LaneFamily
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posted on January 21, 2002 06:15:42 PM new
Dear lanefamily:
Dear Sellers,
Welcome to 2002! We expect this year to be full of promise and opportunity, and hope that you will continue to build your business on Yahoo! Auctions. Today we are announcing a Free Listing Day for Thursday, January 24, 2002. Our objectives of this Free Listing Day are to continue to thank you for your ongoing support and commitment to our auctions platform – we value your business and your support, and appreciate your feedback on our message boards and from emails we receive regarding improvements and suggestions for the site. Secondly, we know that a Free Listing Day will attract more sellers, which in turn will bring more and more buyers to Yahoo! Auctions. We hope to draw many new sellers who are looking for an alternative, to give our site a try. Please let your friends know. We hope they will try us out too.
To support the free listing day, we intend to promote Yahoo! Auctions heavily across our network in the coming weeks to attract as many buyers as possible to your auctions. We know that a free listing day is only as good as the increase in bidders that can come with it, and we have the plans in place to do just that.
We continue our efforts to thwart deadbeat bidding and fraudulent sellers. Today we introduced an added step to the registration process, requiring all new registered sellers to provide the cvv2 number (three digit code) found on the back of the credit card. This forces the user to have the credit card in hand, which significantly reduces the number of ID’s anyone can have for selling, reducing the opportunity to take advantage of our honest users.
Know that we are working on further measures. We’ve set up a survey, and I’d greatly appreciate your time to fill it out to help us get a sense of what you see as the right kinds of steps we should take to make Yahoo! Auctions the best and safest auction platform on the Internet. You can find the survey at http://promo2.yahoo.com/sbin/Auctions_Jan2002/survey.cgi
Meanwhile, I wish you the best of success with your auctions and hope that you can take full advantage of the free listing day! In addition to our free listing day, we will also be hosting a contest as a part of the Free Listing Day Program. – you may be a lucky winner of a Cunard Line cruise trip. Further information can be found at Yahoo! Auctions starting tomorrow.
All the best,
Norm.
VP, General Manager, Yahoo! Auctions and Yahoo! Warehouse
(Please note: You received this message because you elected to receive it when you completed the Yahoo! Auctions Survey. If you do not want to receive future updates and information, you may unsubscribe by hitting reply and typing “Unsubscribe – Auctions Survey” in the Subject line.)
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tomwiii
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posted on January 21, 2002 07:31:47 PM new
Yahoo Rules! 
Not to mention...
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quickdraw29
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posted on January 21, 2002 08:14:17 PM new
It's always free listing day for me on Yahoo, but this is great as it won't eat up my credits.
They have a contest, seller with highest sell through. Maybe I'll list two items and aim for 100%!! 
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DMRick
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posted on January 21, 2002 08:54:13 PM new
oh goodie, another chance to list for free on Yahoo and have the few people who do bid not pay. I just love the followup paper work..gives me something to do.
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bidsbids
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posted on January 22, 2002 01:25:44 AM new
That will help save some of my remaining credits too. It's nice to have the FVF or revenue share come out of the free credits too. Almost 60% of all my recent Yahoo Auction sales have come from new on unrated buyers. A decent portion of those turn out to be deadbeats and I try to give them a (-1) rating as soon as possible to prevent them from bidding any more.
The new bidders are a good sign as they will hopefully turn into good buyers. The new bidders tend to be new to the online auction scene and often bid on items that can found cheaper elsewhere and that is a big plus for sellers.
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JWPC
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posted on January 22, 2002 09:34:01 AM new
Hope springs eternal!
I posted on the last FREE listing day, and out of 40 auctions, I sold one item, and that one to a Canadian, who discovered AFTER the auction closed that the shipping was expensive and he couldn't afford it!
It seems Yahoo is getting desperate! Too bad they couldn't learn from other smaller auctions, that a FVF ONLY would bring them endless good sellers on a consistent basis.
I imagine Yahoo would earn a great deal more revenue if they could only realize that to sell on Yahoo one has to post and repost, and only via a no charge to post, and a FVF when it sells, will most sellers ever return to Yahoo in mass.
AND NOW is the time to drop posting charges, and institute just a FVF, in the face of the rise in costs on eBay, Yahoo might be able to make a MAJOR move on eBay. BUT, as long as there are no buyers and posting fees are still being charged, they will sit and rot as they have done since the posting fees were instituted. They are sort of like K-Mart, that can’t read the writing on the wall, or refuse to!
Oh well, happy free listing day.
[ edited by JWPC on Jan 22, 2002 09:37 AM ]
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bidsbids
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posted on January 22, 2002 10:41:12 AM new
I think Yahoo would do the 'drop the small listing fee thing' except for the fact that it has put the new Yahoo Warehouse already in place that generates 10% FVF's. To drop the auction listing fees and go with a FVF would make Yahoo have to abandon it's new warehouse ( no big loss ). I think Yahoo would need a substantially larger than eBay FVF system to offset the operating costs that the millions of new listings would bring. Those costs would have to include live workers to go after 'signpost' auctions, recipe auctions, build your feedback for only 25 cent auctions, etc.
