posted on June 10, 2002 04:18:55 PM
What was it? A year ago or so? A group of disgruntled eBay sellers believed eBay was making too much money from them, started an ill conceived and hopelessly doomed idea of an auction sellers co-op. It sounded good in theory but never had any kind of chance because the founders forgot to factor in buying traffic that is the key element of eBay. Advertising may help but there is a lot more to getting traffic than advertising. I'm convinced that if Carnaby were to spend ten million dollars in the next six months that after six months it would still be about the same Carnaby. There would be a few new buyers and sellers but that is all. Everyone would still go to eBay to buy and sell. The results would be a slight gain in Carnaby users and a total waste of ten million dollars.
I believe that you can not grasp this concept at all. It's too late to start a non-niche online auction and expect anything but failure. Even mighty eBay is seeing its auction business die or slow down while its fixed price venue is growing stronger. There may be more and more auction items but there are less and less bids and lower and lower prices being realized for benchmark items. Taps is playing for most current auction items ( except for very rare and collectible items ). The fad is almost gone, you're too late for the dance. There are thousands of these tiny auction sites that are nothing more than an exercise in stupidity. The niche or specialty sites have the only chance of even partially succeeding.
There's a difference between being negative and being realistic. It's better to be realistic and truthful about your chances of success than being an egomaniac and thinking you are the one with the right combination of factors to succeed in a field where only one site out of thousands has succeeded.
In fact you information is not right, the co-op movement was not ill fated and did not fail there are a couple co-op auction co-ops out there today they are not exsactly in the form as was discussed last year but they do exist as shared comunities website owns share in the profits form the fees from registered users.
www.auctionpages.com is one such type of shared cooperative auction group with over 220,000 registered sites and users sharing auction catagories around the internet there are many sellers buers and websites connected togeather.
www.edeal.com is a cooperative comunity of auction buys sellers and websites as well and was out there long befor the movement that got started here.
Like I have said many times it's not the movement that is failing it's the over all auction comunity that needs to stop pulling its self appart and trying to spred the buyer thiner they need to pull togeather in in a away that allows them to have a certin amount of independents at the same time and share in the profit from there part in the effort.
http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
Email [email protected]
[ edited by dman3 on Jun 10, 2002 05:27 PM ]
[ edited by dman3 on Jun 10, 2002 05:31 PM ]
Does anyone really believe that sellers will go to an unknown site and pay $25/month to sell? 300 beta testers that get a free month? Whoppee. Sellers react only to postive results. Site founders pipedreams do not count ( that was aimed at a lot of new sites not just AuctionPie ).
posted on June 10, 2002 06:47:56 PM
Your right there I don't disagree with you there at all .
Will people go to this site and pay $25 to list ?? Good question if and when the site materalizes any thing goes I am sure there are a few who may give it the shot in shot in the dark for a month or two or some who would do the beta for the free month to see what earily results are.
do I believe there will be large numbers NO not at all, if I were to project out in to the future over four or six year I would project that the online auction and selling format we all know and use today will be a obsolete I think the wav is direct sale and live auctions where seller will have there own direct sale site on there own computer cost of selling is lower and there will be Ebay type venues that will hold live weekend online auction and even web flea markets.
WHere rather then pay a monthly fee to a large site for monthly store space there will be public notice of days dureing the week or the month where sellers will rent space for short term in a online flea market and garage sale type set up like a goecities nieghborhood garage sale type of deal different types of selling take place in different nieghborhood at different times.
art sales one week modelers on another I believe there will be message boards like this where swap meets are held regularly and internet sales will start to mimick RL more and the classes of sellers will start to devide even more you will have your weekend warrior type sellers and your had core dealers to choose from.
it only a matter of time before some group puts there dollars togeather and get video and audio togeather with an auction format webcam auctions live shots of the item(s) you may be looking to bid on .
I think ebay and yahoo are just a short time away from haveing there own online radio as you surf there site complete with paid advertising.
