posted on September 13, 2000 06:05:54 AM new
With the outcry on the eBay boards about Payapl forcing buyers to upgrade & start paying FEES, I wonder what the outcry will be when Yahoo starts charging fees.
Think about it. You have the free 1000 sellers points but what if sellers need more than that. In the future there could be an option to buy those points.
Do we all think that online auction will be free?. I know we all want fatter profits but do you simply think that we can do this without paying a small fee. 25 cents listing fee in eBay & people whine...10 cents in Amazon & people cry...Anyone here ever open a shop before...I am sure that's free.
posted on September 13, 2000 06:50:37 AM new
comic123.. I just posted this on the other thread, but it is applicable here:
~~~~
For those concerned about Yahoo charging "next week", let me tell you, I hang around there a lot and they have a history of being creative, innovative and applying LONG term vision. I seriously doubt that you will witness them turn on a dime.
Consider that they are an entire different operation than paypal and have a host of alternative ways to make money.
- for example....
I would pay $5 a month in 2 seconds to use their site. Heck yeah. For their email, their stock boards, their paydirect, their auctions, their messenger, complete with free domestic long distance, and on and on and on.
Now.. Multiply $5 by their user base, or even assume that each user has 10 id's and this is still a whole lot of money.
Would I pay $10?
Yep.
We know that the best predictor of the future is the past. Paypal has shown their colors and Yahoo has shown theirs. Watch and see.
posted on September 13, 2000 06:52:06 AM new
oh..
And Amazon did not charge a dime. The charged a dime plus commission plus a huge charge for 1-click which is why I left them Jan 1.
posted on September 13, 2000 07:04:52 AM new
A business concept that I happen to believe in is that fees must be accompanied by service. As it currently stands, Yahoo provides no service. Yes, the site (when it's up) does work. But their staff does not want to take the time to do anything that requires effort. So they will implement any "improvement" as long as it can be automated and not require human involvement. NW - relies on other people to report. The new 1,000 auction limit - relies on software to impose the limit. But running an auction site requires human intervention. Someone should be randomly reviewing auctions for spam, scam, shilling and shielding. At the very least, someone from Y! should be reviewing auctions, IDs and feedback when it is specifically reported that multiple IDs are being used for fraudulent purposes. And someone should be soliciting ideas for improving the site, rather than imposing "improvements" without any idea of how they will be accepted. It is laughable to see a Y! spokesman stating publicly that he is not sure how the auction limits are calculated.
I still believe that Y! can turn this site into the #1 site with the simple addition of one employee with the power to intervene, to shut down spam and scam, kick off deadbeats and remove revenge feedback. If bidders saw the scam auctions dropping, they would bid more. With fewer scam auctions and more bidders, we would sell more. If we saw our deadbeat count dropping and our sales rising, we would pay more for featuring. I would gladly pay a fee if I felt it was making the site better. Between all of the sellers, I think we could easily cover one salary. It's up to Y! to get the message, and it's up to us to send it.
posted on September 13, 2000 07:17:24 AM new
VeryModern
Regarding Amazon, fees, and leaving them - I started with Amazon when it began, and sold like crazy for 6 months, then the bottom dropped out of the Amazon market, and from that point on I couldn't give product away.
Beyond that, I had to adjust the size of every auction to fit their stupid limited character length, and it simply wasn't worth the hassle with the limited sales I got there.
I left Amazon because I wasn't making money - to me that is the bottom line - does it pay, and Amazon quit paying so I left.
I go back about every 6 months and run a few test auctions to see if things have changed, to date, nothing has changed, and sales are still nil.
posted on September 13, 2000 07:25:46 AM new
VeryModem, yes I would pay too but besides the you's & me's how many other people do you think will cry murder if Yahoo starts charging even a penny.
What I am coming back to is the outcry with Paypal now starting to charge fees?. I said this way back in May that Paypal will start charging fees soon.
And I am going on a record that pretty soon Yahoo will start fees too where by sellers can buy additional listing points. So there be prepared. Don't let the sudden news of FEES catch you by surprise.
posted on September 13, 2000 08:41:34 AM new
comic123 - fees of some type some way maybe and I don't know when.
However...
