EventHorizon1984 Log

The Hype of Mobile Payments

The Hype of Mobile Payments
14 April 2012
EventHorizon1984

 

There is a growing trend of companies playing fast and loose with the "mobile" descriptor.  When these folks talk "mobile" payments, sales, etal., readers/listeners are guided to the assumption that any statistics given are solely for smart phone transactions.  Which is not true.

"There are a lot of people talking about mobile payments these days."
John Donahoe, 2012

"I do not think it means what you think it means."
Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride (1987)

By example, eBay paid writer Richard Brewer-Hay stated, "eBay Inc. anticipates continued growth in mobile sales and payments in 2012 as shopping on smartphones and tablet devices."  Qualifying "mobile sales and payments" are not only smart phones.

So what is a "mobile" or "mobile payment"?

A standard definition of mobile payment:

"Any payment where a mobile device is used in order to initiate, activate and/or confirm this payment can be considered as a mobile payment.  This definition includes a wide palette of approaches, and points out the fact that mobile payments do not restrict themselves to payments via the mobile phone but virtually any mobile device such as a smartphone, PDA, tablet PC or even merchant-operated mobile terminals."
IEEE Symposium on Trends in Communications (SymptoTIC '04), 24-26 October 2004, Bratislava, Slovikia.

Or if you prefer United States based and short:

"Mobile Payment - Payment initiated from a mobile device."
Mobile Payments in the United States
Mapping Out the Road Ahead
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, BetterBuyDesign, March 25, 2011

Now a few are asking, 'smart phone, mobile, what's the big deal?'

It's a matter of choice to be completely factual, or choosing to be fast and loose with the details.

"we live in a mobile home.  That's a cave that goes places.  Only we never went anyplace." Alex Rogan
"A mobile cave that never went anywhere.  Fascinating."  Grig
The Last Starfighter (1984)

The Merriam-Webster definition of mobile is, "capable of moving or being moved".

By this definition, some companies are loosely telling the truth about "mobile".  While that definition of "mobile" is an excellent means of inflating numbers, it is misleading.

Again by example, selected at random a link to point-of-sale (POS) mobile terminals:

http://www.networksolutions.com/merchant-accounts/retail-pos.jsp

These are POS devices that use cell phones for connectivity.  As written for one device, "mobile payment processing through your 3G/3GS/4G iPhone".

Note they state "mobile payment processing", i.e. mobile payment.

By one standard definition, these are "merchant-operated mobile terminals".

Let's suppose you're small warehouse seller Acme Widgets.   With these mobile devices, in 2011 you processed $1 million in credit card transactions.  Acme Widgets could state factually, mobile payments in 2011 reached $1 million.  Or state they processed $1 million in transactions through smart phones.  Even though they processed zero customer initiated smart phone payments.

Anyone with similar portable, read mobile, POS systems can make the same claims.  It's truthful, but nevertheless inflating the mobile payments numbers.

By the way, next time you're shopping at a brick-and-mortar, check out the wireless POS devices.  Wireless systems are considered Merriam-Webster mobile.  Like your wireless mobile laser printer.

You might ask, 'why bother massaging numbers, mobile payments are huge.'

"eBay's global mobile GMV reached $5 billion in 2011"
Richard Brewer-Hay, 11 January 2012

$6.0 trillion - 2011 total volume of transactions
Visa Inc

While we believe in the future mobile payments will be huge, as a percentage of eCommerce and Commerce today, they are rather small.

The figures for eCommerce as a percentage of total Commerce:

• "E-commerce sales in the fourth quarter of 2011 accounted for 5.5 percent of total sales."

This percentage tracks rather well with numbers from a handful of brick-and-mortar stores:

• "Online share of sales at big brick-and-mortal retailers
• 8.7% Sears
• 7.2% Macy's
• 2% Target
• 2% Walmart"

In the case of Walmart, "2011 online sales amounted to less than 2 percent of its $264 billion in U.S. revenue".

Let's shrink the pie further.

The figures for United States mobile payment/m-commerce:

• In the US, m-commerce revenues are expected to hit $6 billion by the end of 2011, growing to $31 billion by 2016, according to Forrester Research (June 2011).
• But m-commerce will only be 2 percent of e-commerce in 2011 and 7 percent of e-commerce in 2016.
• The average annual spend on mobile purchases was US$300.

Worldwide the numbers are:

• $86.1 billion in 2011

Yes that would be United States eCommerce is 5.5% of Commerce.  With m-commerce being 2% of that 5.5%.

What should you take away from this article?  The next time you see someone waving a smart phone and saying $Blahblah "mobile", look for the specific dollar amount breakdowns attributed to smart phones and other devices by region.

Bet you won't see any.

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"In 2011, PayPal's net total payment volume, or TPV, for transactions using mobile devices reached $4 billion"
eBay INC Form 10-K, 31 January 2012

http://www.frbatlanta.org/documents/rprf/rprf_pubs/110325_wp.pdf
"U.S. financial institutions have not offered mobile financial payments because of a perceived lack of a good business case, although the growth of mobile banking implementations and recent mobile payment trials signal this may be changing."
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 25 March 2011

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eBay INC 2011 Third Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers

eBay INC 2011 3rd Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers
20 October 2011
EventHorizon1984

 

eBay INC CEO John J. Donahoe lead eBay's Third Quarter Earnings Call with the bold statement, "Q3 was another strong quarter for our company.", while the mood on Wall Street, "EBAY left investors unimpressed," was less energetic.  Which leads to the routine question asked by small businesses on eBay, 'How did the Marketplaces section eBay.com do?'.

Well.                                  

Numbers from eBay's 10/19/2011 SEC 8-K filing show net total Marketplaces quarter to quarter revenue growth essentially dead.  Down from the previous quarter growth of "5%". 

Keep in mind that part of the second quarter growth of 5% can be attributed to eBay's 6 July 2011 additional fee on shipping costs.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

Marketplace revenues are principally generated through fees paid by users of eBay.com.  The payees being the business who use eBay.com to sell products.

What of the number of products that eBay's less than 1% revenue growth came from?.

According to Medved.net eBay started the third quarter with over 138 million listings per day. 

The third quarter ended with approximately 152 million products.

If you were selling on eBay.com, were you using PayPal?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

The number of PayPal payments made was a health "6%", compared to the previous quarter's increase of "2%."  The PayPal payment volume however was down to "2%", compared to second quarter's "5%" increase.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

According the eBay.com numbers, the "Take rate" has remained stable for the past year.  The third quarter "Take rate", that is the percentage of a PayPal transaction that Ebay INC keeps, stands at "3.78%."

What about eBay INC's Bill Me Later payment method? 

eBay INC reports Bill Me Later losses decreased and increased.  The Net charge-off rate has improved slightly to "4.3" from the second quarter's "4.4%."  But the 90-day delinquency rate has risen to "2.6%", compared to the previous quarter's "2.2%."

With payment transaction losses remaining more or less stable, it remains to be seen why eBay INC continues to increase the amount of funds held from eBay's customers.  Going from 2010 fourth quarter's $2,550,731,000 to this quarter's $3,295,115,000.  Yes, that's 3.29 Billion dollars.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

What about the continuing buyer and seller claims that there is less merchandise on eBay.com.  How deep is eBay.com's product selection?  Let's look at the value of merchandise sold.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc - 8-K - 10/19/2011

According to eBay INC in their 8-K statement, Gross Merchandising Volume (GMV) represents the "Total value of all successfully closed items between users on eBay Marketplaces trading platforms during the quarrter, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the transaction."

