posted on December 15, 2000 03:59:34 PM new
Hi. I'm doing some research for an upcoming AuctionWatch.com article. What I'm wondering about is whether folks think that there's a bias toward buyers. That is, as the large auction sites continue to increase in listings, do you think they're looking to please and appeal to buyers as opposed sellers? Or is there a balance between buyers and sellers? Any thoughts on this subject? Specific examples, like, say, the integration of Half.com search results at eBay, would be great. Thanks.
posted on December 15, 2000 04:38:07 PM new
I feel that Yahoo is seller friendly, but nice for the buyer also, primarily because of the ability to view auctions via thumbnail 50 per page. This is the only way to shop, particularly if you have fast access which more people do each day.
Ebay is Ebay friendly number one. They are neutral to the buyer at best. They are very hard to shop and do nothing if you have a problem. Ebay seller friendly? Only to the deluded.
posted on December 15, 2000 05:46:57 PM new
I am both a buyer and seller. I had some very bad transactions on ebay both ways. I was ripped off on a couple of things I bought by the seller. Ebay did nothing to protect me. All they gave me back was a note that said "I am sorry this happened to you". Pretty much summed up as tough, you are on your own. As a seller the system had been down several times the day my auction was to end. It was not down for more than 2 hours at any one time. It was down when my auction ended with no bids. I wrote to them and asked for my fees to be returned. They told me they were sorry for the system being down and they were working on it. I should just relist, they do not send back listing fees. I did not want to relist at that time. I had other obligations and would not be available for the next auction to end. Besides with all the systems going down I did not trust them to be up and running which they were not. This went on with systems down for several WEEKS!!!
Ripped off by their sellers and by ebay itself.....No thanks!!
I have not had any of these problems with Yahoo. Yahoo does its best for sellers. The site is easy to get around, easy to list, as a buyer, I can find things easily, I get an email from Yahoo when favorite sellers list new things, I get immediate email when auctions close, I have never been ripped off by Yahoo sellers. I will not go back to ebay. I find them seedy. I am still getting spam from the site. I get none of that from Yahoo. The people I have delt with on Yahoo have been wonderful and so very very helpful!!
The only things they could change would be more categories and some order to the listings like ending times. I love Yahoo and I don't care what ebay does it is not enough for me ever to return there.
Are you sorry you asked?
posted on December 15, 2000 05:47:30 PM new
I feel that Yahoo is buyer friendly, and always has been. They all are, none are exempt. They all need to bring the masses to their site, not just us, the sellers. After all, we as sellers, are always on site. We are not going to buy anymore of their services, or their advertisers services, than we already have. Unless something very new comes along. They have to try to bring more (new) buyers to their site, otherwise how can they increase their bottom line, and grow? Companies have to grow to continue to exist.
The problem with Yahoo!, I feel, is they have minimal concern for changes we need to help them generate (new) buyers. We have complained endlessly to change the 'default' setting on listings back to 'time ending', to no avail. If we can't move items, because they can not be found, we will not be able to keep adding new items to generate more interest, in turn bringing the (new) buyers they seek. Which, also, will generate more money for them in advertiser revenues.
You can't have a win-win situation, when one of the potential 'winners' ignores the need of the other. If they want their stock to go back up, as far as their auction site is affecting it, make their site more 'seller friendly', and eliminate the obstacles we are dealing with. In the long run they will benefit much more than we will, and at least we can continue to make a little money. After all, we are little individuals getting very tiny pieces of the pie, (more like crumbs). While they own and control all of the ingrediants, and the bakery. I don't even want a piece of the pie, just a few more 'scents' of what's in the oven would be nice.
posted on December 15, 2000 06:02:51 PM new
Well-I feel like Yahoo used to be buyer friendly, but not so sure anymore.
1st they started requiring new bidders post a credit card. I think this was suppose to prove they were serious about bidding. Of course, many have posted this action cut down on new users since many people new to the auction scene and/or internet don't want to give cc info out.
Now, they are restricting buyers with less than 5 FB from bidding on more than 5 auctions at a time. Well actually they are stopping them from being a winner or high bidder on more than 5 auctions at a time. It hard to really understand exactly what that means. Yahoo's little "help" topic about it says it's to allow the new user to get a feel for Yahoo. I'm not a new buyer and I am very confused, I can only imagine how confusing it would be to a "newbie"!!! Maybe confusing enough to cause them to just say "heck with it" and move on. Time will tell.