I have a very hard time imagining that Yahoo would make the same mistake as the others re: Paydirect. I just trust them not to follow the stupid majority.
posted on September 13, 2000 08:42:18 AM new
Yahoo is the #1 site if you judge by the numbers alone. But when you eliminate the scammers, the spammers, the bozos who go around bidding and deadbeating because they like to hurt folks but are too stupid to write viruses, the users with multiple IDS, how many REAL people are there? If we judged by the ratings, car accidents must be the hottest form of entertainment because more people stop to gawk at these than watch any specific television show.
posted on September 13, 2000 11:11:42 AM new
I would say that by the end of this year or the 1st Quarter of next year, if Yahoo gets enough acitivity to warrant adding more manpower to maintain the site, there will be fees.
Right now I can see the 1000 seller points as an example of fees. Large sellers whose items don't sell may require to buy additional points. It won't be expensive for sure. Maybe $10 for the next 1000 points.
To the users who can't afford to pay $10, yes come out with your Top 10 reasons why you think its bad. But from a business standpoint, once you have a solid base of users & if cost to run the site does increase, they will indeed be a need to start charging fees. And yes they do take into consideration that whenever an increase in fee is introduction you do lose a certain % of customers. They also take into consideration that with increase traffic, there is an increase in cost to run the traffic smoothly. But I will wait for the screaming cries when they annouced it.
PS: yisgood, yes agreed. BTW Yahoo is No.1 but Yahoo Auctions isn't. Big difference.
posted on September 13, 2000 12:44:26 PM new
You guys don't have any more of a clue what the Yahoobots are up to than that Tarot card reader on the Cable TV at 3 AM.
Quit giving them ideas about fees. Keep telling them about how to improve the site. Who knows, somebody with clout might read it.
I'm not a big fan of ePay but when I get something I don't know how to price, I put it on ePay. last night I saw where 2 of my auctions there had been over 2 weeks with no payment. So they have a form to fill out which generates a warning to the buyer to pay up and tells them about how many no pays they can have before getting the axe.
So I fill out the form and it gets sent automatically to the buyer. Guess what: it's less than 24 hours later and both accounts are now paid for in full.
Now the Yahoobots would love to have a computer generated form to solve their deadbeat problems. But the difference is what's behind the threat. With ePay, the threat is genuine. The Yahoobots on the other hand, have no apparatus to enforce anything whatsoever.
posted on September 13, 2000 12:55:24 PM new
zzy, the biggest improvement that Yahoo can do is keep their site FREE. Yahoo can make their site as best as Captain Kirk can fly the enterprise but the day the start charging a penny for it, users will cry & flog themselves with whips (kinky ehh).
And yes we will hear the usual cries, 'We made Yahoo No.1 now they are turning their backs on us by charging us'. I have heard so many cries about how eBay is getting rich & they are forgetting the little users. Maybe they should just stick a note on their forehead everyday that reads, 'eBay is what it is today because of me, so bow down & worship the ground I walk on'.
There are people here that think that the internet is here as a solution to make them rich for free. Half the so called new businesses have never even open a shop. Those who actually have own a physical store now what I am talking about.
If you are going to whine, whine for a reason & just not whine for the sake of whining. BTW this came about because of all the civil unrest that I saw as Paypal is trying to introduce fees.
posted on September 13, 2000 01:08:07 PM new
Paypal is much more a service to the buyer than the seller. It saves them from buying a MO, going and getting the MO, mailing the MO (postage included), the delay for the mail to get to the seller, etc.
As a seller it helps me clear the books quickly and saves a trip to the bank occasionally.
So I have no problem adding 2% to the sales price to those using Paypal. I will make that clear in my new ads and for those buyers who disagree, they can send me a MO.
posted on September 13, 2000 01:12:54 PM new
I just thought of a great idea. If people want free payment services, we can do the same thing as the free ISPs. You will have to sit through 5 ads every time you check your account, make or receive a payment. You can't skip the ads, you will have to click on each and every one. Your mailbox will be filled with spam from our "partners." But you will save that 1.9%. Anyone think this is a good idea?
By the way - customers paying with this service will also have to sit through these ads and they might be from your competitors. Can you imagine a deadbeat's response: "I was about to pay you with Freepay but then I saw another ad for less."
posted on September 13, 2000 03:03:35 PM new
yisgood, hey man keep that idea in the dumps I tried free Juno (ok trying to be cheap here) & that banner just drives me up the wall. I'd rather pay than have to start at a banner promoting online gambling.
zz, hey I am with you on that. Now that buyers have tasted how fast & easy Paypal is, it will be a bummer for them to buy from a seller that does not accept some form of credit card or online payment. Everyone wants things now There is hardly any patience anymore in the world. I will continue to use Paypal or any other new services that come out.