GMV quarter to quarter growth is essentially dead.  Third quarter shows less than one percent movement, compared to second quarters "1%."   And what of John Donahoe touting a GMV increase of 16%?  It's the year to year increase.  And this year's GMV, $14,666 million, is coasting downward off of eBay's record 2010 year end GMV of $15,039 million.

The GMV for vehicles decreased "-4%" quarter to quarter.  A significant fall from the "9%" increase of the second quarter.  Year to year Vehicle GMV growth is also essentially dead.

"EBay is still best known as a discount flea market retailer."

John Donahoe became eBay INC CEO in March 2008, and concluded his third year of CEO stewardship in March 2011.  Has there been progress for eBay.com under CEO John Donaohe?

It appears from the above metrics that eBay sellers in aggregate have had their say in the matter. 

Here's the non-seller stock market view. 

At the start of John Donahoe's tenure, eBay INC's stock price was 29.84 (31 March 2008).  Between then and now, the stock reached a top price of 35.35.  It is currently trading at 32.14. 

Trading was mildly frantic today with current volume at 25,643,763 versus the average daily transaction volume of 14,794,700 shares.

According to eBay INC's official investor page, in the matter of eBay INC stock dividends:

Which means for the average individual investor to materially benefit from eBay INC stock, they must sell and/or buy the stock.  In other words, 'buy low, sell high', short, long, et al.

Over the three plus years the eBay INC Pop & Mom investor made $5.51 per share, or posted a 19% return on investment.  Assuming they sold their shares when the stock peaked.

Then there's the competition.

Amazon closed at $71.30 on 31 March 2008.  Amazon stock is currently at $233.61.  Meaning the Amazon Mom & Pop investor would make $162.31 selling their stock now.  If we have our sums right, that's a 227% return on investment.

$5.51 versus $162.31.  Hmmm.  The difference between buying a cup of coffee at Starbucks or an iPod from Apple.  As a side note:

• Starbucks
• 31 March 2008  $17.50
• 20 October 2011  $40.99

• Apple
• 31 March 2008  $143.50
• 20 October 2011  $395.31

With the tepid response to eBay INC's stock price over the past three plus years, there is possible good news for CEO John Donahoe, regarding Amazon's Third Quarter 2011 Earnings Call scheduled for 25 October 2011.  It may never happen. 

Harold Camping is proclaiming, again, that the World will end tomorrow.

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Related articles:

Amazon eBay 2011 Earnings Call Pre-Game Tale of the Tape

eBay INC Stock Price During CEO John Donahoe's Tenure

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Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

“We do no market research. We don’t hire consultants. The only consultants I’ve ever hired in my 10 years is one firm to analyze Gateway’s retail strategy so I would not make some of the same mistakes they made [when launching Apple's retail stores]. But we never hire consultants, per se. We just want to make great products."

"You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new."

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eBay INC Received $131 Million U.S. Tax Refund

eBay INC Received $131 Million U.S. Tax Refund
31 August 2011
EventHorizon1984

According to Reuters, eBay CEO John Donahoe was one of "Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax."

Specifically:

"eBay whose CEO John Donahoe made $12.4 million, but which reported a $131 million refund on its 2010 current U.S. taxes."

While many John Donahoe fans will "cheer" this article, we note the article and study are flawed.  In the case of eBay INC, what is left out are 2010 taxes paid.

Consider this; most of our U.S. readers received 2010 tax refunds.  But it's a refund of excess taxes paid.

People interested in eBay INCs 2010 finances can reference the following:

• eBay INC 10-K Annual Report, 28 January 2011
• eBay INC 8-K/A Results of Operations and Financial Condition, Financial Statements and Exhibits, 20 January 2011
• eBay INC 8-K Results of Operations and Financial Condition, Financial Statements and Exhibits, 19 January 2011

Not that eBay INC CEO John Donahoe deserves praise.

• eBay stock price (31 March 2008) when John Donahoe became eBay CEO - $29.87
• eBay stock price (31 August 2011) - $30.87

• Amazon stock price (31 March 2008) - $71.30
• Amazon stock price (31 August 2011) - $215.23

Unless you're an Amazon investor.

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"We’re very comfortable being misunderstood. We’ve had lots of practice."
Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO

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Amazon eBay 2011 Earnings Call Pre-Game Tale of the Tape

Amazon eBay 2011 Earnings Call Pre-Game Tale of the Tape
12 July 2011
EventHorizon1984

You bought eBay or Amazon stock on the hype that they were excellent long-term growth investments.  But is it all hype?

With Amazon's 2011 Earnings Call scheduled for July 26th, and eBay's on July 20th, it's a good time to look at performance history.

As a consummate investor, you know both stocks do not pay dividends.  eBay INC states bluntly to investors:

No dividends means you live and die by share price.  The average investor must trade ('buy low, sell high') shares to materially benefit from eBay or Amazon stock.

How are both stocks performing?

eBay's current CEO John Donahoe, took control of the company on 31 March 2008.  Now in his fourth year, under his new new three year plan, here's the score:

Chart from Yahoo! Finance, 31 March 2008 - 11 July 2011.

$29.84 31 March 2008 - $32.91 12 July 2011

eBay is currently trading at 32.26.

During the same period, here's the score of competitor Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:

Chart from Yahoo! Finance, 31 March 2008 - 11 July 2011.

$71.30 31 March 2008 - $212.55 12 July 2011

Amazon is currently trading at 211.23.

In case you're wondering, here's what the two charts look like combined:

Chart from Yahoo! Finance, 31 March 2008 - 11 July 2011.  eBay in red, Amazon in blue.

You may ask what about return on investment, etal?

Here's the tale of the tape using Yahoo! Finance:

So how is Your  investment?

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"The whole put and call biz is about short term gambling on stock prices....the bets being made should rarely, if ever, be used by long term investors to determine the long term value of a stock."
Itspostingtime  

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18 July 2011

Corrected Amazon Earnings Call schedule.

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eBay INC 2011 First Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers

eBay INC 2011 First Quarter Earnings Call Numbers Of Interest To Small Business Sellers
27 April 2011
EventHorizon1984

eBay INC "is showing signs of progress", according to the Wall Street Journal.  Which brings up the quarterly question asked by many small businesses on eBay, 'How did the Marketplaces section eBay.com do?'.

Well.                                  

Numbers from eBay's 04/17/2011 SEC 8-K filing, show net total Marketplaces revenue growth up an anemic "2%" from the previous quarter.  Down from the previous quarter growth of "6%". 

Marketplaces revenue is up "10%", compared to the poorly performing first quarter of 2010.

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 4/27/2011

Marketplace revenues are principally generated through fees paid by users of eBay.com.  That is the business who use eBay.com to sell products.

Here is another eBay Marketplaces revenue chart.

eBay shows an anemic "2%" current quarter versus prior quarter increase. 

There is a robust "12%" current quarter to prior year quarter increase.  Compared to the "13%" increase of a year ago, there appears to be some slow down in year to year revenue.

And what of the number of products that eBay's "2%" came from?.

According to Medved.net eBay started the first quarter with close to 123 million listings per day. 

The first quarter numbers peaked at close to 134 million listings.  The number of products are down from the fourth quarter peak of 142 million.

If you were selling on eBay.com, were you using PayPal?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 4.27/2011

The number of PayPal payments made and the amount of those PayPal payments, were down compared to fourth quarter's "18%" and "20%."  A tepid increase of "1%" and "2%" respectively.