I believe they will have new features to pay a set amount for sellers to buy the radio ads 15, 30 and 60 second blocks time to advertise there auction listing or up coming sales and store as well.
Just like many B&M store now have such as Kmart walmart and even many bigger durg store chains we go too.
at this point I dont think Jamie has the backing to take this the steps nessary to forcast out over the next few weeks or months.
posted on June 10, 2002 06:53:41 PM
Just wanted to add that I see ebay amazon and yahoo getting into cellphone bidding for people on the move who may want to check there bids get that last min bid in one that hot item or even list items on the fly as they find the inventory.
the feed back system is becoming out of date obsolete as well not sure what the change will be but I think it will be more word of moth or consumer reporting agency handling this very soon.
You usually have more insightful comments then this. I find what you wrote to be 90% false.
1) eBay is not wilting. They are thriving! Revenue continues to explode and they forcast record earnings each quarter. eBay is making a conscience effot to squeeze out the small time seller to maximize their profit. Yes, the number of bids per item might be down, but the total number of items and the price per item is increasing. This all means increased profits for eBay. eBay doesn't really care if you auction gets 10 bids. They only care what the final price is.
2) Advertising without any purpose is a waste; however, if done right... a 6 month ad blitz can work wonders. The key is establishing a MARKET IDENTITY. eBay is a household name now. Companies have pretty much risen from nothing in less than 6 months. Market IDENTITY is the key.
3) History has shown that there is always room for 1-2 other competitors. Trust me: one day eBay will face serious challenges by a competing auction site... one of them might be growing right now. As ebay forgets the small time sellers, this always smaller sites to continue to grow. It's the typical story of David vs Goliath. Smaller sites can do it faster, cheaper, and be more responsive. One day eBay will be toppled.
You usually have more insightful comments then this. I find what you wrote to be 90% false.
1) eBay is not wilting. They are thriving! Revenue continues to explode and they forcast record earnings each quarter. eBay is making a conscience effot to squeeze out the small time seller to maximize their profit. Yes, the number of bids per item might be down, but the total number of items and the price per item is increasing. This all means increased profits for eBay. eBay doesn't really care if you auction gets 10 bids. They only care what the final price is.
2) Advertising without any purpose is a waste; however, if done right... a 6 month ad blitz can work wonders. The key is establishing a MARKET IDENTITY. eBay is a household name now. Companies have pretty much risen from nothing in less than 6 months. Market IDENTITY is the key.
3) History has shown that there is always room for 1-2 other competitors. Trust me: one day eBay will face serious challenges by a competing auction site... one of them might be growing right now. As ebay forgets the small time sellers, this always smaller sites to continue to grow. It's the typical story of David vs Goliath. Smaller sites can do it faster, cheaper, and be more responsive. One day eBay will be toppled.
You usually have more insightful comments then this. I find what you wrote to be 90% false.
1) eBay is not wilting. They are thriving! Revenue continues to explode and they forcast record earnings each quarter. eBay is making a conscience effot to squeeze out the small time seller to maximize their profit. Yes, the number of bids per item might be down, but the total number of items and the price per item is increasing. This all means increased profits for eBay. eBay doesn't really care if you auction gets 10 bids. They only care what the final price is.
2) Advertising without any purpose is a waste; however, if done right... a 6 month ad blitz can work wonders. The key is establishing a MARKET IDENTITY. eBay is a household name now. Companies have pretty much risen from nothing in less than 6 months. Market IDENTITY is the key.
