posted on April 3, 2002 08:26:11 AM new
eBay instituted a listing fee for its French site and lost 90% of listings. Just think what could happen if eBay's US customers could stick together ??
posted on April 3, 2002 08:29:51 AM new
My guess is that since they were only paying a FVF, they moved on to some other free site. Sort of like the big Yahoo migration when they implemented fees. Maybe they went to bidville.fr (just kidding!)
posted on April 3, 2002 01:57:48 PM new
It isn't clear this particularly illustrates the "power" of people sticking togther.
First of all, nothing has been accomplished. Ebay hasn't rolled back the rate increase or anything that I could tell from the story.
Second, was this even, in fact, a concerted mass effort by the vast majority of french sellers? Or did a few sellers with a lot of listings of baseball cards (or soccer cards I imagine in france) pull their shoddy, cheapo items, since they can't make an adequate profit with an extra $.10 fee?
I'm more likely to bet that this is merely an example of ebay sellers acting in their own best economic interest, by pulling listings that have now become unprofitable.
posted on April 4, 2002 05:40:21 AM new
Well, the listing went from over 350,000 to 37,000. I doubt that 90% of the listings were mass listings by trinket sellers. If that were the case, eBay France is a failure regardless of the listing fee result.
eBay France is rather new, part of eBay's international strategy, and Meg's $3 billion revenue goal. eBay already bombed in Japan.
posted on April 4, 2002 06:32:31 AM new
If I recall, eBay Japan laid off and closed some offices in Japan. eBay failed to gain any traction in Japan. YaHoo auctions are the dominate online auction in Japan.
posted on April 4, 2002 06:54:21 AM new
Thanks, REAMOND. I don't see how switching to Yahoo would seem a more profitable choice, but as others have said, it may depend on what is being sold.
posted on April 4, 2002 08:52:10 AM new
Difference is, ebay in U.S. has a lot of buyers; In France probably not to many. If U.S. didn't, I bet we would stick together just like what happened at YaPoo.
posted on April 4, 2002 09:24:33 AM new
"Well, the listing went from over 350,000 to 37,000. I doubt that 90% of the listings were mass listings by trinket sellers. If that were the case, eBay France is a failure regardless of the listing fee result"
I'm not sure I see where you've added any substance to the discussion? In fact, perhaps it was exactly BECAUSE 90% of the listings were cheap trinkets (that generate a very small FVF), and BECAUSE ebay France was currently a failure that ebay instituted the listing fee. No sense sticking with a losing strategy, you'd want to make a major shakeup if this were the case.
The reason I "wondered aloud" about the possibility of the 90% being junk is that there was (and maybe still is) at least one "large" (at least in terms of absolute number of listings, it might have been close to a million items) US internet auction (bidville? I forget) where 80-90% of the stuff was cheap junk by a relatively few sellers, so I could see that same scenario happening again.
posted on April 4, 2002 01:46:30 PM new
I disagree that ebay was "built on trinkets and junk"...at least in the sense we are talking about (i.e., a huge percentage of the items being like 50 cent trading cards). Ebay has had a wide range of items from the beginning (or at least since it was AW). And it certainly grew explosively while having a listing fee.
We need more info about the french ebay before reaching a conclusion. What were the items that disappeared...and where did they go? If these were reasonable value items that have been re-listed at a competitive site with lower fees, then that supports your contention that the listing fee was imposed too soon and prevented ebay from reaching critical mass (although its unclear what is critical mass for something like ebay france, which can certainly draw on support from the "other ebays" if need be).
however, if these were cheap junk that sells for a nickel each, or if the items do eventually reappear on ebay, then ebay's decision appears a lot smarter.
posted on April 4, 2002 02:53:51 PM new
eBay didn't have a wide range of items when it started. When I started on eBay, there were just a few catagories. The most expensive thing on eBay was beanie babys. I think the listing fee was a flat 25 cents and there were no FV fees, or listing was free and there were FVFs, can't remember.
Books and beanies were the largest catagories.
Beanies are the junk that built eBay. It could very well be the case that an online auction can not become successful unless a phenom like beanies happens again. Beanies were nearly the complete buzz on the site and media and word of mouth.
posted on April 4, 2002 03:05:06 PM new
France never was a big market for ebay, germany and england is where they do quite well. These two countries are the economical power houses of europe.
posted on April 4, 2002 04:33:08 PM new
"eBay didn't have a wide range of items when it started. When I started on eBay, there were just a few catagories. The most expensive thing on eBay was beanie babys. I think the listing fee was a flat 25 cents and there were no FV fees, or listing was free and there were FVFs, can't remember.
Books and beanies were the largest catagories.
Beanies are the junk that built eBay. It could very well be the case that an online auction can not become successful unless a phenom like beanies happens again. Beanies were nearly the complete buzz on the site and media and word of mouth."
Well, again I have to disagree with you. I joined ebay in 1996, back when it was relatively unknown, small, and called auctionweb. And it had many categories and items.
Maybe the first few months it had only a few categories and items (as would be expected), but I experienced firsthand the explosive growth from an almost-unknown site to a phenomenon, and it had both listing and fvf fees during this high growth period.
ebay grew NOT because of beanies, but because it was the right idea at the right time - person to person sales on the net. There was nothing like it - no way for anyone to log onto the net and find a full range of stuff available under a standard set of acquisition rules (high bid wins).
posted on April 4, 2002 06:04:08 PM new
eBay wouldn't have went anywhere without Beanie Babies. Were it not for the growth that Beanie babies fueled, eBay would be another Amazon.com.
eBay spread like wildfire through the BB community, and brought in the critical mass necessary for ebay to go from a regional utility to a national selling platform.