According the eBay.com numbers, "Transaction revenue rate" has remained stable for the past year.  The current quarter Marketplace loss rate, part of which includes fraud, stands at "3.45%".  Compared to VISA, who reported a fraud rate of "$5 per $10,000" in 2005.  Which is 0.05%.

What about eBay's growing Bill Me Later payment method? 

eBay reports Bill Me Later losses are decreasing.  The Net charge-off rate has slid to "4.86%", and the 90-day delinquency rate has dropped to "2.16%". 

The declining fraud rates are interesting given eBay has increased the amount of funds held from eBay's customers.  Going from fourth quarter's $2,550,731,000 to $2,746,079,000.

What about seller and buyer claims that there is less merchandise on eBay.com.  Have products moved off eBay.com?

Edgar Online - eBay Inc (eBay) - 8-k - 4/27/2011

There was a quarter to quarter Gross Merchandising Volume (GMV) decrease of "(4%), excluding vehicles.  But a year to year increase of "8%."

GMV represents "Total value of all successfully closed items between users on eBay Marketplaces trading platforms during the quarter, regardless of whether the buyer and seller actually consummated the transaction."

The GMV for vehicles increased "7%" quarter to quarter.  A significant improvement from the "(11%)" decline of the previous quarter. 

John Donahoe became eBay CEO in March 2008, and concluded his third year of CEO stewardship in March 2011.  Has there been progress for eBay.com under CEO John Donaohe?

While eBay sellers will continue to make that call, here's the non-seller stock market view. 

At the start of John Donahoe's tenure, eBay INC's stock price was 29.84 (31 March 2008).  Between then and now, the stock reached a top price of 35.35.  It is currently trading at 34.03.

According to eBay INC's official investor page, in the matter of eBay INC stock dividends:

Which means for the average investor to materially benefit from eBay INC stock, they must sell and/or buy the stock.  In other words, 'buy low, sell high', short, stock options, et al.

In three years the eBay Pop & Mom investor made $5.51 per share or 19% return on investment.  Had they sold when the stock peaked.

Then there's the competition.

Amazon closed at 71.30 on 31 March 2008, and in the same three year period peaked at 197.80.  Amazon closed today at 197.00.  Meaning the Amazon Mom & Pop investor made $126.50 per share or 177% return on investment.

Hmmm.  $5.51 versus $126.50.  Perhaps we're not understanding the Wall Street insider view.

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"Amazon's a very competitive company, and I think they are a very good competitor, and we take them very, very seriously. I think the proof will be in the pudding. You know, we are still looking for signs of momentum, and so far, they have not gotten traction."
Meg Whitman, eBay CEO, 31 May 1999

"Amazon can be successful, and eBay can be successful too."
John Donahoe, eBay CEO, June 2010

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A Tale of Four eBay Sellers

A Tale of Four eBay Sellers
14 February 2011 
Valentine's Day Edition
EventHorizon1984

While scanning the various blog sites, one of us came across this interesting note.

Where CohibaStore.com, a PowerSellersUnite regular member, states:

• "Due to some moron at PayPal, or better, the morons at PayPal, I am unable to withdraw funds or use the PP debit card for a few weeks."
• "I hung up the phone and promptly shut down my ebay stores, closed all the listings and took the rest of the day off."

A week later one of his eBay Stores remains empty.

You might be asking, "why the interest in this seller?".  He happens to be one of the sellers in our eNA (eBay Noise Aggregate) study.  Where we quantified the eBay 'store to core' impact on sellers.

Since we mentioned "Four eBay Sellers", "submitted for your approval" are four sellers of the hundred and nineteen sellers studied.

1. clact (5209), member since Feb-25-02
2. cleggandco (24352), member since Aug-20-02
3. oldspartantrader (7696), member since Feb-28-05
4. z50com (10482), member since Jun-25-00

These sellers are well known successful eBay PowerSellers with hundreds of listings.  And with hundreds/thousands of posts on various venues. 

Or at least that's the way it was in 2008/2009.

1.  "Are you trying to cheer me up?" 
Captain John Sheridan, Babylon 5

Clact, better known as Marty on the eBay Stores Discussion Board, and eBay Voices participant, currently has these two listings on eBay.

A set of two listings that has been essentially unchanged since 2010.  Although it's been presumed that he is off doing other eBay related things.

2.  "I'll be back." 
Terminator, The Terminator (1968)

Cleggandco, also known at CohibaStore on the PowerSellersUnite forums, had this to say in 2007.

• "My sales are currently 90% ebay, 5% my web store and 5% blujay."
• "Most importantly you need to build a reputation. You cannot do this overnight. You need that reputation to help spread your reputation via word of mouth. It's still the best form of advertising."

Today he has an Amazon outlet, higher total sales compared to 2010, and for the moment no products on eBay.  BUT that's temporary.  

• "Of the 300+ ebay listings we used to run, we have perhaps 50 that will get re-listed when they fix it. I will continue to suck money out of their system and ride out the decline until it's completely unproductive - as everyone should be doing."
• "Customer service continues to be dreadful. Even as Gold Top Rated Power seller, getting an answer, or even making contact requires herculean effort. I'll bet cash money it will be this continued failing that finally drives me off from selling on ebay, rather than fees, idiot buyers or moronic rules."

Will this $10K a month (on eBay) seller remain on eBay?  Shrug.

3. "That wizard is just a crazy old man." 
Uncle Owen, Star Wars (1977)

Oldspartantrader or Carl, has been a fixture on the eBay Stores Discussion Board for years.  

Currently he is NARU, having left eBay on his terms in 2010, opting for retirement.

4.  "You can count on my steel." 
Unknown warrior, Army of Darkness (1992).

z50com also known as John, is a noted aerospace tool seller.  He's a regular poster on the Yahoo! EBAY Message Board and AuctionBytes.  In 2007 he had this to say:

• "Ebay works great for me. Most weeks I sell 90-100% of my listings. Prices for my products have never been higher."
• "I hate hearing all the whining from unsuccessful sellers, adapt or go out of business. The strongest will survive, I have."

Depending on the source, his "90-100%" sell through was coupled with anywhere from $2K to $10K a week in gross sales.  Making him at the time the largest, or one of the largest, in this small group of four sellers.

His current selling status has changed dramatically from those prior years.

z50com still sells on eBay in a smaller capacity, but appears to supplement his income through a part or full time job.

"What is the moral?  Must be a moral." 
Comedy Tonight, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1966)

If there is any moral to this "Tale of Four eBay Sellers," it might be the comment about eBay's treatment of Calvin Klein, where we rhetorically asked:

• "if eBay is willing to show such tepid support for a $6 billion dollars in sales a year corporation, how do you think eBay treats the much smaller sellers?"

Now we know.

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"He's dead. I'm crippled. You're lost."
Flight Officer David Campbell, The Longest Day (1962)

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eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA)

• The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) - Measuring The Impact Of Store To Core
• The eBay Noise Aggregate (eNA) Redux

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Rakuten INC Does "Buy It Now" of eBay INC Diamond Seller Buy.com

Rakuten Inc Does "Buy It Now" of eBay Inc Diamond Seller Buy.com
20 May 2010
EventHorizon1984

A figurative shoe dropped as The Wall Street Journal announced "Japan's Rakuten to Acquire Buy.com" earlier today.  Buy.com's "But It Now" price was a manageable "$250 million."

Here are some things you can look for while you watch this news rapidly spreading around the eBay blog-sphere.

1)  How long it takes eBay to respond.

