gawooley
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posted on January 6, 2003 11:09:53 AM new
I just noticed that the Yahoo! Shopping Home page no longer has the link to Yahoo Auctions at the top of it....so much for the cross-merchandising of all the "shopping" venues on Yahoo!. I guess if you want exposure on Yahoo!, you're going to have to open a store and PAY for it.
http://shopping.yahoo.com/
I wondered why my Y! auctions had been suffering from lack of bids lately. I suspect I know, now!
George
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tooltimes
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posted on January 6, 2003 11:35:22 AM new
Maybe yahoo is cutting the apron strings on the yahoo auctions ... or maybe even cutting the life lines abd setting the auctions adrift.
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gawooley
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posted on January 6, 2003 03:04:08 PM new
tooltimes, I'm afraid you may be correct. It certainly marks a departure from this announcement:
4/03/02 New Yahoo! Auctions Logo
Starting tomorrow we are changing the masthead for Yahoo! Auctions to Yahoo! Shopping Auctions, as a part of our ongoing effort to build one buying and selling community on Yahoo! (see new image below). One of the biggest challenges for us is making sure our buying community is able to see all the items that are available for sale across the Yahoo! network. Last fall we took the first big step toward bringing together buyers and sellers from across Yahoo! with the launch of a common search between Yahoo! Auctions, Shopping, Warehouse, and Classifieds. Further integration has continued with joint marketing and promotional programs. We hope you'll see the benefits from this as we continue to find ways to deliver more buyers and sellers to our auction site.
They no longer do a "universal search" from the shopping home page.
Here is the "old search" that you used to get when you searched from there.
http://all.shopping.yahoo.com/
Compare the results with what you currently get from Y! shopping's home page!
No wonder my bids are down at Y! Auctions.
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stopwhining
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posted on January 6, 2003 07:07:11 PM new
what about yahoo warehouse and classified ad??
it is hard to compete with ebay when there are so many items with no bid on ebay,amzn auction is a sheer waste of time as well.
i think yahoo does the right thing,concentrate the firepower on their strength-yahoo shopping and let ebay claims auction queen.
yahoo shopping is a big success past xmas,
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tooltimes
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posted on January 6, 2003 08:42:40 PM new
what about yahoo warehouse and classified ad
I'm afraid that you're not very up-to-date on Yahoo's shopping ventures stopwhinning.
Yahoo Warehouse changed it's name to Yahoo Used Goods and then pulled the plug on the whole affair quite some time ago.
As to Yahoo Classifieds they started charging fees and like the Yahoo Auctions when they first started charging fees they went overboard and charged fees that were too high. Another Yahoo Ghosttown was born.
The Yahoo Shopping portal now no longer links to the Yahoo Classifieds either.
[ edited by tooltimes on Jan 6, 2003 08:43 PM ]
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emak
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posted on January 7, 2003 05:39:00 AM new
Wonder where cheerleader Blairwitch has been since this was posted?
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gawooley
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posted on January 7, 2003 07:31:03 AM new
Blairwitch made a comment on another board about this not affecting their business, because their customers come from eBay.
This doesn't affect my business much either, as <1% of my sales actually come from Yahoo! Auctions.
BUT, in terms of its significance to ALL independent sellers, I see this change as important. Yahoo! has been #2 in being an effective auction venue for quite a while, IMNTBHO. A distant second to eBay...but still second. And, along with Amazon.com, they seem to be the only web-site with the "firepower" that could have built a true competitor to eBay. We know that Amazon.com pretty well "abandoned" the auction format long ago and hid it on their back burner. I think this is a sign that Yahoo! plans to do that as well.
The chain that eBay has around the independent auction sellers' legs is drawing a little tighter.
George
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tooltimes
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posted on January 7, 2003 08:29:48 AM new
I hope the new upcoming AOL auction venue can make run at ebay.
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zoomin
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posted on January 7, 2003 12:53:27 PM new
tooltimes:
I think AOL can do it, you too?
Seems like they've got the best shot at it ~
AOL super-simplified the worldwide web.
If they apply the same approach to auctions, they can make it very inviting.
AOL also has a history of spending oodles of cash on advertising, IMHO, a major downfall of the failed auction sites.