3) History has shown that there is always room for 1-2 other competitors. Trust me: one day eBay will face serious challenges by a competing auction site... one of them might be growing right now. As ebay forgets the small time sellers, this always smaller sites to continue to grow. It's the typical story of David vs Goliath. Smaller sites can do it faster, cheaper, and be more responsive. One day eBay will be toppled.
posted on June 10, 2002 07:45:17 PM
DareDevil, I didn't mean eBay as a whole was wilting, just the auction portion even though the listing numbers are growing. I see eBay growing as least as fast as Meg predicts. A huge boast will come this September when eBay's daily television show arrives.
http://www.idg.net/go.cgi?id=547147
The show will undoubetedly bring more sellers and buyers to eBay and make the name eBay even more mainstream. More and more business people will buy their supplies on eBay where they can shop for the best deal. The eBay motors will sell more and more cars and associated items. eBay will grow bigger and bigger. It is still a little infant compared to what it will be in a few short years.
A much bigger eBay will make life that much more difficult for the tiny sites and sites just trying to start.
------------
I like many of Dman's comments on future auction innovations. With the state-of-the-art racing along at a fever pace and high speed connections becoming the norm we will soon have audio buttons on auctions and fixed price venues. We will soon have live web cams of items selling on the net as well as video clips. The live auctions will come to cyberspace and become commonplace. It should be some exciting times ahead and we well are laugh at the way things were in mid 2002.
posted on June 10, 2002 07:52:57 PM
Ebay listings may not be saging and ebays income maybe continuing to grow enough to make investers happy.
But bidding is down selling prices are not up how ever starting bid are on the Rise due to the increase in fees to list on Ebay and other realated sites for managing sales start to charge fees.
Ebay is not squeezing anyone out the economy and incress cost of selling online is starting prices are up mutiple bids go down.
where I use to be able to list my items on ebay starting at $4 and $5 knowing I would get more then one bid and even if I didnt there was enough margin to still make a small return.
Now the listing and related cost can be as much as $4 or $5 so my starting bids are up to $9 and $15 and because of less bidding at times there stil is not enough margin to get any return above costs .
Face it ebay and related service are pricing them selves out of the market and soon the only people who will be able to afford to sell there will be the big guns who can afford to seller there Items a wisker above wholesales at prices retailers and distribters would pay p and still make a fair 11 to 15 % profit.
There is a good reason why all this what I call third world auction sites and Niche sites are popping up it's mainly because there is going to be a huge after ebay market come up very soon.
the time is not quite yet for them but there big chance is not far away and the earily bird have already had a chance to work the bugs out of there programing and so on and get seen little by little.
Ebay is no longer for what I call the marginal or half way antiques or collectables they now have butterfeilds , live auctions and new starting this week some time sothebys launches as part of the ebay system thursday I believe the report I just read.
now on top of that they have there big corporate sellers where do you see room for joe and betty lou junk dealer in this group ???
what your seeing as marginal sellers and what ebay sees as marginal are two different things ebay is looking for the hundered thousand dollar and multi million dollar auction finishes what have we to got to list on ebay to compete with this ???
every time ebay Reaches higher the class of buyer changes the market for the things we sell is moving ever quicker out of ebay if sellers dont round u pthese mom and dad buyers and sellers some where there will be little to nothing selling where the average person will make even a part time income soon.
This is why I say no matter where the site is or who brings it about sellers need to come togeather in one place or lose the whole market once its gone it will be a long time rebuilding if it ever could be.
posted on June 10, 2002 08:32:54 PM
eBay does not want the majority of the sellers that sell super commonplace items on sites such as BV, Carnaby, etc ( not you Hap, they still want your caliber of seller ). It costs eBay almost 50 cents in operating costs for every auction. $1 items cause them to actually lose money. They haven't said "get the heck out of here" to these sellers but instead offer the 100+ million Half.com for them to use.
Ebay wants the $20+ items and big ticket items. That should be their priority as that's where the money is.
The number of bids and going prices are all tied to the rising number of listings. There is more supply then demand. This oversupply has driven down closing prices realized at auction. How do these lowering prices portend well for the tiny sites? I see it the opposite way that you do. The tiny sites will look worse and worse as the price difference of items will grow further apart. Already the prices on the tiny sites average a much greater price than comparable eBay prices ( see TaxiJim's thread on price comparisons ).