When eBay does a hot roll out, their press release hits the stands at the same time the news hits the wires.  When eBay is caught off guard, there is a time lag between the wire news and their response.  You can measure the level of surprise at the corporate level, by the amount of time it takes eBay Corporate to officially respond.

When Rakuten Inc, "the top e-commerce site in Japan" says:

• ""We feel it has a great strategic fit with our global expansion," said Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO of Tokyo-based Rakuten. "Our goal is to become the number one e-commerce company and Internet company in the world.""

There had better be a good response from eBay Inc.

Incidentally Rakuten Inc plans a joint venture with Baidu Inc.  The same China search engine that eBay is partnered with.

2)  How long it takes Amazon to respond.

When Rakuten Inc says:

• ""We believe that we have a very different business model from Amazon and eBay. We empower the merchants""
  

Expect an interesting response from Amazon.

3)  What will Randy Smythe say?

Well known business savvy eBay fixture Randy Smythe currently works as "Merchant Evangelist" of the "third-party merchant program" at Buy.com.  With Rakuten Inc stating "We empower the merchants" perhaps Mr. Smythe had a hand in the acquisition.

We doubt he was an innocent bystander in this deal.  Any comments he is allowed to make will be fascinating.

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"Just my 15%."
Randy Smythe

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The Consequences of Being Attached to eBay's Hip

The Consequences of Being Attached to eBay's Hip
17 May 2010
EventHorizon1984

Like many on line journals, for example (shameless SEO linking) TheBrewsNews, Red Ink Diary, GrannyGoodPaints Place, as a friend put it, we write 'for the halibut.'  Unlike other sites, there is no pressing need to gather an audience solely to hawk expensive services to eBay sellers. 

We bring this up because something we can neither confirm nor deny dropped on our virtual desk.  That tidbit brought up the question, 'what happens when the audience of a blog changes?'

The obvious answer:  the blog is read by fewer people.

If you write without regard to generating income, you'll continue to write something.  If you're dependent on the revenue generated through ads and hawking services based on an eBay centric audience, you have choices.

1.  Denial.  Nothing will change, continue as always.

"The old Ebay was sitting in people’s attics. The new Ebay is sitting in warehouses”
Lorrie Norrington, eBay INC

eBay will be around a long time.  But eBay's focus will move from small sellers to warehouse/volume sellers.  The focus of the newest eBay sellers is less toward folksy generic advice, and more toward receiving hard core business services.  Five years ago there was good revenue from giving general starter advice to people unfamiliar with the Internet.  Today people are more Internet aware, and through searches can get that expensive advice for free.

The fresh new unaware sellers will still be out there, but their numbers will continue to shrink.  Conversely the number of blogs providing advice and services will continue to mushroom.  To spell it out, more businesses for fewer customers.

2.  Expand your focus.  Multi-channel is good.

EBay Buys Skype for $2.6 Billion (2005)
Sold! eBay jettisons Skype in $2 billion deal (2009)

Multi-channel has benefits.  When executed properly it's a good move, like eBay centric (" eBay is an investor in ChannelAdvisor") Scot Wingo (ChannelAdvisor CEO) indirectly hawking  ChannelAdvisor Amazon services.  But as seen above there are risks involved.  For a revenue generating blog, perceived fallibility can translate to loss of face and loss of income. 

From a potential customer viewpoint, a business that makes mistakes of it's own choosing, might not be a good place to get advice or services.

3.  Do something else.  Change is good.

"You can't change people."
John Donahoe, eBay INC

Suppose one were a mystery writer, decided 'change is good', and kill off your most famous character.  It worked for Arthur Conan Doyle, right?

• "Public outcry, however, led Conan Doyle to bring the character back"

When a blog depends on advertising income, it's a very bad idea to alienate readers.  And in the process alienate the blog's revenue stream advertisers, who want to reach those readers.

In the aforementioned example said 'mystery writer' created a new character, but remained a mystery writer.  When you are essentially a 'business writer' and your revenue blog is eBay centric, what do you change to?

Join the parade of a million articles and books giving general business advice?

4.  Retire.

Most here are partial to number 4.

We expect to see many blog retirements over the next two years.

Disclosure:  Ad revenue affords one of us the occasional cup of coffee.  <sip>  Thank you.

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"It takes time, Doctor, but eventually you get there."
The Master, Doctor Who

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eBay v Amazon 1st Quarter 2010

eBay v Amazon 1st Quarter 2010
22 April 2010
EventHorizon1984

eBay

During Meg Whitman's term as eBay CEO, Jeetil Patel of Deutsche Bank AG posted an October 2007 "sell" rating on eBay.  A daring call given eBay's stock rose to 39.66 by 1 October 2007.

John Donahoe became eBay CEO on 31 March 2008.  At the close of that last day of the 1st Quarter, eBay stock stood at 29.84.   By 4 April 2010 eBay stock rose to 32.94. 

Move forward two years, and on 31 March 2010 eBay stock was priced at 26.97.  Down 18% from 31 March 2008.

A bit over two years later and a day after eBay's 1st Quarter 2010 Earnings Call, eBay stock stands at 24.78. With an average daily volume of 16.4 million shares, 55.6 million shares were traded.

The Zacks article eBay Grows, Sans Skype gives a detailed break down of eBay's 1st Quarter numbers.  They describe it as "a solid balance sheet", but end with "We have a Neutral rating on eBay shares."

eBay's "Gross revenue of $2.20 billion was down 7.4% sequentially and up 8.7% year over year."

Amazon

Interestingly the stock of eBay's competitor Amazon sat at 76.87 on 31 March 2008, and 135.77 on 31 March 2010.  Up 76% from 31 March 2008. 

On the day of Amazon's Earnings Call, Amazon stock stood at 150.09.  Average daily volume of 9.2 million shares with 13.6 million shares traded.

According to John Paczkowski's article "Amazon Profits Surge", Amazon's "Revenue grew 46 percent to $7.13 billion."

eBay v Amazon

At this point we're thinking the classic quote,

"I'm laughing at the superior intellect",

applies.

[Jeff Bezos photo from Digital Daily - Amazon Profits Surge]

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"I know you're in there, you're just out of sight"
Al Stewart and Peter White, Time Passages (1978)

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2010 The Year Everything Changed

2010 The Year Everything Changed
28 December 2009
EventHorizon1984

Toward the end of the year 1984 there was a memorable scene in a movie that ended shortly after HAL 9000 forwarded the message to Dr. Heywood Floyd, "It is important that you believe me.  Look behind you.".  The changing facial expression and slow steady movement of Roy Scheider (Dr. Floyd) was as memorable and priceless as another scene which ended with "You're going to need a bigger boat."

An interesting portrayal of alarm, apprehension, surprise, and wonder.  All happening while moving forward in time, but looking back.

Here near the end of the year 2009, humans do a similar performance.  In the race toward the New Year we see the hopeful possibilities and the horrific ones, and at the same time look back over the year soon to be gone.

While this little parable is aimed at the 'small' sellers on Amazon, eBay, eCRATER, and other notable venues, this is applicable to anyone.

There was a dramatic pause in the 2010 and Jaws scenes, and a certain amount of fear involved with Roy Scheider's characters.  But he didn't freeze.  When the momentous occurred, he moved.  Perhaps slowly and methodically, and with much uncertainty, but he moved.

Too often we look over the recent past and possible futures, and freeze into inaction.  Past and future dread taking hold, and bringing forward progress to a stand still.

Don't let that happen. 

Easy to say and hard to do.  Of course.  But do you really want to be remembered as 2009 road kill?