This means new bidders will have to post a credit card and then bid and win no more than 5 auctions and I assume get FB from all the sellers before they can "carry on" as experienced buyers! I don't see this as BUYER OR SELLER friendly! However, I would say that the jest of it is to try and protect sellers from non-paying bidders. So, to answer the original question. I guess Yahoo is biased for the seller.
posted on December 15, 2000 07:56:00 PM new
sulyn1950 -
I must respectfully disagree with your reasoning behind the changes. All of the changes Yahoo has been making are to benefit the buyer at the expense of the seller. As far as the credit card verification, I don't beleive this was done to "verify" the buyer..I believe it was implemented to prevent sellers from opening unlimited accounts for shilling, etc. The bidding limit? Same thing...has nothing to do with "controlling" the buyer, but again to prevent sellers from opening numerous accounts for shilling and the like. IMO, if you look at each change individually, it may appear that Yahoo is working both sides. But if you look at all of the changes collectively, they have done nothing to help the seller. It may be that they are trying to improve their image of safety and security of purchasing on their site in order to try to attract bidders. Unfortunately, the changes they have made have run off more bidders than they have attracted. This may change someday, if there are any sellers left on the site, but as of right now it seems that they are running off the bidders and killing the sellers. No one is benefiting here...not the buyers, not the sellers, and not Yahoo.
posted on December 15, 2000 09:05:04 PM new
Hello Auctionee! Well, you may be right that Yahoo made these changes to stop shilling and multi ID's BUT the wording in their "how to" seems to indicate that there has been a problem with new bidders and Yahoo wants to correct it. Still seems to favor the seller. I do believe in reality the changes will only hurt Yahoo Auctions not help.
posted on December 16, 2000 06:32:47 PM new
I believe that at Yahoo, when they sit down at a meeting and say "What can we do to improve the auction site?" they attempt to come up with ways to make the site more useful, both for buyers and for sellers.
They are not always successful, but I believe that is their goal.
At Ebay, when they sit down at a meeting and say "What can we do to improve the site?" they have one thing in mind -- bringing in more money. Of course, Yahoo wants to make money too, but they generally understand that the way to do this is through improvements to the site.
Ebay is remarkably short-sighted. I honestly believe that they rarely think beyond the next quarter. If instituting a new fee or some other change will bring in more money next quarter, they do it, even though it might hurt the site -- and ultimately their revenue -- in the long run.
[ edited by amalgamated2000 on Dec 16, 2000 06:36 PM ]
posted on December 17, 2000 07:31:27 AM new
As a 5+ year veteran of on line auctions, it is my feeling that Yahoo is basically balanced. I don't particularly think it is intentional on the part of Yahoo, since I don't see that they are that interested in input, but whether by accident or intentionally, they seem to have a fairly good balance between buyer & seller.
Ebay on the other hand is [u]VERY[/u] buyer oriented, and have been for a number of years now. I agree with the other message and that being eBay's bottom line is what eBay really cares about - all their verbalization on "community" is just that verbalization. There WAS a time on eBay but long, long ago when there was actually community, and care, but that time passed 3 or more years ago. Ebay management are masters of “spin.”
Amazon - I am not even sure if Amazon knows what they are doing, since they seem to be committing auction suicide - but initially they seemed to be balanced - now they "appear" to be seller oriented with their set up, but are actually buyer oriented.
Any auction that doesn't listen to the voices of its customers in a balanced manor is foolish.
The seller is the foundation of the auctions, just imagine if all the disgruntled sellers on eBay would actually take a stand, and all removed their eBay auctions, eBay would finally listen. Naturally, greed would keep that from occurring, but IF it did eBay would be a better place for it.
Yahoo doesn't listen either, but at least they aren't so given to the obvious buyer bias that eBay is.
On the smaller auctions, I have normally found a decent balance.
posted on December 18, 2000 02:09:07 AM new
I have been a buyer and a seller on both Yahoo! and Ebay for about 2 years now and here is what I have found in my experiences:
First of all, I deal mostly in sports cards and related stuff.
