posted on June 13, 2001 10:04:54 AM new
What savvy Internet user would shop a Storefront with its jacked-up prices when you can find the same item many times on auction for much less on eBay??? Take a look at Yahoo Stores or Amazon ZShops and check out the prices. Why anyone would buy there instead of checking out the deals on eBay is beyond me! Why pay retail or near retail (sellers will have to recoup their fees and will price accordingly) when auctions are setup to deflate prices???
I've never shopped Yahoo Stores or Amazon ZShops and would never shop an eBay Storefront unless I couldn't find what I'm looking for cheaper on eBay or other venues. Just my 2 cents.
posted on June 13, 2001 10:13:11 AM new
I think they are meant for the bigboys coming to ebay. They will bait sellers in with their low start price, and then up the fees. So many net companies are doing it.
posted on June 13, 2001 12:33:06 PM new
I think Amazon attracts a different kind of buyer than Ebay does. They are not garage sale type of buyers. The prices at Amazon are not all that great, the % off they offer on books gets added back in on the shipping. Why are buyers paying the same for books that they could buy at the local bookstore? Convenience, maybe?
I think this will be a problem with Ebay's Storefronts. Ebay attracts buyers looking for a low price, not convenience.
posted on June 13, 2001 01:22:12 PM new
many yahoo shops have retail land shops,they cannot sell on yahoo cheaper than their retail shops,one charges sales tax,the other shipping cost.
many are museums,superstores and boutiques with good merchandise.
it is a convenience for out of town shoppers who cannot visit that particular museum or boutique shop.
quality is new mint ,packaged professionally and shipped in new box,not supermarket or liquor store throw away boxes.
return policy is stated and they are not going to disappear easily!!
giftwrap is avaialble for a small fee.
many shoppers of yahoo shops look for new electronic goods,wedding gifts,birthday,graduation gifts,they want them to be delivered on time and nicely presented .
ALSO ONE LAST POINT,THEY DONT WANT TO WAIT TILL AUCTION END TO GET THE ITEM,IF THEY DO GET THE ITEM
posted on June 13, 2001 01:24:10 PM new
Although it isn;t clear to me who will use the ebay stores since they have been carefully crafted to fail to satisfy anyone, fixed price buying is what the internet will be.
Auctions, negotiations and disckering are all high hastle ways to shop. Ebay has always be successful due to the general public, not the collector's community. It and most collectibles dealers on the net have offered items to the general public they never knew existed and they have driven prices higher on many things than they ever were when only collectors knew of them.
The general public when they decide to buy something, and they can afford it - want to buy it now. And based on recent Internet usage profiles the frequency and duration of Internet usage is dropping. An auction bidder has to be online two or 3 times in a week. And he has to put up with snipers.
This is why Buy It Now has been an overwhelming success on Ebay and why the stores exist.
Since the stores do not have an index to search yet they will not have any impact until they do and at that point ebay will charge the all of their fees. Obviously they would do best if they were handled like Amazon zstores and indexed with the auctions, but that would create more ripples than ebaay can tolerate.
Anyone interested in making money. Our shop revenues are quite healthy thank you.
Who would shop at a webshop? Well geez, Amazon is a top 10 trafficed site. The majority of all eCommerce happens at buy.com, barnes & noble, Amazon and zillions of others from Dell to Gateway.
You think eBay is the center of the web buying universe? Its not. Highest traffic does not mean other places dont have better sales. We are at several sites that outsell ebay 8:1 and we price things on the same margins.
I spoke briefly today with eBay about the eBay stores. Its going to ROCK.
While eBay auctions are the highest trafficed site on the net you'd find that MANY of those hits are the same folks over and over. We look at our auctions 4-5 times a day easy and if you knew anything about web sales you'd know that people attending auctions are a minority, not the majority. The majority of people do not feel comfortable at them and if that means they need go to Amazon and pay $3 more for a book or CD rather than risk buying it from you in auction which they know zero about thats exactly what they will do.
Most eBay users are bargain hunters, not impulse buyers. The majority of the American public are not bargain hunters they are impulse buyers which is why 3 out of 4 families are credit strapped and debt strapped. Its a MUCH MUCH larger market than auctions ever will be.