Our take on this yearly event?  If you have any sense of grammar, you'll note the tense of the title.  It's written as though 2010 was a past event.

The year 2010 will be known as memorable.

//

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."

Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities (1859)

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There was a bit of Peace and Quiet Online

There was a bit of Peace and Quiet Online
14 December 2009
EventHorizon1984

Unlike Christmas seasons past, this year we were expecting some major down time.  A bit of relaxation before the rush of post-Christmas and Tax return season selling.  Among other things.

< unabashed plugs follow >

Save for the Craigslist v. eBay trial, eBay INC has been unnaturally quiet.  To the point that our previous blog post was November 21st.  Where one of our favorite stops TheBrewsNews, has been equally dormant since November 23rd.

There was time enough at last to enjoy the Christmas posts at Grannygoodpaints Place and Red Ink Diary.

Up until last week.

< cue music >  "Write about us."

Let's say it got unnaturally busy online at Amazon, the web sites, and elsewhere.  And while it was expectedly dead on eBay (see first paragraph for why), John Donahoe's policies did do some unexpected good.  There were some people coming from eBay, looking for us and our niche associates.

But here it is a new week, and we're back to expecting a little peace and quiet. 

Like that will last.

If you're a small online business, hope this portends you're much busier than we are.

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"Wouldn't it be nice if, once in a while, everyone would just shut up and stop pestering you?  Wouldn't it be great to have the time to finish a thought or spin a day dream?  To think out loud without being required to explain exactly what you meant?  If you had the power, would you dare to use it, even knowing that silence may have voices of its own ......

in the Twilight Zone?"
A Little Peace and Quiet (1955)

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Backstabbing 101 - Buy.com and Amazon Halloween Slicing of eBay?

Backstabbing 101 - Buy.com and Amazon Halloween Slicing of eBay?
30 October 2009
EventHorizon1984

With Buy.com an eBay partner, one might believe there is absolute loyalty extruding from Buy.com toward eBay.  Total absolute support of eBay owned PayPal by Buy.com on it's site, being one show of a tight partnership.

On the other hand tomorrow is Halloween.  Cue slasher background music.

Buy.com teams with Amazon in taking online payments

Buy.com on Thursday began offering “Checkout by Amazon” and “Amazon PayPhrase” that allows its customers use their Amazon accounts to pay bills.

Looks like a case of hurting the one you love.

Or is that Money Conquers All?

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"You traitorous, disloyal, you stab me in the back the first chance you get?"
James T. Kirk, Star Trek

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From eBay Stores Forum - What Business Week thinks of eBay's future

eBay censored the thread below.  We present page one in its entirety.

And we would appreciate a full copy of page two.

//

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=520080464&tstart=0&mod=1232966787980

What Business Week thinks of eBay's future
moondancefarm  (7666 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 14:08 PST
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2009/tc20090121_143541.htm

