posted on July 15, 2002 08:12:33 AM new
I had 550 auctions in the "Not Sold" section of "My Auctions". I just checked and there is only 491 now with the oldest being dated 3/18/02. Could it be Yahoo Auctions is clearing out computer space by eliminating any stored auctions older than four months?
Could be another development in a possible closure of Yahoo Auctions. If there are no more FLDs and the sellers inventories of unsold auctions dwindles lower and lower then there is even less reason to ever list on Yahoo.
posted on July 15, 2002 08:39:18 AM new
After reading yahoo's report I doubt they will close the auctions. Yahoo is finally making revenue, and I think they will focus more on the pay-to-use features like the auctions. I expect more FLD's, but with the slow summer season here they wont put much effort into it. A FLD each month starting in September would bump up the numbers quickly. They could also be waiting for ebay to outprice themselves.
posted on July 15, 2002 11:33:12 AM new
Does anyone else have a bunch of unsold auctions on Yahoo servers waiting for a FLD? I believe in the past these were never removed or left on Yahoo servers for at least one year. This action seems to dovetail with the 'hit everyone that had an unpaid balance' thing they did a month or so ago.
If there is a large gap between FLDs then all unsold items over four months disappear then there will be few sellers having items to relist. I know there is a bulk lister and a regular lister but very few sellers know how to use them. I think there will never be another free listing day on either Yahoo or eBay. I think Yahoo will pull the plug on it's auction segment by the end of January and try to sell the Yahoo-Japan to eBay by then also.
posted on July 15, 2002 12:42:23 PM new
I have only 80 in the NOT SOLD now and I had a couple hundred last time I looked. If they are deleting them, I would not even bother to list on FLD. They continue the downhill spiral. I am not surprised. Just disappointed.
posted on July 15, 2002 02:23:20 PM new
I find it rather interesting that the 'warehousing mentality' of another site's sellers gets bashed on a daily basis, yet you are complaining that unsold auctions on Yahoo from FOUR MONTHS AGO get deleted. Seems you are following the same warehouse mentality except you don't keep the items listed anywhere.
I don't believe any auction site keeps closed listings for as long as Yahoo does, and most of them for less time - and why should they?? Wouldn't that just keep around the same 'junk' listings that everyone claims they don't want to see on Yahoo again?
posted on July 15, 2002 09:22:57 PM new
Yahoo is and has always been a warehouse auction site. There is only one true auction, eBay.
Yahoo has always been the class act of the low cost auctions with longer storage and better photo imaging than eBay in both quality and quanity. All of the lost unsold auctions mean that most of them will never be relisted on Yahoo ever again unless they return to the year 2000 Yahoo Auction format.
It will be more and more difficult to ever get their listing numbers up with a free listing day. The traffic at Yahoo is also rapidly declining as pageviews are less and less on auction items.
It makes no sense to contine on with Yahoo Auctions in the auction format. Either return it to it's original format ( with an eBay-like FVF structure ) or shut it down and admit that eBay has a stranglehold on auctions and soon will have a stranglehold on all fixed priced items. eBay is becoming exactly like MicroSoft.
edited to add:
The Yahoo free eMail service is also undergoing a drastic change. It use to be the email accounts were keep alive forever but made inactive after a long period of inactivity but re-activated by emailing Yahoo for a lost password. Now the Yahoo email is much more like HotMail with inactivity closing the box in just 30 days and no re-opening the box without a $20 fee. The next step should be that all dormant email account will be deleted after 6 months. Since pagehits hardly count anymore for ad revenue it makes sense to revamp the email service to save money.
[ edited by bidsbids on Jul 15, 2002 10:05 PM ]
posted on July 16, 2002 06:47:50 PM new
I had about 75% of my unsold auctions deleted. And it did not matter how old they were. I usually listed from that list using the oldest first to relist. I would usually relist between 6-10 auctions a week and mix in a new one here and there. Then all of a sudden, most were gone. Some as recent as a week of closing. I was going to relist a couple of the recent ones as they are good sellers there, but they were gone. I did list new auctions, (thank God I keep them on my hard-drive) to replace the deleted ones.
One more thought I was having at that time. If you list 20 auctions under $10.00 and have them relist twice, it will only cost you $3.00 a month if nothing sells. A total of 60 auctions a month for only $3.00.