One of the reasons that general collectibles prices are dropping so fast at auctions is that most collectors are seeing that the value of their general collectibles are falling instead of rising like they all supposed they would. This causes a ceasation in their collecting and a selling of their collections. How many people were collecting Avon bottles thirty years ago and bragging that the items would be worth a fortune in 30 years. Wrong. Most items are worth less then they paid for them. There are exceptions but that scenario is far too common.
posted on June 11, 2002 11:31:00 AM
"eBay does not want the majority of the sellers that sell super commonplace items on sites such as BV, Carnaby, etc ( not you Hap, they still want your caliber of seller ). It costs eBay almost 50 cents in operating costs for every auction. $1 items cause them to actually lose money."
Bids can you post where you're getting your facts from?
It does not in anyway cost 50 cents to support an auction.
I always love when someone makes a statement as though it's fact without any support?
Again, what do you sell bids? How many sales have you made in the last year?
It's one thing to share a comment but another to speak in an authoritive manner about something you most likely know very little about?
Just my opinion of course as I don't know who you are. I just know that you seem to be the voice of doom and negativity around here?
Change of subject.
If I were to open a video store I'd want to open it right across the street from a Blockbuster.
Why?
Because they do a lot of the work for me and being such a large entity it cannot react to the market place as quickly as the small mice of the world can. All you have to do is do it better than them and you will get their unhappy customers and if you can make them happy everyone will benefit.
Ebay wants customers to sell larger items for the same reason I dread selling videos under $10.00. Because it's a pain in the butt to deal with any potential problem from a low profit sale. Who wants an undeserved NFB for example for selling a $2.00 item?
As I and many others predicted over a year ago, many small sellers have been marginalized and forced to other sites or out of business.
The results is that some very nice businesses and people have suffered. They committed no crime and did nothing wrong except not want to sell things for millions of dollars!
Ebay's definition of small seller will crank up as long as their revenues do. They won't care about small sellers until they need too.
That's one the of things Auctionpie is about. Not being a pawn for a corporate monster anymore.
posted on June 11, 2002 12:01:35 PMIf I were to open a video store I'd want to open it right across the street from a Blockbuster.
Jamie ... You need to heed the advice that you just gave bidsbids about taking about something you appear to know nothing about.
Because they do a lot of the work for me and being such a large entity it cannot react to the market place as quickly as the small mice of the world can.
As a video/movie lover, I suspect your store will never have the selection of older stuff, nor the quantity of new releases to satisfy me and the 100 other folks who all want to rent "The Mothman Prophesies" on the same night. If your logic was correct, there would be Mom & Pop video rental joints popping up all over the place. In fact, just the opposite is true ... the ones that were out there aren't anymore.
With the buying power of Blockbuster, they only need to rent a new release 4 times and it's paid for. Your little store across the street would have to rent the same new release 10 times to break even.
With all due respect, if this is your idea of business sense, you're going to need a lot more than a wish and a prayer to get your venue off the ground
posted on June 11, 2002 12:27:51 PM
One or two years ago there was a long net news article that stated it cost eBay 45 cents for every auction and they lost money on low priced items.
There are a lot of techs and support personnel, huge servers, brass and advertising budgets. Do you think eBay pays only a nickel a auction in costs? My opinion of your intelligence is now greatly lowered. You are apparently only a miser with an ego. Give up and pay the small eBay fees that allow you to access a huge base of bidders. Your idea is pure lunacy that sellers will pay $25 per month to list there. Did you get that idea from Bidville? They pay either $2.50 for 3 months, $5 per year, $10 month, or $15 month with featuring credits.
Try the Otwa boards with you plea for 300 beta testers and the free month of not paying $25 . I have never seen anyone so completely out of touch with the current reality of online auctions!