AOL also continues to offer strong inventives for referrals and returning customers - smart business.
FAB marketing & ease of use ~
lotsa points in their court from the get-go.
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blairwitch
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posted on January 7, 2003 01:07:10 PM new
I'm still here emak. 
I dont think yahoo is breaking away the auctions from shopping. If they were the link on the fromt page would be gone.
Shop Auctions, Autos, Classifieds, Real Estate, Shopping, Travel
Tooltimes AOL will not compete with eBay in my opinion. The only way to hurt eBay is to wait for them to do something stupid like checkout. When the checkout boycott took place and got media attention yahoo lowered their fees, and ebay quickly backed off. Yahoo should put a box promoting the auctions on the home page and leave it there.
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tooltimes
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posted on January 7, 2003 04:02:47 PM new
AW, I dunno. AOL is to internet providers what ebay is to online auctions. Last count there were 31 million active AOL and CompuServe accounts total ( not counting all the extra email addresses they are allowed per account ). AOL can 'banner ad' and 'link' to their hearts content on their own 31 million accounts and it won't cost them a penny. They can 'incentive' their users and non-users into trying the new auction like they did with their free ISP accounts. Everybody hates AOL much the same way that they hate ebay and MicroSoft, because they are the 800 pound gorillas. It may take an 800 pound gorilla to humble another 800 pound gorilla. 
At least there is a good gorilla fighting match on the online auction horizon.! May the best gorilla win! This is a win/win situation for auction sellers and buyers.
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stopwhining
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posted on January 7, 2003 04:56:40 PM new
i thought aol renewed this contract with ebay to co brand ebay on aol.
personally i think auction style buy and sell is fading,as more and more items keep coming which are neither unique,rare or collectible!!
yahoo shops are making good money for yahoo and drawing tons of traffic during holiday shopping season,why not focus on what you do best and leave the auction to ebay.
may be there is hope for bidville???
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tooltimes
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posted on January 7, 2003 05:27:43 PM new
Nope, ebay and AOL are each going to each have an online auction. I guess AOL doesn't care if it risks the ebay ad money as there may be more much money in an auction.
I think the term 'auction' these days is a mis-nomer as they are all steering toward a fixed price format instead of a traditional bidding format. The news that internet sales skyrocketed this year will draw more and more attemps at the pot of gold. The name auction is merely added because ebay is still called an auction and they want to match ebay in all aspects.
There's some reading material, although almost a month old now.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y02/m12/i17/s01
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blairwitch
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posted on January 7, 2003 06:13:22 PM new
Tooltimes AOL is a 800 pound gorilla, but yahoo is a 1800 pound gorilla who could not bring down ebay with their free auction site. When a site cant draw in the sellers and buyers being FREE something is very wrong, and its going to be very hard to compete with ebay. eBay sellers who hate yahoo should be thankful they are still in business. Yahoo is the only fly in the ointment for ebay, and stops them from doing what they want like checkout.
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tooltimes
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posted on January 7, 2003 07:30:07 PM new
Yahoo Auctions may have been an 1800 pound gorilla once but they were a stupid 1800 pound gorilla. Yahoo made the online blunder of the century when they started a 20 cent minimum listing fee. If they had gone with a $7 or 8% FVF instead they would now be making 50 times what they make now. Yahoo is the most poorly managed company in cyberspace.
AOL will probably never make much of a dent in ebay but they may make serious inroads on the fixed price arena and greatly slow ebay's growth. If AOL can only manage a 10% share of ebay it would be a viable place to sell goods for many sellers as their second site. Right now there is no clear choice of a second site.
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stopwhining
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posted on January 8, 2003 06:35:56 AM new
aol has already approached some of the powersellers on ebay.
aol may be looking to keep/expand its subscription base,and getting some auction style actions may be one way to do it.
auction is good for one of a kind items,why bother to bid competitively when you know more are coming soon??
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tooltimes
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posted on January 8, 2003 08:25:21 AM new
Exactly. AOL is only using the word auction because ebay still does. Ebay is rapidly becoming a fixed price venue and AOL will be sure to copy ebay's every move.
I think AOL is having trouble expanding it's ISP and may want to diversify it's company and use the clout of the 31+ million accounts itself rather than have someone else pay for the use of that clout.
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