On ebay, that is the same as listing only 10 items a month without a relist for only up to 7 day sale. Heck, I sell way more than $3.00 dollars worth in a week at Yahoo, let alone a month, but never thought of it that way before. I for one boosted my listings of under $10.00 and sure enough, I have a bid on a very slow moving item after one day. Not that I plan on leaving ebay any time soon, that would be foolish, but is just as foolish is only having 5-6 items listed at any time at Yahoo. If more items of quality are listed, the buyers will come back in bigger quantity. It will take some time, but they were there before and many hate to see an old friend go by the wasteside. If all of the quality sellers listed a little more often, the better buyers will show up. At least that has been my experience with Yahoo. Can't say that with the third tier sites, but sure can with Yahoo.
[ edited by barparts on Jul 17, 2002 03:54 PM ]
posted on July 18, 2002 09:57:22 PM new
Yahoo kept the old auctions, especially the not sold auctions, for a long long time. It makes sense to keep them on their servers as the sellers can relist them in the future. If eBay were to keep sellers unsold auctions on their servers for a long time they would probably raise their profits by a good percentage. There also would be less and less reason to use the Andale or AW paid services. I used AW a little when it was free but consider services like that only valuable for sellers that are not very computer oriented. The services act like a crutch and the sellers will never learn to do it themselves if they rely on these expensive and mostly unnecessary services.
posted on July 20, 2002 09:45:15 PM new
It gets worse.
I decided to give it one last chnce and relist most of my unsold auctions that weren't deleted by Yahoo. I decided to start with the oldest ones and work forward, and might as well adjust the s/h and get rid of the Priority Mail option while I'm in the process of re-listing.
I started at the oldest unsold action which closed on 3/18 and got it all ready to re-submit and the photo is a small red x. I started checking the other older auctions up to a certain date and all have a red x instead of a photo. The photos statred appearing again on auctions that ended around 3/30. That's about 90 auctions without a photo and 50 that were deleted completely before that.
That certainly sounds like Yahoo is trying to clear off it's servers and become more like eBay and hold the unsold auctions for only a short while.
posted on July 20, 2002 11:22:04 PM new
I love this. You have auctions from 120 days ago that you still haven't sold elsewhere. Hmmmmm, isn't that a bit of inventory warehousing?
So you want Yahoo to keep unsold auctions for more than four months just in case you decide to relist it. Can you name me another site that is willing to do this? I'd much rather that Yahoo and every other site stay efficient with their server use by focusing on recently closed auctions, rather than clog up the system and increase fees because they have to invest in more hardware to store everything.
I also don't understand the comment about AW, etc. only being for those that are not very computer savvy. The idea of these packages is to simplify and speed up the listing process, especially for those who list lots of similar items. Why is this such a bad thing compared to learning to do it yourself?
posted on July 21, 2002 09:54:40 AM new
I have your ID on my ignore list but I didn't log in today and read your post.
First, I understand Yahoo doing what it did even though they were the only auction site in the past that allowed long term storage of unsold auctions. The problem is that there were no warnings and continue to be no communication with the loyal, longtime sellers on this issue.
Many sites allow sellers to store their auctions without listing them on their site as long as you list them at least once every 90 days ( Carnaby does this for instance ). It costs nothing to list on almost every site but eBay and Yahoo so this is not a problem on those sites. What Yahoo is doing is now in effect charging sellers to inventory their items/images on their site after 90 days by forcing them to relist them at 5 cents to 35 cents a pop depending on the starting bid amount. The bulk lister using sellers are not effected by the new unannouced policy.
Warehousing is leaving items from years on an auction site with continual relisting. Inventoring is leaving the items on the sites servers and occassionally listing the items.
This is semi-good news for sites like AW that for a monthly fee let sellers store their auctions on their site. There was little reason before for that fee when Yahoo did it for free.