I signed up with Yahoo direct but there is a limit there right. I close about 300 transactions a month & the % of user using Paypal keeps increasing. I can't handle it if Yahoo Direct limits the number of transaction I can receive. Of course being new to yahoo direct, I could be totally wrong on this subject.
posted on September 13, 2000 04:13:52 PM new
wow this thread is nuts.
will yahoo charge or wont they will people yell or wont they hmmm.
well right now they are not in fact put a thousand item limit on them and the sellers are yelling.
put a TOS that buyer all have to now register with a credit card number.
sellers are yelling now about these two things why because to sell and make money on yahoo you must list many items to get the bids we do get now were pretty much limited to a 1000 inless sell through picks up sell through will not pick up non to soon why cause yahoo is makeing buyer register with card numbers them who havent done this already wont or at least half wont the other half are bidders under 18 with out a CC number to register.
since these two changes alone were made my sales have went from what I was getting there to nothing over night.
No sales equials no sell through no sell through equils no incressed listing which equils $0 from my listings.
and like many have already said what it comes down to is makeing money no make money no the people who were there and the new people who are comeing will be gone there will be no one to charge fees to.
before they can charge a fee for there auction services they will not only have to see bidding and listings get to where they were but they would have to see bids and listing incress double or better you can only stir the pot so much before the bottom wears out or you scrape the brunt bottom and spoil the soup.
answer right now if they were to charge would I pay not with out a garentee of some return. even the news paper here garentees sales in there classifides in 10 days or your ad is free.
I dont even make the sales I should from ebay fees but when I sell there I do make more then enough to justify the $4 or $5 I pay for the week I list and when I dont I stop listing there.
posted on September 13, 2000 05:04:35 PM new
dman, I checked your auctions seems to me you are listing items to clear out your garage. Good deal, that's what its there for but do you sincerely expect to sell 200-300 auctions a month when you list about 40 auctions.
You got to list what people are looking for. That's the bottom line. I checked out several computer sellers in eBay & all their auction sell. If you are selling used brown supermarket paper bags, I doubt you are going to get many bids unless its a limited edition paper bag.
dman, you can't possibly use the 1000 points to begin with by listing 40-50 auctions.
posted on September 14, 2000 09:14:59 AM new
If yahoo auction traffic rises to where they could successfully charge fees, I think that the bidding for featured status would rise to where they would have no need for general fees. Pokemon trading cards are still hot enough to demonstrate -- many pages of featured, high rates to get on the first pages, little exposure for the non-featured.
related question - if they started charging a minimal fee it is obvious that a large % of the current listings would disappear resulting in better exposure for what's left. Are they strong enough for this to lead to a vibrant marketplace (such as ebaY), or would it dive towards the wasteland (as so many others).
Combination of charging for extra sellers points, and decreasing the free allocation might make a brilliant compromise solution.
i.e. 50 / month free, additional for every successful close, charge for additional == still free for the occasional seller or one who actually sells most of their offerings, but you'd have to pay to fill their site with slow selling listings.
posted on September 14, 2000 09:54:22 AM new
This speculation is invalid because anybody with access to multiple CC #s (anybodys) can have multiple ID's. Already any seller with these resourses has neutralized the 1000 auction limit. For Yahoo to start over and demand that everybody re-register with a CC that matches their name and address and to limit that ID to one occurance on the system (which they should have done from day 1).....would be the equilivent of a Vampire taking a bath in Holy Water.
posted on September 14, 2000 02:40:30 PM new
I have not yet needed to open a new Id. If you have 2000 auctions a month & close 20 a month, you don't need to get a new id. You need to rethink your entire online sale. If you cannot fit your auction within the 1000 seller performance pts, its not worth it.
I myself am removing slow selling items from my Yahoo inventory.
posted on September 14, 2000 02:51:16 PM new
comic123 - I use multiple id's to make it easier for buyers to shop my stuff. It has nothing to do with 1000 auctions, and there are plenty of others like me, with several established id's before this ever came about. I am quite sure that it was because people like me wrote to Yahoo to plead our case that we are now allowed to keep them.
posted on September 14, 2000 03:21:04 PM new
VeryModern:
And I am sure (without checking you out one bit) that you are full of crap and don't have any idea what you are talking about. Anybody who has any experience here can figure that out from your above post.
posted on September 14, 2000 03:43:15 PM new
zzyzx000 - huh?
Read deeper. I wrote threads months ago about selling under more than 1 id on both this board and the ebay outlook.