One way to combat those nuisances auctions and the nickel and dime baseball card auctions that would flood the auctions is to charge a flat selling fee and a FVF for each sale. Something like a 25 cent selling fee plus 5% FVF fee system like eBay has. That sounds good to me. For anyone to think that free listings with a very small FVF is acceptable to Yahoo, then they are not placing themselves in Yahoo shoes. The auction cost a lot of money to operate and a token FVF is not enough to cut the mustard.
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fishfry
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posted on January 22, 2002 11:44:19 AM new
Yahoo really is the best big auction site, it's just that they're still too expensive the way they have the fees set up now! They have the best search, the best international sites, the best layout and complete integrated system - but they don't have enough sellers with things anyone would want to buy! What they need is a flat monthly listing charge (around $50.00 - something like Amazon) for professional sellers, combined with the FVF - to subscribe, they could make PayDirect required, and then they would collect another set of fees on any payments accepted that way - while promoting PayDirect at the same time. This would make the auctions a lot cheaper for us, at least - and I think it would catch a lot of people who might flock to take advantage of the free buy price, too -
Jennifer
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aliceroad
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posted on January 22, 2002 01:04:28 PM new
Cannot Yahoo do something about the lack of feedback and non paying bidders?
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bidsbids
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posted on January 22, 2002 02:01:57 PM new
I like the PayDirect only angle to allow Yahoo to gather more auction income. I don't know if it's legal to do that though.
The deadbeat ratio may improve a little with the 4 digit code on the back of credit cards being mandatory to register now. Credit card numbers without the unique code are easier to aquire or use.
The feedback issue can go on the back burner as it should affect everyone equally and the deadbeat issue is much more important.
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fishfry
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posted on January 22, 2002 02:59:38 PM new
I don't think they could force you to use PayDirect for the payments - but if signing up with it would be part of their "pro seller's package"? It would encourage auction sellers to sign up, then of course the bidders always seem to prefer the e-payment, since it is so easy, and it's always free to them! They would collect something, it would be in a way the fairest of FVC's - Yahoo gets their cut when the bidder ACTUALLY PAYS! (Would help with part of the deadbeat problem, anyway - the system now is great if you just want to complain to the bidders, but what if you'd just like the FVC refunded quickly, without any hassle?)
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barparts
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posted on January 22, 2002 08:56:55 PM new
I think it is great. My sell through rate was about 15% which considering that the items I had listed were weak selling items at best. When ever I list a great mover there, it does sell.
How about another twist to the free listing day. Do you think it could be in response to ebay's raising there fees again. I bet it does. I really think that Yahoo has a real shot this time of breaking into the ebay monopoly and convincing bidders that Yahoo has cleaned up its' act and is a desirable place to be once again.
And to reply to JWPC, you have to list them to sell them. Making bogus claims about any site that you have no listings on doesn't hold much water.
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bidsbids
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posted on January 22, 2002 10:11:16 PM new
I think the extra FLD is because the last did not go too well. Once the free listings were finished the amount of listing must have returned to the same level as before the FLD. The FLD may have even backfired a bit as many sellers have reports horrible results. I have noticed a huge influx of new bidders in the last 2 weeks at Yahoo and they may help make this FLD much more of a success than the last one. Hopefully anyway.
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blairwitch
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posted on January 23, 2002 10:06:02 AM new
I was reading many message boards and everyone is mad over the fee increase. Everyone knows they will raise them again in a few months and that is what the problem is. I did well last yahoo FLD and I will list more items than last. Thanks for the hat yahoo!!
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bidsbids
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posted on January 23, 2002 10:43:11 AM new
Eveyone is mad but none will leave eBay. If eBay doubled every fee in one shot I estimate only 25% of the sellers would leave and most of the cheapo items would go to either Half or Yahoo Warehouse. They'd be a healthy increase in s/h fees.
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zzyzx000
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posted on January 23, 2002 07:10:49 PM new
I think the free trip for the best sell-thru is a shill trap. Right now half of you are scrambling to get the 50 minimum items together, and calling up everybody you know to bid on them ("you don't have to pay me Marge, I just won't ship it and I'll pay the little FV fee to Yahoo" . Combine that with selling all the stuff you can't move for $1.00 (use Marge, etc. only in the last few days if needed), and when you sell 50 items out of 50, you win the trip.... except you will be tied with 1000 other sellers for 1st place.
Then Yahoo can award one winner at random and delete the accounts of the rest for shill bidding.
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quickdraw29
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posted on January 23, 2002 08:56:20 PM new
"Yahoo really is the best big auction site....They have the best search.."