I am delighted to see ebay tapping it and was very excited by the details they told me.
Its going to be the biggest thing at eBay since "auctions".
posted on June 13, 2001 11:15:24 PM new
Well, the typical ebay auction seller just makes it so much trouble to deal with them, that it's no wonder that the majority of people don't bother with auctions. I was looking for an item this week, and found a few sellers offering it on ebay.
Seller 1 required me to pay by blue wampum, definately not the red one or he'll neg me.
Seller 2 wanted me to pay by money order, but only a money order that can be purchased at a special depot in Outer Mongolia on Tuesday's between five and six in the morning.
Seller 3 required payment in advance of bidding, along with proper blood testing and urine samples.
There are sooooooo many places on the web and off that make it far easier on the customer. The only stuff I still buy on ebay is the stuff I couldn't get anywhere else. The last resort, and then only if I'm desperate.
posted on June 13, 2001 11:16:13 PM new
Ditto Vargas!
"Buy It Now" is the best thing that happened to me since I started sellin 1 1/2 years ago on eBay! And by the way, I don't sell commonplace items-mostly Asian antiques and unusual collectibles. I think there IS a place for storefronts and many will be successful with it. Just because you don't feel it doesn't fit YOUR needs, doesn't make it a bad thing.
posted on June 14, 2001 03:13:26 AM new
Wow, lots of good observations here.
Most eBay users are bargain hunters, not impulse buyers. The majority of the American public are not bargain hunters they are impulse buyers...
I would definitely agree with that. It's fascinating to study buyer behavior. I sell the same thing over and over again, and I've usually got three or four listed. If I keep doing that, bidders will just go to the newest auction and the item never gets above the minimum bid. Bidders aren't stupid.
So I set the minimum around the true minimum I am willing to take, and then put the BIN just a little bit higher. Often the buyers will spend a little more just to avoid the anxiety of bidding and watching all week.
Not always. This week I listed an item at $69 with a BIN of $79, a little high because I've been getting good bids. The first bidder decided not to BIN and the bid is up to $90 so go figure.
Some types of items are good for storefronts. I had a piece of software, list $2500 that I knew would flop on eBay. It's a moleculat modeling software prog. Not of interest to most folks. Listed it at a buck and it sold for $1.50. Oh, well. That item should have been in a storefront, on a shelf until the right buyer came along.
Problem with auctions is that now there are so many items that buyers can afford to be choosy. Just look at the posts here. If the seller looks at them cross-eyed, they pass because whoops! here comes the same item again tomorrow. I suppose some folks are doing well with auctions but the category I sell in (software) has been taken over by bootlegs and the sellers are cleaning up selling items that cost them a buck to produce. Commercial software just doesn't sell any more. Seems to me my strategy should be, put the good stuff up in a storefront and use the auctions as loss leaders to drive customers to the stores. Otherwise you're shelling out a fortune to eBay.
posted on June 14, 2001 06:11:49 AM new
Bingo, twinsoft.
I sell stuff that many people want right now. Most of my auctions are ending with "buy it now."
I'll be removing "buy it now" from my auctions and replacing it with a big, red, bolded notice saying "Want to Buy It Now? Click here to shop at my eBay storefront!"
posted on June 14, 2001 06:20:17 AM new
eSeller004
I don't see a store front any different from a web site, and we have 3 web sites, and sell on them considerably cheaper than we auction on eBay.
I see no reason why a store front should cost a buyer more than an auction. If I don't have to pay the high posting fees, etc., on eBay I can lower my prices in my store front.
It cost us a good deal less to sell via our web site than it does on eBay so we can pass that savings on to our buyers, and we do.
We have a number of "new merchandize" decorative items we sell on eBay. On eBay we post them at $1.00 to $2.00 more than our web site to compensate for eBay costs....then if we leave them in an open auctions they can go much higher. So the buyer who would pay:
$13.00 item on web site
Buyer can pay in open auction $13 to $60, which is the sales range this particular item vacillates between. The web site/store front purchase would save the buyer a GREAT deal of money and be a faster, cleaner sale.