I run fewer than 300 auctions under 3 names, and I do it because I believe that my low end items degrade my higher end stuff and because I do not take the time myself to browse through a sellers 4 or 10 pages of auctions.
The other thing, is I am most assuredly not full of crap. On the contrary, I am excellent in many ways.
posted on September 14, 2000 04:22:50 PM new
comic you didnt look at my sales if all you seen was items you might sell cleaning out your garage and you certinly didnt see my sales if all that was listed was 40 or 50 items
but your right I will only use about 600 of my 1000 listings if sales stay like they are.
last two weeks in august I had over 350 different items listed and what is left there is 100 items that didnt sell and 17 new items.
last two weeks in august were great on yahoo and ebay for me best I have seen since april.
I do have some lower priced items in my auctions for sure on yahoo like sports cards and music memerabilia and what not this is because these auction for us here are a family project and when we are out if my 10 year old son is out with us and finds wrestling cards or sports cards or my teen age daughter find NKOB stuff they want to see if this will sell and you know what it does some of it very well.
teaching these guys to hang on to and complete there collections for days to come help teach them how to take care of things and showing them how there doubles teaches them the value of what they own.
they are also learning more everyday about how to spot a antique and a true collectable that will sell on our auctions, my 17 year old daughter haggles with the best of them at the flea markets and knows what items will sell for better then me some times also she knows her collectables and has her share of them .
but when you work and are out of the house 14 hours a day and your hobby takes up a huge chunk of your time if you cant find time to share your self with the others its just exsiting. when you can share your hobby with the family and they can learn many things from it and all can enjoy the hunt and cheer the bids and you can make over $2000 in two weeks like I have a few times its more then existing and its more then liveing its a full life
online auction can be more then just about money though I am there to make money and they can be about more then business though I certinly am working in this direction. its also about shareing and enjoying things togeather with my wife and with my kids as well.
business is about freedom and independents and enjoying life not fighting or guessing or complaining even though I admit it has its fair share of problems. online home sales and business has to to with haveing togeatherness more time at home with family.
dont judge all auctions by what some of the sales are buy no means. that 1990 base ball card thats not worth duke to a collector might just be a a 9 year old boys hottest find of the day.
Home business and hobbys are about life not just exsiting I can just exist 12 hours a day in any factory in the USA for $9 to $12 an hour.
posted on September 14, 2000 05:29:11 PM new
Verymodern, agreed. We had this discussion a few months ago. Absolutely agreed that large volume sellers who sell a variety of items should split their auction. Selling books & plastic jugs are 2 very seperate items & I sure don't want to spend hours going through plastic jubs to find the books I need.
VM, that't totally different tho' from the point I wanted to make. Heck some people who ids for buying & selling.
dman, that's what online auctions are there for. Its a place for big time businesses & small time part time or big time or part big time or small part big time...any shape or form to sell Doesn't matter if you are Wal-Mart or Uncle Wall, you have something to sell or want to get rid of, put in there. Issue is if you have few items to sell, you definitely will not use up all your 1000 points. That's it.
People always whine about sales being slow in eBay. I think the biggest reason for that is that larger competition & a whole lot more sellers are coming in. Its just competition...free market right. You keep telling your friends how much money you make selling online, well expect your buddy to join in too.
posted on September 14, 2000 06:56:34 PM new
yeah I under stood what you were meaning the frist time about never being able to use up the 1000 listings and your right there this is why im not at this time concerned with the limit and more then likely many are not I know that many of you list in gross quainity I have followed many links and some of these guys auction booths look like a category search return with 12 to 20 pages of items
posted on September 14, 2000 07:27:23 PM new
In effect, Yahoo does allow you to purchase additional "points" right now.
I say this because, at least according to what I've read, featured auctions are not counted against your total.
So Yahoo allows you to purchase additional auctions, but they also give you a significant value on top of the extra listings by giving you the benefits of a featured auction.
I would suspect that if many sellers really looked at their auctions, they would find that the could feature their items that are more likely to sell, get a somewhat higher price for these items, get 1/2 of the feature cost back when the item sells, and not have these auctions counted against the 1000 total.
The only serious downside that I see in this is that it takes a lot of clerical work.
If someone would just come up with a tool to manage featuring of Yahoo auctions, this would all be a breeze.
I tried free Juno (ok trying to be cheap here) & that banner just drives me up the wall. I'd rather pay than have to start at a banner promoting online gambling.
There is hardly any patience anymore in the world. I will continue to use Paypal or any other new services that come out.