You're joking, right? Nothing like wading through page after page of unrelated listings to scare away buyers. I believe Yahoo is afraid of emty pages upon search so they fill it with whatever they can. I could see if you typed in Barney video and came up with Barney dolls, and barney lunch box, but Howard Stern copilations??
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tomwiii
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posted on January 24, 2002 05:47:59 AM new
copilations?? 
Is that an assortment of Howie's sex performances?
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LaneFamily
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posted on January 24, 2002 10:55:54 PM new
Well I ended up giving it a try. I put up 330 auctions tonight to see how they do.
This was not nick listing junk either, I put some 100.00 stuff.
Couple of days ago I was going to try yahoo again since now they claim to be a nickle so I put out one test auction that cost me 25 cents or something. It has 15 views after 6 days. Ouch!
I am looking for 10% to be a success. I used same opening bid as eBay and dropped the buy it now just a little bit. That would be 1/5th to 1/7th of the rate of eBay I figure that is what my posing costs would be if I did this more often.
Jim
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zzyzx000
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posted on January 24, 2002 11:19:40 PM new
OUCH... You started your bids low on free listing day?
Free listing day is the day you can start your bidding where you want to sell the item because.....it doesn't cost anything to do so.
What kind of stuff do you sell? This ought to be a giveaway.
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quickdraw29
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posted on January 24, 2002 11:44:08 PM new
If I didn't have a family to feed, I'd start my bidding at a $1. Oh wait, I already do that. Do you know for a $1 you can buy three boxes of Macaroni and cheese?
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sulyn1950
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posted on January 25, 2002 08:04:45 AM new
Boy am I stooopid!
Free Listing day cost me $7+ to list (not counting feature fees) .....
I read and re-read the email I got and the onsite spill about FLD and saw where icons, bolding, and highlighted still cost you, just not listing fees.....
I have tried all kinds of combinations on Yahoo trying to make it work for me....
Nothing has worked so far, so this time I decided to start some of my auctions low, with a reserve and a BIN....
Yep, reserve is an "extra"....
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zzyzx000
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posted on January 25, 2002 09:51:23 AM new
I did 388 listings on free day. I usually do all 1st Bid WINS listings, but this time I'm going to be travelling soon, so I did the max 10 day (and 14 day with the bulk loader) listings with an explaination of when I can next ship, and no BUY IT NOW price at all.
I haven't tried a "real" auction on Yahoo in a long time, so this will be somewhat interesting (I think I already know the result). Of course the minimum bid is actually what I'm happy to sell for, so 1 bid per item will be fine.
So far the score is 388 listings and 0 bids.
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LaneFamily
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posted on January 25, 2002 10:58:07 AM new
I think we need to have daily reports on how we are all doing. Maybe have our own contest or something. My 1:00 CDT total is 330 & 0.
Lets be fair, all the bids will come over the weekend right?!
Jim
corrected some spelling and grammer
[ edited by LaneFamily on Jan 25, 2002 11:04 AM ]
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quickdraw29
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posted on January 25, 2002 06:02:00 PM new
I need some good bidding, heading to Utah in a few weeks, are there any tickets left?
One has a bid, another ended with Buy Now. Both would have been relists on ebay had FLD not come around.
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LaneFamily
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posted on January 29, 2002 09:10:28 PM new
I'm as giddy as a school girl. I acutally had a Yahoo! auction close with multiple bids.
I do not think I am going to win the trip though. I am 12 for 165.
Jim
Soon as all this FLD gets over I may just list a couple again.
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moonmem-07
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posted on January 30, 2002 08:49:22 AM new
I listed 207 on FLD. Some were relists and some were new auctions. Price range is about $5 to $150. So far no bids or BINs. I hope it gets better! Melanie
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dev
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posted on February 1, 2002 06:21:30 AM new
I posted 70...so far 1 bid and 1 BIN. When I look at my counters I see most items at best have 2 maybe 3 hits. Doesn't appear Yahoo is going to be worth the effort.
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robnzak
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posted on February 1, 2002 08:59:42 AM new
I listed 134, one BIN and 4 bids but I remain quietly optimistic that the other 130 will close successfully and I'll have a 100% sell-thru.
damn, who woke me up, it was such a sweet wet dream.
Rob
robnzak - 1st editions
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bidsbids
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posted on February 1, 2002 09:27:32 AM new
Only about 5% rate here so far but it's all free. The prices most items sold or are selling for are about 2 to 3 times what they'd go for on eBay so that is a big plus.
I once saw a travel log show about those nasty piranha fish in South America. When the cattle ranchers had to have their herds cross a piranha infested river or waterway they would select a sorry looking steer or two and have them cross in one section of the river and while the nasty fish were all busy attacking and devouring those sacrifical animals the main herd crossed in another section of the river unhurt. The nickel listing fees add up but if you sacific an item or two you can get a lot of items exposed and sold on Yahoo. 80% of the recent buyers have been brand new auction users so there are new buyers coming to Yahoo.
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