Previous   1 | 2   Next See last post

45 replies		Date posted	Reply #
rockinghorsegirl4now  (2764 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 14:25 PST	1 of 45
Ebay just doesn't get it. Ebay wants to copy Amazon but the world already has an Amazon. Why Ebay wants to be a second Amazon is beyond me. Ebay needs to get back to being Ebay---the best site of its kind instead of being a second-rate Amazon wannabe.
designforyou  (1682 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 14:27 PST	2 of 45
Interesting article. Exec's did not take seller need's into consideration when making all the changes with feedback, DSR's, and higher fees. It would seem sellers have spoken by taking their merchandise elsewhere. E-Bay simply did not want to recognize sellers needs in order to sell here. A failure to understand their customer/seller market, higher fees and poor customer service all contributed to the downfall. Focusing exclusively on buyer's wants at the expense of sellers was and is one of the biggest mistakes e-Bay made in 2008, along with making paypal mandatory with no other payment options to be listed. Why Donahoe would not understand the downfall in profits says quite a bit about where his head is at. If Amazon showed a profit in a poor economy, there is absolutely no reason for E-Bay to blame the economy. E-bay pushed sellers out, some bad deserved to go but many good decent sellers left along with them.
too_toot  (1450 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 14:28 PST	3 of 45
Interesting article - especially the stats, but it doesn't shed any new light on what us long time sellers and buyers didn't know already about eBay's demise. I think eBay has to reverse the changes of the last 2 to 3 years by going back to the basics. Essentially what made it special when Pierre Omidyar invented it. It needs to court sellers of one-off, unique, collectible, crafters, antiques, etc. It will never be successful as a large box fixed price venue as the current retail market has moved on. The current economic climate only reinforces this. For me at least, eBay's fate is sealed with the current business model in place.
slackergirl23  (0 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 14:37 PST	4 of 45
It needs to court sellers of one-off, unique, collectible, crafters, antiques, etc. Why? those people have etsy. The internet is not what it was 10 years ago, ebay can never be ebay 1999 again. there are billions of websites now & many that are better than ebay. No one can undo the internet & how people shop to fix ebay. It just cannot happen. Just use what you can of ebay until it ceases to work as a tool for your business.
jake-deals-4u  (968 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 14:40 PST	5 of 45
It needs to court sellers of one-off, unique, collectible, crafters, antiques, etc Interesting, as i sell mostly in 3 of the 4 cats you mentioned & have a lifetime STR of 95%+ on the 1st listing on eBay. Doesnt eBay repeatedly tell sellers to list hard to finds & DEALS here for their best chance for sucess? Fascinating that those articles never ever mention what it takes to Suceed, or even mention what eBay repeatedly tells sellers what to do for best results. Why is that?
maxequations  (3914 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:05 PST	6 of 45
I agree that the internet has changed and there are many more venues to sell versus Ebay's hay day. But you also have to admit that in the past decade ebay has done nothing but change in ways that hastened what seems to be their own self destruction. Since the introduction of Buy It Now until today Ebay has been running in circles trying to figure out what it wants to be when it grows up. In the meantime many sellers who years ago only sold here started selling in multiple locations and then went into their own web sites. And with them went THEIR customers. What will happen going foward? I really dont know. We have the lowest amount of listings here is the 8 plus years we have been selling online. We have new Spring foward listings in all locations except here. We are in a wait and see mode and when ebay gets around to saying what changes are in store for 2009 we shall stop and see what they mean to our plans and decide how we wish to proceed. Gary
that..one  (Private ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:13 PST	7 of 45
Doesn't everyone think its neat how day after day after day, a group of for the most part totally unsuccessful sellers, rehash all the things ebay is doing wrong and what they should do to make everything work great ??? That is when they can't even make a decent living off trying to sell a few hundred or less items themselves? I know I do.
maxequations  (3914 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:16 PST	8 of 45
No but I do find in interesting how the "bravest" succesful sellers hide behing posting ID's so nobody can challenge their "success" here Gary
too_toot  (1450 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:19 PST	9 of 45
Bargainhunting never goes out of style. In fact, today it may be the only style. I'm a manufacturer, b&m retailer and have several business websites for selling and sell with many different sites (etsy, too by the way). My business that comes from eBay has declined steadily while other sites have picked up the slack. EBay sadly has made it too expensive to sell here and I won't use eBay as a loss leader (occasionally I do if I can drive them elsewhere). The truth is, eBay has the volume in users and listing numbers. It is and still is the tops for the areas I mentioned in my previous post that big box sites just can't do.
rockinghorsegirl4now  (2764 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:24 PST	10 of 45
I'm mainly a buyer now so I can have my say. Maybe buyers are just fed up with the glut of products from China and millions of listings by Diamond sellers. It's hard to cut through all that to find what you really want. I also think when the sellers leave, they take their buying someplace else, plus we lose those buyers who bought from those sellers.
turtlegaby  (8889 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:26 PST	11 of 45
Max you might find this interesting. http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?messageID=521686382&forumID=21&x#521686382 Look for post #19 >>Visit my Tortie blog<< Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
turtlegaby  (8889 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:29 PST	12 of 45
It's our lovely tanjastore, the one that joggles between NARU'd and private ID's. I'm very impressed that..one >>Visit my Tortie blog<< Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
maxequations  (3914 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:44 PST	13 of 45
Thanks Turtle, it happens all the time. It is like the Secret Society of Successful Sellers. Too-Toot, we produce all we sell and the only difference is we have no B/M Store. In 2008 we had double didgit increase in total sales and ebay dropped 2 times that in the falling over 30%. I also think when the sellers leave, they take their buying someplace else, plus we lose those buyers who bought from those sellers. Rockinghorsegirl- there is the big issue and ebay will never understand. My wifes hairdresser left to go to another shop. My wife followed. So did her $$ for nails, products and some clothes and accessories as she just does not go to shop A anymore, she goes to shop B. During our 2 years on the Moon we have had more then a few customers email and tell us they found this and they found that there and before we told them we were moving they had no idea the moon existed Gary
mygift2u  (9489 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 15:57 PST	14 of 45
There was and still is a simple solution to Donohue's woes. ... he just needs to listen to the customer. He will figure out what to do once he figures out who the true customer is!!!!!!!!!! It seems all Sellers are aware of who the customer is. I pay ebay much more per month than they get from any one of MY customers.
dazzlecity  (7924 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 16:13 PST	15 of 45
There are several issues with that thread Donahoe has redoubled efforts to cut eBay's dependence on auctions I find that one hard to swallow - if "redoubling" means raising fees from 3 cents to 35 cents In short, management has tried to make eBay more like online retailing stalwart Amazon.com If this was true - ebay would not be hiding millions of fixed price listings in stores At eBay, the core online shopping business suffered a double-digit drop in revenue, down 16%, So you want to be like Amazon? Bring stores out of the closet - give the buyers an opportunity to find the product. He has addressed making the site easier to navigate and making transactions more secure. Don't even know what to say here - making the site easier to navigate - not sure too many would say that was true Those people who are "cleaning out their closet and selling what they find online" are migrating to Craigslist, he says, because "you don't have to deal with the complexity of fees." not sure how much ebay is actually effected by this - I think somewhat but not overall - I think more of the problem is as many have stated - ebay under-estimated just exactly how much buying power "Seller's" really had here - while they were so busy alienating a large majority of sellers with their silly game playing they were also killing of much of the Golden Goose.
rickskatie  (2793 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 17:08 PST	16 of 45
Great read. Thanks for posting.
appliancecoverqueen  (221 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 17:31 PST	17 of 45
If eBay insists on becoming eBamazon then perhaps they can start a sideline site called "eBay Classic" and go back to the old eBay back when it was fun and profitable. . Judy@ApplianceCoverQueen
rickskatie  (2793 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 17:46 PST	18 of 45
I'm afraid they are looking to make eBay into a tax write-off for the rest of their investments such as Pay Pal...whch means they will continue to implement changes that are assured of losing money. Kind of like the oil companies that were allegedly caught in the early 80s purposefully drilling "off strike," meaning they were apparently drilling for oil but purposefully missing the deposits to drive prices up. I think eBay is playng the same game.
tokyodays  (5877 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 19:30 PST	19 of 45
Ah, ebay...I hardly knew ya... Well, despite it all, my own eBay biz is still doing quite adequately for my needs...though it doesn't in any way allow me to continue to trust that I'll be able to rely on eBay in the months to come. Sales for me are good--primarily because (I think) of my pricing and my diversity of items...all comics-related collectibles. I wouldn't hitch my future to selling in one single category of comics (say...only silver age vintage comics) than I would rely just on eBay to be a solitary income source. People buy comics from me that date from the 40s through to just last week. Having a variety of items is extremely important--there are dealers who are strict superhero fans who would never buy a Little Lulu or a western comic, whereas I've come to (duh) realize that while I may not like certain kids comics or western comics, it doesn't really matter what I like--it's what the customer wants. So...if I cater to customer needs and give good customer service, I'll continue to do OK here on eBay despite their insidious idiocy and pulmonary-inducing policies. It may not last forever here, but while folks bail from eBay, it only leaves me a stronger seller here on eBay in my category...unless of course, fewer and fewer people come to ebay. But that's why I have begun diversifying to other selling venues. http://www.chrisjuricich.com/eBay_pics/apic.JPG