1) On Ebay, sellers generally will rape the buyer with ridiculous s/h charges. Just so non-sports card people can get an understanding I will explain.
It costs the seller 0.33 for the stamp, maybe 0.02 for the envelope and about 0.10 for the card protector. Obviously, that adds up to 0.45. However, sellers generally charge anywhere between $1.50 - $3.00 for s/h. Anyone can see that that is ridiculous!!! The real blame lies with Ebay itself, for charging these stupid fees, which causes the seller to pass the cost on to the buyer.
On Yahoo! since there are no fees, sellers generally charge $0.50 - $1.00, which is reasonable.
2) On Yahoo! it is much easier to view a person's negative feedback without having to scroll through the entire feedback list.
It's tough to see on ebay what exactly someone received negatives for, unless you want to spend the time searching.
3) I like that fact that you can email someone directly on ebay before the auction has closed if you have a question about the item. The 'Ask a question' on Yahoo! doesn't seem to work as well.
The downside to this is that it leads to a TON of spam. In my Ebay email account I get 10-15 junk emails a day, while in my Yahoo! account I get absloutely NONE, which is great.
4) Ebay's search engine works better that Yahoo's. You will get more precise searches on Ebay, which filters out junk you don't want to sift through to find what you are really looking for.
5) When I posted a few items on Ebay, I found it VERY difficult to find the proper category to list them in. Posting things on Ebay is such a chore and seems to take 10 min per item with all the different boxes to check and fields to fill in.
Posting on Yahoo! is so much easier, especially when adding a picture. Having to use a host for pics is a real pain on Ebay and is SO much easier on Yahoo!
Also, you get much more space in the title bar to describe what it is you are selling on Yahoo!
6) There are more bidders on Ebay than Yahoo!, so I suppose it is better for the seller that way. As a buyer, it makes it more likely to get outbid, so it works both ways.
7) Ebay blackouts are a real pain, and their servers are too slow when registering a bid. It seems to take around 30 min for an item to actually be posted AFTER you have listed it, while on Yahoo! it is up almost immediately. Emails from Ebay take too long as well, while on Yahoo! they are automatic.
8) Ebay does some advertising, which explains why there are more people using it than Yahoo! There really should be more effort made by Yahoo! to make people aware that they actually do have an auctions site. But, I guess you get what you pay for in that regard.
9) Something which should be gotten rid of is reserves, which frustrates and alienates buyers. I would like to see both sites dump this idea. I'm sure that most items which have a reserve never succesfully close. I know that I don't even bother to bid when I see that there is a reserve.
Overall, I find Yahoo! to be 1000 times better that Ebay, both as a seller and a buyer. There are more of a variety of items on Ebay, but that should change as more people use Yahoo!
It completely baffles me that people continue to use Ebay, when a more user-friendly site is just around the corner. AND, of course, IT IS FREE !!!
Ebay defintly is in this game for the short-term, while Yahoo! should be around for the long haul, as long as they don't charge any fees.
4.5 stars for Yahoo! and 1 star for Ebay, as far as I'm concerned.
I would like to hear what others have to say about some of my ideas and comments. Thanks!
posted on December 18, 2000 04:29:15 PM new
hi aroe! I'll add my 2˘ worth too!
I am both a buyer & seller on Ebay & Yahoo. I buy roughly as much as I sell, so I would say that I am pretty un-biased and can see the issues from both sides.
First of all I'd like to say that I agree with almost everything robbokfootball posted. I say "almost everything" because I'd give Ebay more like a 2.5 or 3 (they're not THAT bad!) and Yahoo more like a 3.5 or 4 (I think Yahoo is the BOMB but there is still a lot of room for improvement!)
Here's how I see it:
The auction buyer assumes the bulk of the risk in each transaction. Also, buyers don't HAVE TO buy via online auction. Most items can be found elsewhere & let's face it, with a lot less risk attached. There has got to be a MAJOR INCENTIVE SOMEWHERE for a customer to want to shop on Ebay or Yahoo.
Buyers are a commodity that must definitely be catered to. The sellers are hugely important to the equation too. It is also true that there would be no buyers if there were no sellers, a fact that cannot be ignored. However, I believe it is true that the sellers need the buyers more than the buyers need the sellers. If there is a percieved bias towards the buyer, I believe that that is why.