$39.95 item on web site
This particular item has gone between $75, $101 - Again, the same item is always $39 on our web site, so again the buyer spends a great deal more to procure it on the auction.
I see no reason store front items should cost more.
On the other hand, I have not found BIN items on eBay sell very well, so I quit using them - guess eBay buyers just like to bid and pay more for their purchases. ”IF eBay store fronts are no more successful than their BIN, then they will be a total bomb, but I do intend to try them (if I ever figure out is it 5 cents a month or a one time charge AND how will anyone find these items in the shops????)
posted on June 14, 2001 10:53:27 AM new
Sounds like some sellers already have quite a few shoppers at other storefront sites. What are you finding as the best storefront sites.
Thanks in adavance!
posted on June 14, 2001 12:46:03 PM new
If you shop you can find price cheaper than e-Bay. For example if your laser print low toner light comes on. Are you going to wait 7 days for an auction to end? You may not be the high bidder! The dollar that you might save would cost a hell of lot more if your printer is out toner! My point, if I need it right or before I leave town on a business trip. Please put yourself in the eyes of your customers. Some customer like the auction high and the deal "they get." A large segment of the population is in a hurry and time is more important. I personally sell about 50% of my listing on BIN. Ebay bring on the storefronts with my own URL and I can profit from the auctions and storefronts!
posted on June 14, 2001 04:07:54 PM new
there are many sites where you can open a shop,depends on what you sell and how much you want to pay.
of course,the saying you get what you pay for applies.
amzn marketplace is hot right now for books and dvd and videos,but the fee is rather high.
amzn z shop is only 39.99 for 4000 items,a steal compared to ebay auction but will there be any business for you??
there are also niche malls and alleys for collectibles,antiques etc.
some charge a flat fee ,some count the number of items you have ,some have shopping cart and some dont.
also humber of pictures you can have before you can to pay extra.
most important is does it generate sales?
traffic comes before sales,some just dont have the traffic no matter how many search engines they register??
knwo thy neighbors,shops on the same site can help bring traffic into your shop.
someone who claims to sell on many sites said zshop produces results for her,i would like to knwo what she sells,as most shops dont get much sales,thats what i heard.
Webshops do very well given traffic and as one poster noted the price can actually be lower for many reasons. If I can list 10 of something in an eBay shop for .05 a month well thats a listing savings right there. Because I can move a higher volume I can also lower prices more.
The "thrill" of auctions is on the wane. 5 years ago it was the RAGE there were gobs & gobs & gobs of them both person to person sales and business to consumer. Now, there are only a handful of viable ones.
The "thrill" is leaving and much of it is leaving for a reason. When the Internet Fraud Center, DOJ/FTC etc. make statements like 68% of all internet fraud is perpetraited at auctions consumers go "hmmm"... Lets see... I can buy it here for $10 more than in auction.
Most buyers would rather BE ASSURED they are going to get what they paid for and not have hassles such as another poster mentioned.
Gee, lets see, a check only w/ picture of my drivers license (I actually saw a seller saying that!). I can pay by paypal and??? Wheres my guarentees? No place thats where. Seller accepts postal money order only.
Twinsoft however has hit the nail on the head. ANY consumer who gets "zapped" in auctions does NOT tend to come back and atop this those at buying in auctions for years have had the "thrill" fall out of it and often can find better deals via places such as half.com, Amazon Marketplace etc.
As I noted, most of Americans are impulse buyers, study after study after study shows that. In fact I dont know a single person who has NOT been an impusle buyer. I bought a 3 foot stuffed Bass Pillow two days ago to stuff in my sons bed as a joke (he loves fishin). $14. Impulse buy. Bulk foods were put out in grocers as impulse buy items. The price is good! Why Not! (ooo. my userID).
Twinsoft hit the nail on the head and its consumer confidence as well as "honest sellers" having to compete against dishonet ones. Rather hard to do.
Twinn'y.... You and I MUST talk, away from here.
I am going to set up a free email addy right now with say Yahoo... [email protected]
Give it a chance to "enable", write me say tomorrow... We must chit chat.