dazzlecity  (7924 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-24-09 23:50 PST	20 of 45
Tokyo - great point - even in my catagory - when searching before listing now I'm constantly amazed at the lack of inventory in specific themes - as the gene pool decreases the size of the pie increases
chopsueysisters  (2865 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 03:14 PST	21 of 45
well if there was ever a time to riot and start bringing up areas that they failed which could of added revenue, now's the time to start blogging and calling! The one time they ever show a decline where you might get the ears of people. it's the only chance you'll get, so if you plan to go for the jugular, now's the time to finish him. but it has to be out there, not here under the anticache clouds lol Ain't no mountain high enough Ain't no valley low enough Ain't no river wide enough
mygift2u  (9489 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 04:13 PST	22 of 45
Totally agree with Chop, Dazzle, ApplianceQueen, and others. Chop has a great point. The Board may force him to listen to us where he wants to or not. p.s. The feedback/DSR system has not helped with this either. Bring back Seller's ability to leave APPROPRIATE feedback to Buyers. That would include giving them a negative when warranted. I also think eBay is toying with our DSR scores again. For the past week (and I check my Dashboard several times a day, my 30/30 day and my 30day/12mo scores have been EXACTLY the same. There is no way this would be correct.
cjbeez  (9773 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 04:31 PST	23 of 45
Those people who are "cleaning out their closet and selling what they find online" are migrating to Craigslist, he says, because "you don't have to deal with the complexity of fees." Sure would be nice if ebay lowered fees for a change in 2009.
honeville1  (4130 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 04:32 PST	24 of 45
Chop... The only chance we'll get??? Naw.. unfortunately I think we'll have at least 4 chances this year alone! 1st qrtr results, 2nd qrtr results, 3rd qrtr results AND 4th Qrtr results. I'd be happy to be proved wrong on this one though!
cjbeez  (9773 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 05:17 PST	25 of 45
just keep watching ebay stock... Current Price: $12.00 Last Trade Time: 1/23/2009 4:00 PM Open: $11.43 Previous Close: $11.67 Daily Range: $11.33 - $12.15 52-Week Range: $10.91 - $33.47 Volume: 19,910,763 Market Cap: $16.96B P/E Ratio: 9.69
chopsueysisters  (2865 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 11:42 PST	26 of 45
yes Honie, its the only chance we get because not just ebays results but meg wants to be governor, she wont want us bringback up what she put in place before she bailed the economy is melting, everyone is talking about small businesses, the workin class etc. there are grass roots efforts all over the place getting press and we also have this, the numbers of sellers "supposedly" is most of 1.3 million sellers and supposedly "most of those" are AMERICANS making all or most of the income on ebay. Now I dont necessarily believe those numbers, but if politicians, presidential candidates and Meg Whitman want to use it, then lets use their own words against them. Half of that number is 650,000 US sellers all you really need to start it is to tie it into an economic issue and a political one. For some reason Republicans and Democrats are basically fighting right now on the working class and the working poor. Congressmen are actually calling people back. So what I'm getting at Honie, is that right now it's a perfect storm, that won't have the same amount of bite if you wait a quarter. Besides the scrutiny of JDs performance, 52% of small biz are home based businesses. Ebay sellers make up all minorities and all ages. You have women, seniors supplementing their incomes, veterans, disbled, parents who can't afford day care, caregivers who are taking care of parents. THe makeup of ebay sellers represents everything that right now all those politicians are afraid to shut out. No one wants to hear from corporations, no one wants to hear from those corporations pushing for more H-1B visas and in regards to paypl, no one wants to hear about an unregulated financial service or bank that could tie up over half a million small businesses money! Even a slice of 650,000 people represent votes that Republicans need to get back their position. Just about every single republican right now has updated their websites and started being web 2.0! they're looking for a in, with the working class, because they know they've disconnected w/people and are going to have a miserable 4 years Ain't no mountain high enough Ain't no valley low enough Ain't no river wide enough
the-woodland-girl  (Private ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 15:43 PST	27 of 45
I dont think fees have anything to do with it. Amazon is more expensive than ebay and you dont even get paid weekly. They dont pay you but 2 times a month, that isnt that great. The reason ebay is failing is because it gave its sellers a slap in the face with horrid match and get yourself blasted DSR's. The sellers in return slapped back and left. That is the whole problem right there. Those sellers flocked to Amazon and helped build up Amazons empire. Sellers are the number one most important thing, not the buyer. With out sellers, unless ebay is going to start stocking its own merch, it will fall out of favor.
dr_hair_products  (1707 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 16:36 PST	28 of 45
The reason ebay is failing is because it gave its sellers a slap in the face with horrid match and get yourself blasted DSR's. The sellers in return slapped back and left. There you go... Corporate executives don't know squat. The Woodland Girl sums it up in 1 paragraph and 1 sentance.
slackergirl23  (0 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 16:46 PST	29 of 45
I dont think fees have anything to do with it. Amazon is more expensive than ebay and you dont even get paid weekly. They dont pay you but 2 times a month, that isnt that great. From a buyers point of view is much faster to shop there too. You can see all the sellers on one page & it's a 2 click order process. I'm just not going to spend 10 minutes picking out the seller/product for a $15 book. I can go there & do the same thing in 30 seconds. Ebay is the most cumbersome shopping site on the net.
oregon-grown  (538 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 16:50 PST	30 of 45
E-bay can go back to what it was in 97 if they will go back. It has to many big wigs grabbing the million dollar fringes. Like the banks etc that stole the first 350 million no one really knows how that was spent. Just look at all the big wigs walking off with the millions up there ya think donahue diserves a bonus he gets a big fat one. Guess if the stock holders care less then nothing will ever be done. Always thought a bonus was supose to be deterened by how you did his he should be fired.
moondancefarm  (7666 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 16:57 PST	31 of 45
To me the dumbest thing eBay management has ever done (and they have done some real doozies) is hiding store listings. Can you see Walmart keeping product in the back of the store that you can only have access to if you know the secret handshake?
oregon-grown  (538 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 16:57 PST	32 of 45
You know rocking horse I collect stamps I was buying around $500.00 amonth here. All my great sellers are gone so I folled them no money here on stamps. All on their web sites I sell under 4 names here well 1 now. I spend very little here now.
slackergirl23  (0 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 18:18 PST	33 of 45
E-bay can go back to what it was in 97 if they will go back. In 1997 there were not that many sites to find odd items, websites were expensive & complicated to start & the web was newer. Even if ebay went back to "ebay 1997" the customers, sellers & internet would Not. I don't have hours to spend cruising ebay like I did then, nor do I want to. I don't even search ebay, I use google to find everything now.
dazzlecity  (7924 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 18:43 PST	34 of 45
To me the dumbest thing eBay management has ever done (and they have done some real doozies) is hiding store listings. Can you see Walmart keeping product in the back of the store that you can only have access to if you know the secret handshake? Badabing! absolutely correct Even if ebay went back to "ebay 1997" the customers, sellers & internet would Not. I don't have hours to spend cruising ebay like I did then, nor do I want to. I don't even search ebay, I use google to find everything now. Absolutely correct as well and ebay just can't figure out how to get it together now
diesel_parts  (1818 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 18:57 PST	35 of 45
I have reestablished myself on my websites and plan to stay there. No reason to return to ebay and endure the abuse from management. The turning point for me was when they made us take cash out of out listngs. I took all of mine out then some turned up again with cash in the description. Guy from ebay phoned me and told me if they found another cash reference in one of my listings they would wipe out my store and bar me from ebay. I immediately set up an oscommerece website and started my move. My move is now complete. I have 2 oscommerce sites and don't have plans for anything else as they are doing fine and I have control of them. I have never in my life witnessed so many bone head business decisions as ebay has made. I don't think they have a clue as to how to fix all the mess that they have caused. billphil.
itspostingtime  (2 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 19:08 PST	36 of 45