Years ago eBay was a real demon to list on and took a lot of patience and practice to list items. Many sellers used a needed crutch like AW that was free and made the odious task of listing on eBay simplifed. These sellers got hooked on the simplified manner of listing and then AW started their fees on top of eBay's fees. I have no problem with that as the internet is not a charity and companies need revenue to survive. If the sellers do not mind the added fees then they are welcome to use AW all the want. The problem that I see is that eBay has been fixing the problems of listing there and is even coming up with a scheduling option. There is less and less reason to use AW and pay their fees. Ironically, these same AW sellers that pay double fees to list on eBay oftem scream and cry at every eBay fee increase. Why? They don't mind paying fees to both AW and eBay? To same money most AW sellers could learn the new and easy eBay listing systems.
posted on July 21, 2002 11:27:05 AM new
Yeah, I know you have me on ignore. Right.
"Warehousing is leaving items from years on an auction site with continual relisting. Inventoring is leaving the items on the sites servers and occassionally listing the items."
Um, what??? I guess I still don't see the difference - in fact the only difference is that with 'warehousing', at least your items are always up for someone to find. I thought the main point made again the third-tier sites and their warehousing was that the sellers there obviously weren't serious sellers since they didn't mind waiting for months (or years) to sell something. That doesn't seem much different than wanting to re-list something four months or more after trying to sell it once before - either way your $$$ is tied up into inventory.
I do not use AW or any other listing service. I use Yahoo's bulk listing through Excel. It allows 14 day listings and, I feel, is fairly easy to use unless you want super-fancy HTML listings. I guess I just don't see what the problem is with a site deleting unsold auctions after a few months. You're basically expecting them to 'warehouse' your listing for you until you feel like listing it again, and for $.05 a listing that seems a bit much.
posted on July 21, 2002 01:39:13 PM new
You don't get it. There was an exodus of sellers from BV and the other sites because the same things were listed over and over. That made it a Half.com warehouse. Many sellers wanted to rotate their items and in the slow summer months take a break from selling. That's not possible now on Yahoo for non bulk loader sellers. You use the bulk loader so it doesn't effect you so everyone else is a whiner? Yahoo has the same exact items over and over and the bidders no longer go there because of that and the tiny number of items. Yahoo is intentionally killing it's auction segment. The shopping segment is it's future and the auctions are not part of that future. I don't blame them. Why don't they just announce it? We tried, we failed, we now officially end the quest of an auction venue.
posted on July 21, 2002 08:37:15 PM new
Thought I was on your ignore list?
If sellers don't wish to relist items during those 'slow summer months', then why are you re-listing items during that very same slow summer month period?
I only stated I use the bulk lister so that is was understood that I don't use AW or some other listing service. When I re-list I do them the same way that you do, so this issue affects me as much as it does you. The difference is that, unlike you, I don't expect Yahoo to warehouse my items on their servers forever and a day. I have no problem with them deleting unsold auctions after 90 days. If I can't take the time to re-list something on my own that I left sitting for three months, how badly do I really want to sell it?
I haven't heard too many people bragging about their tremendous sales with Yahoo shopping - some storefronts yes, but not much from those listing in the 'half.com' type section they now have. While I don't always understand the thought process behind Yahoo auctions, I don't see them intentionally killing them.
posted on July 21, 2002 09:25:02 PM new
I love a good, sensible discussion. I have no problem with Yahoo deciding to delete items after a few months or deleting photos after a few months. The problem I have with their decision is that there was no warning or announcement of their decision. That was another very bad Yahoo management decision. It is like they do not care one tiny bit about the sellers on their site.
I'm confused about your using the bulk loader but loading them the old fashioned way instead? Why load them the old way when you can bulk load them up?
Lately the Yahoo sales are almost non-existant. I thought I'd try one last time before moving the items somewhere else. Before, a seller always had the option of relisting older unsold items on Yahoo but the new Yahoo setup will greatly cut into that option. It is all academic anyway as nothing is selling on Yahoo now and Yahoo Auctions future is not very good.
posted on July 22, 2002 07:33:36 AM new
I agree with you that Yahoo should have provided some type of announcement if a change was made to their policy of storing closed auctions, and if that's the basis for your frustration than I was off base. Communication does not seem to be one of their strong points.
I do not use the bulk loading (Excel) option for re-listing items. Since the closed auction is already there, it is easier to re-submit it rather than re-load the auction and the photo. I usually wait 30-45 days at the most before re-submitting something, and that is only after listing it elsewhere first.