You see little things like money spent on Sales and marketing expenses totaled $73.1 million, or 30% of net revenues and Product development costs totaled $24.3 million, or approximately 10% of net revenues
I have sold on eBay since 1997 and Yahoo since 1999. I have completed over 5,000 auction transaction even though auctions are only for some additional income.
You just keep rehashing your incorrect thesis.
I believe your quest for an online auction site paid for by subscription fits your own wording.
posted on June 11, 2002 02:00:50 PM
bidsbids is right that eBay wants to cater to high end products. It just makes more sense. ebay makes more per item. I'm not too sure how much it costs per auction, but given salaries, advertising, equipement, etc... it's going to cost ebay a pretty penny... and the $1.00 auction costs just as much as the $1000 auction for ebay to run. Which one would you want to support?
There are reasons why car companies like to sell luxury cars and Sport Utility Vechicles: they make more per car. There's also a reason why BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, etc... won't make a cheap sub-compact car: it ruins the Product Image.
Right now ebay want's to become the Saks Fifth Avenue, the Macy's... of the Internet. That's also why many large retailers are reluctant to sell on ebay or sell their products through indirect distributors. When people win an item they don't identify what they won, but rather where they won it from (eBay).
Eitherway, what ebay leaves behind... this will allow the opportunity for other sites to take. It's a Buyer's market on eBay, and sellers will get tired of paying the high fees.
posted on June 11, 2002 02:41:33 PMIt's a Buyer's market on eBay, and sellers will get tired of paying the high fees.
Exactly, many sellers will quit the auction game altogether. Moving to the third tier sites is hardly an option. The competition at eBay is too fierce and the bidder traffic at the small sites is too little. The buyers have no reason to migrate to the small sites but the sellers do.
I would gladly let eBay double or even triple all existing fees if it would drive out a large percentage of the sellers. The reason that the prices are so very low on eBay is that there are far too many sellers for the amount of buyers. Three or four years ago eBay was a sellers heaven but now it is a sellers hell and a buyers heaven. It's not the fees it's the high number of sellers that make eBay such a tough place to make a profit.
There are not near as many sellers or listed items at the small sites but there are hardly any bidders. The small sites can not charge the fees that eBay does so they can never generate any real profits to advertise. The small sites will never have any kind of a chance to make any real profits
to advertise and promote their sites. If there is an exodous of sellers from eBay they may try the third tier sites and see the futility of the situation there and give up selling completely or head back to the flea markets and antique malls.
posted on June 11, 2002 03:06:57 PM
you all Have our figure very very wrong no matter where you got them.
SInce ebay host no pictures at all for your auctions sellers must find free or pay services to host there auction picture it cost Ebay Nothing zip zilch zero to host low end auction they make 95% profit on just the list fees as well if the item sells they make 150% return on your short term lease of less then 64K text ad you put on there system and if the buyer uses ebay payment service to pay they make over 200% return on your sort term disk use.
posted on June 11, 2002 04:00:34 PMSInce ebay host no pictures at all for your auctions sellers must find free or pay services to host there
What? You ever hear of iPix? One free picture per auction, not hosted by eBay but provided there on the listing page. Doesn't eBay get enough of your profits without using third party service that are really just for beginners or computer novices?
Those fiscal figures are disected by Wall Street with a fine tooth comb. The advertising costs must be astronomical but worth it as they have almost zero auction competition. eBay has its sights on big non-auction competitors like Amazon and AutoTrader.com . Don't bet on eBay taking over internet niches one by one in a Micro$oft like manner.
Meg Gates? Might as well be her name.
you have to remember that the old brick and mortar rules do not really apply on the internet. "Location, location, location" is not the key anymore. Internet consumers are becoming more savy. They are just as likely to buy from Amazon, buy.com, Barnes&Noble or from the tens of other book stores. All they really care about is price, service, and products available.
If ebay sellers get fed up with eBay and all collectivly move to Bidville (for example)... don't you think buyers would start coming to Bidville more often? Fundamentally, you have to agree with me, because this is how ebay started out. Brand image is important, but any CEO will tell that it's the actual PRODUCT that sells.
