yahoo and failed?"
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Yahoo's problems were well described here. Failed to make a dime? It was free until they started high listing fees. Many of us told them we would pay FV fees but they didn't listen. Hardly a failure, they had lots of buyers and had control of the niche market of "junk" dealers which you want to do away with. Anybody with a truly rare item would be crazy to sell it anywhere buy on ePay.
Yafool should EMBRACE the junk dealer because collectively they are gold mine that nobody is able to mine. If they wait, Bidville, which has lots of listings but few buyers (and are doing all the same wrong things that YaFool did) may catch on. Once they buyers come, that firm can lay claim to all the gold.
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sasoony
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posted on September 6, 2001 08:09:08 PM new
Yahoo was going downhill before they started the listing fees. Remember the scrambled listings???
Yahoo has developed a bad habit of making changes where none are needed. I see that the auction titles are now limited to 50 characters.
They've lost 90% of their listings. Why the sudden need to save space with shorter auction titles?????
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zzyzx000
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posted on September 6, 2001 08:19:37 PM new
That's why we call them YaFool. Yet as a portal site, they still get the traffic, so YaFool auctions is sitting on prime real estate. It may well be that some day upper management will clear out the current bozos at their auctions and erect a workable business on that property.
Maybe they aren't happy selling flea market stuff. But if my sales were any barometer, they could have made $500 a month off me with 5% FV fees. Instead they get ZERO from me.
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