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Posted at December 31, 1969, 6:00 pm: Back on topic....Is Ebay really that bad? Well, in some ways...yeah, it is. Or at least, it's becoming "that bad". It reminds me of my city's first mall. At first it was all nice and shiney, and everyone shopped there. It was the place to "be" if you were a retailer. It was also the only game in town for "mass" traffic. But over the years a whole new series of shopping areas opened up - including a new mall. The "old" mall started falling in disrepair. Good shops were replaced by shabby shops. The clientle drastically changed to a lower income bracket. The nearby movie theater stopped showing first run pictures. Then, a few years ago, the entire mall was flattened. Now I'm not suggesting that Ebay is going away, but it's certainly a lot "shabbier" than ever before. Lots of cheap junk. Lots of "drop shipper" sellers. Lots of deceptive ads. A whole new crop of international sellers with pirated goods. Lots of sellers beating the system (and getting away with it - ie, inflated shipping). All in all, a much less desireable shopping experience. As a longterm ebay retailer, I can handle bigger fees, less support, and constant software "upgrades". What I have a problem with is that there seems to be less good buyers - or at least, there's been a not-so-subtle change in the buyers. Most (but not all) sellers have noticed a sharp decrease in sell thru rates. For a high overhead site like Ebay, this really is a disaster in the making. I can no longer run hundreds of auctions and absorb the cost of the "no sales" - which is exacerbating the fee increase, which would actually require a higher sell-thru just to tread water. So it's a cumulative effect. Lower sell thru + higher fees + change in buyers. There are also fewer sellers in virtually ever category - and ultimately that's also not good for keeping the buyers that are there. I think we've seen Ebay's hay-day - and it was a few years ago. It was cleverly masked at the financial level, but even that eventually caught up with them. I think we're also seeing a real move by buyers to direct websites. I know that my website sales have been on a steady rise for over 2 years, while my Ebay sales have done just the opposite. So...the question "is ebay really that bad?" can be answered "no, not so bad". It's still a place you can sell stuff, but it's like an aging mall. It's becoming seedier and a less pleasant place to shop. Ebay's response seems to be, "hey, lets go out to other places in the world that have buyers and sellers that don't know us". It's an artificial strategy that will, once again, mask the financial impact of a shrinking US market. It will not do anything at all to "fix" the US market. But I think the real indicator of where things are going has been Ebay's somewhat inept move into "webstores". Certainly a validation of the claim that the future IS in webstores, and not auction format (at least until the auctions are a form of live, interactive, and easily accessible "entertainment" - which IS coming). I'm with everyone else - I don't get the visceral negativity. This is just business. Ebay could make some announcement tomorrow that might compell me to list 500 auctions there again. It's still on my list of venues. Nothing "emotional" about it. Just biz. Original of the message was taken from http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/ Previous Post: Beckem, you are adding nothing to this discussion by attacking other m... Next Post: > Most (but not all) sellers have noticed a sharp decrease in &g... |