posted on June 4, 2003 08:17:33 PM new
I was thinking how yahoo has become nearly totally dead. It is not even worth listing even on Free Listing Day. But what if yahoo became a free site again, It could take a big bite out of ebay and possable gain over time. I know for one I would list a lot of items like I use to. I realise that the same ole problems would come back but those problems are better than what it is now. What do you think?
posted on June 5, 2003 01:44:05 AM new
Yahoo has to make some money. I think if Yahoo made listings free and charged a 7.5% FVF on sold items they'd make a lot of money, especially with Half.com going away soon. With some of the FVF profits they could hire some people to throw of the sign post auctions. To get rid of the nickel sportscards they could make the minimum start bid at least 50 cents.
posted on June 5, 2003 08:20:48 AM new
I mostly agree with you but with the coming dismantling of Half.com there's still a slight chance. The smaller auction sites still have a lot of auctions and a very large percentage of those would probably end up on a no-inserttion fee Yahoo.
It might not work but it's at least worth the effort to try. With 2 or 3 million listed items the buyers may start to return. The gutsy people at Yahoo management seem to have all moved on to other places so we'll probably never see anything the continued downward spiral in Yahoo Auctions popularity.
posted on June 5, 2003 01:16:45 PM new
Yahoo will never go back to free auctions. Yahoo in a smart move placed their resources on the stores. They now have over 40,000 stores bringing them in $49.95 a month each, not to mention the other fees. If they would lower the auction listing fees to zero many store owners would list auctions, and yahoo would lose store revenue. They tried once to bring down ebay, and it failed. If I were in charge at yahoo there would be a FLD every other month to keep the numbers up, but that is about it.
posted on June 5, 2003 01:31:53 PM new
I agre the Stores are probably the reason they won't go free again, even with a sizeable FVF. I can not image 40,000 store owners paying $50 per month for a Yahoo store. There must be a good reason to retain that many stores for so long.
posted on June 5, 2003 08:46:28 PM new
Listing fees was the best thing to happen to Yahoo. The only thing that really changed there was the deadbeat rate has become nearly extinct. The sell through rate is running around 10% just like before listing fees. Only difference is that it a nearly true 10% with bidders actually paying for their items. Before the listing fees, the sports cards kids (deadbeats) ran rampant which made the sell through rate at around 5%. When they first put in the original listing fees, the rates were way too high. Although the purpose of them was to drive away the junk auctions, mainly worthless sports cards and recipe auctions. (For proof, see bidville. No good auctions and the deadbeat rate is so high, you have to be a kid to even waste your time there.)
Once that was accomplished, they reduced the listing fees to a extremely reasonable rate making it a viable option to list slightly slower items to keep them in the public eye. Now good items have taken over the site and quality bidders buy. At this point, there is only one option as far as I am concerned. Use Ebay for all items and for what doesn't sell, put them on Yahoo for longer exposure at much lower prices. Any third tier site will be a waste of time.