Fundamentally, your theories are flawed. Buyers will follow the sellers. They always have. I will drive 5 extra miles to go to Wal-mart instead of a rinky-dink store. Well, it's a whole lot easier on the internet given I only have to type in the new location.
posted on June 11, 2002 06:07:36 PM
if all the dollar Items were removed and all you could find were $1000 sales there profits would drop as sales would fall off there are more people who can afford to spend $5 or $30 regularly then there is people spending thousands every day!!!
on a good week $10 sales out number $1000 sale 150 to 1 no way there profit will go up as they lose there market.
there is no way to remove thousands of items of selection and increase business, if walmart went from department store to selling houses they would go from 50 and 75 thousand in sales daily at a local store to maybe 100 or 300 thousand a month on a good month.
these figures arent gone over all that well by share holder the stock losers well out number the gainer regularly there facts are only as good as a companies reporting and ebay plays with there number big time free listing day is a very good exsample buying out dieing companies is another.
posted on June 11, 2002 08:10:00 PM
The ebay sellers will not all migrate to one third tier site. If BV was the only major third tier site that could possibly occur. There are literally hundreds of online auction sites to choose from for the disgruntled ebay sellers. The problem is that they all suck. There is little traffic, little sales, little site promotion, etc. and unless the sellers are united they will disperse all over the internet. After experiencing the third tier auction reality many will warehouse their items at low maintenace-low cost sites like BV the same way the reacted when Yahoo started listing fees. BV has 1.1 million items but the buyers have zero incentive to go there amd pay higher prices than eBay.
As eBay raises fees the ebay sellers will pass those fees on to the customer. Every other ebay purchase I make these days the sellers seem to make at least $2 on the shipping and that extra $ must go towards paying the eBay fees. In the eyes of many sellers there are no real eBay fees. The only stinker fee is the small listing fee and that fee is the whole key to the ebay success story. Sellers can not warehouse items and must present the best deal possible to ebay shoppers or risk a huge bill for unsuccessful auction listing fees. That is the key to everything.
posted on June 12, 2002 03:41:05 AM
Hi Dare: The 20% profit was in spite of all the excess spending and profit sharing a site like Ebay spends. My point was that for the amount of profit ebay is "reporting" they should be offering a better product and have more support. Did Safe Harbor really eat up that much money?
The point is that they make an awful lot of money off of sellers.
Right now Ebay makes lots of money off of small sellers and gives less and less for that buck.
The pressure on sellers on Ebay is getting larger, and that's why you are seeing less bids too. There are higher fees and less opportunities to benefit from being on Ebay. It's simply too expensive to sell an awful lot of items on Ebay. These items are not bad items. They are not clutter. They just don't sell in 7-10 days at peak prices.
The whole alleged Ebay community suffers in a situation like that.
And why can't they have both small and large sellers? I know they can, you know they can. Even Meg knows that they can. Ebay doesn't want them, at least not now.
Please don't misunderstand me. Ebay is a hugely successful company. They are a model of online success. There are many many lessons to learn as a business from watching ebay. That being said they can improve things in a lot of ways and in some I think they purposely choose not too.
Also, business doesn't migrate all in one shot.
Product is absolutely number one. And believe me if a seller makes enough sales to warrant their subscription fee they will stay. If sellers and bidders check out the site and see some action, they will check it out.
Auctionpie doesn't have to grow overnight. In fact we'd like the opposite so that we can make sure that the site grows properly.
If we have too much traffic early it can actually be detrimental.
Our goal for the first year is only 1000 subscribers (sellers). And that is only a teeny, tiny drop in the bucket of online sellers.
I think the mistake a lot of people make is that they think some competitor to Ebay is just going to pop up. That's never going to happen. You don't just build these sorts of companies, they have to develop like Ebay did.
Just create the product and make it better all the time. The sellers and buyers will find you!