ebay's future? Well, there's no way to predict it, of course. Just this past year we watched once invulnerable companies collapse, so guessing the future is just that...a guess. Here's my guess: This guess assumes---just for the sake of argument--- that ebay makes it through the transition and the recession and remains a major ecommerce site (as opposed to becoming , say, a niche auction site of some sort) I think ebay's business model will resemble the original core/ebay store model. As I've explained many times before, ebay stores were designed as upselling vehicles. Sellers were expected to put fast moving merchandise in core, which would drive buyers to the slower moving merchandise in the store. That merchandise was not supposed to show up in core...core was reserved for faster moving merchandise. What I see is a variation of that, except that sellers will be encouraged to list fast moving merchandise on ebay and upsell to their own sites. This, of course, is what some sellers are already doing. This would utilize what has always been eBay's greatest benefit for most businesses: quick turnover and cash flow generation. Turnover on ebay has been mostly a function of the auction format, but now, with Best Match and 30FPs, it is also being applied to more and more fixed price merchandise as well. As hone has shown with his very smart ad/Best Match strategy, gaining---and keeping--- a top spot in search (impossible back when default search was ending soonest) can drive sales in much the same way the Buy Box drives them on Amazon. Some things wouldn't change very much. I think ebay would probably continue to enter into contracts with certain sellers , primarily to ensure a steady supply of certain types of merchandise. In fact, I could see these contractual arrangements being expanded to include smaller specialty sellers as well...an antiques dealer with a strong niche---say, sterling silver---might enter into a contract which would obligate him to maintain a certain level of inventory on ebay (and a certain level of quality etc). ebay would still generate revenue from sponsored ads, but there wouldn't be objections as there are today, because most sellers using ebay would not see themselves as "ebay sellers"....they'd see themselves as ecommerce sellers whose primary location is off-ebay, and who use ebay to gain customers (ads) and upsell (using listings). Of course, there would still be feedback, at least for sellers, and there would still be rules. But there would be fewer objections.....since most sellers would be set up off ebay, let's face it, they'd already have return policies, they'd already have stated shipping and so forth. (Only on eBay as it exists today are you going to find sellers objecting to the very things that almost every off-ebay seller considers a basic part of their business , such as a clearly stated return policy) This would also reduce a major objection of some PESA type sellers (and former sellers): that selling on ebay generates cash flow, but not enough actual profit. The new business model assumes the seller's primary location if off ebay. ebay as a COMPONENT of a business, one designed primarily to generate cash flow, is very different from ebay as a the sole element of the business. Just as many retailers use certain merchandise primarily as cash flow generators and other merchandise to increase margins, sellers would be able to use ebay to generate cash flow as part of an overall business strategy. Ad revenue would grow as a proportion of ebay's site revenue, thus reducing reliance on listing fees, which could be reduced. At the same time, both the structure of the model and Best Match would ultimately reduce the likelihood of sellers listing items with little chance of selling....as more sellers understand the site dynamics, they would begin listing faster moving merchandise , increasing successful turnover, and ebay would then be positioned to reduce FVFs. What about the small antiques and collectibles seller in all this? Well, instead of complaining that their slow moving merchandise isn't selling because it is hidden, they would understand that their slow moving merchandise isn't hidden, it's on their own site off-ebay (perhaps ebay would also make a hybrid of ebay store/ProStores available for sellers who don't want to set up their own site....but it would be understood that the merchandise is not searchable on eBay) Once sellers understand that ebay is not hiding their merchandise, they can select the stuff to list here to generate cash flow and to upsell to their off-ebay store. Since auctions are basically ending soonest, they'd get good exposure, and---this would be a big advantage---with antique sellers being more selective about what they list, supply will no longer exceed demand as often as it does now....thus generating better sell-through and higher prices. By actively encouraging sellers to upsell to their own sites, ebay would also be encouraging sellers to link to, say, their off-ebay blogs as well....so buyers would not only find neat stuff here, but they would find links to informative sites as well. At the same time, ebay would continue to manage the site and add new tools....finally actually pushing great buyer tools such as ebay Desktop, for example, to generate more sales. And of course, sellers would have more access to third party tools to help them more easily manage the ebay component of their businesses. ebay was a pioneer in really opening its business to third party developers, and I think ebay has seen the benefit of that. In a sense, what I'm suggesting is just an extension of that philosophy.... Of course, in order to make this happen, ebay has to make changes to the site, some of which are apparently scheduled for 2009 (at long last, a shopping cart, an immediate payment system to do away with NPB claims, and so forth.) The site has to function---from a buyer perspective---like the large majority of online shopping sites....easy checkout for multiple purchases, no hidden fees, plainly stated return policies, etc. It also has to be easier for sellers to manage as a part of an overall business (thus the modularity of My ebay, which is designed for customization by third party developers) How would this help ebay compete with other sites? Well, first, let's be clear....in one sense, ebay competes with, say, Wal-Mart, but in another sense, ebay doesn't compete with Wal-Mart....some ebay sellers do, but ebay doesn't. If those ebay sellers can compete more effectively by using ebay to generate cash flow, then both ebay and the seller win. Amazon is usually described by the media as eBay's chief competitor, perhaps because Amazon, unlike Wal-Mart, also competes for sellers. This strategy would dramatically alter the dynamic. Currently, Amazon does offer sellers the opportunity to generate cash flow and profit from the site. But Amazon keeps very tight rein on the seller's ability to market his business to Amazon buyers...as a number of commentators have stated, Amazon owns the buyer, the seller merely supplies the merchandise. eBay shares the buyer with ebay sellers, and, if my suggestion is followed, this would increase the seller's ability to use ebay to build his own business, as opposed to on Amazon, where he may make money but he primarily is building Amazon's business. In short, sellers would have a huge new incentive to sell here. How would this effect the so-called alternative sites, sites like ecrater? Those sites would have to improve as they work to provide homebases for sellers. As it is, many , maybe most, of the sellers on those sites already depend heavily on some combination of Google and ebay to drive traffic to their shop....if ebay actually makes it easier to use ebay to upsell, many sellers are going to ask themselves: Yes, the site is free and it sands my stuff to GoogleBase, but is it really a full fledged ecommerce solution? Wouldn't I be better off with a store that can be fully customized, has automated newsletters, etc. Of course, some smaller sellers will be perfectly happy with sites like ecrater.....but others will look to sites that better integrate with ebay and that provide more functionality. There would probably be some winners and losers as among the alternative sites , but the real winner would be sellers, because the sites would really have to start playing their A game as they become much more competitive with each other. What about the casual seller? Scott Wingo suggests that ebay is losing casual sellers to sites like Craigslist. Probably true. I think Wingo says this is (in part) because ebay is too complex. But the simple listing form isn't complex at all. And look where ebay is headed: easier checkout, immediate payment, so no NPBs for a casual seller to deal with, buyers MyeBay will automatically notify them when an item is sent, one less step for the casual seller....in short, right now ebay seems complex because we are in a period of change. But once all the changes are in place, ebay will actually be easier for buyers and sellers.
itspostingtime  (2 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 19:21 PST	37 of 45
moondance, Can you see Walmart keeping product in the back of the store that you can only have access to if you know the secret handshake? Your comparison misses the point. Wal-Mart is a retailer. As such, Wal-Mart ONLY puts stuff on display that Wal-Mart CHOOSES to buy from the wholesaler in the first place. Plenty of stuff is NEVER shown on Wal-Mart's shelves because Wal-Mart turns it down BEFORE it can get near the shelves. And every big retailer will pull stuff from the shelves if it isn't meeting earn/turn standards. That stuff gets put on sale or gets dumped onto Overstock or somewhere like that. Retailers are ruthless about that sort of thing. There's even a shelf heirarchy. At places like Wal-Mart, choosing which item is put on the eye-level shelf and which is put on the bottom shelf, or which item is put up front by the register....it's a science, and it's based on sales and profitability, not on some notion that every item should be given equal visibility.
itspostingtime  (2 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 20:18 PST	38 of 45
I also want to say that I think there is a big misconception about "ending soonest" as the original default on eBay. Some sellers think it was to ensure a "level playing field"....ie, every item had a chance to get to the top of the list. Sorry, but that's pure hokum. "ending soonest" was the default for one reason: because ebay was originally an all auction site, and "ending soonest" was designed to DRIVE SALES VELOCITY. The assumption being that a buyer who is searching for an item sees that an auction is ending within minutes and the buyer feels pressure to bid right now or lose his chance at the item. As a Sales velocity driver for auctions, it worked very well indeed. But it had nothing to do with providing "equal exposure" It's purpose on an all-auction site was the same as the purpose of Best Match on a site with fixed price merchandise: to increase sales velocity. Neither default is about "equal exposure" they are BOTH about sales velocity. What we have now is a search that is designed to increase fixed price sales velocity through Best Match, and within Best Match, ending soonest is given greatest weight for auction listings, with sales velocity again the goal.
dazzlecity  (7924 ) View Listings | Report		Jan-25-09 20:28 PST	39 of 45
Wal-Mart is a retailer. As such, Wal-Mart ONLY puts stuff on display that Wal-Mart CHOOSES to buy from the wholesaler in the first place. And what exactly do you feel most of us are trying to do anyway? And I've been in retail for 32 years - I know my craft - I know my customer - just make my product available for viewing at least and let me take my chances ok?

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eBay News - 20 August 2008

Busy news day as eBay steamrolls out changes.

20 August 2008

Article excerpts. Follow links for full article.

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http://www.thestreet.com/_yahoo/newsanalysis/technet/10434072.html?cm_ven=YAHOO&cm_cat=FREE&cm_ite=NA

eBay's Fee Change May Flummox Buyers

Pia Sarkar

08/20/08 - 02:59 PM EDT

SAN FRANCISCO -- eBay(EBAY - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr) has cut fixed-price listing fees by 70% in an effort to entice more sellers to the site -- but there's no guarantee that the move will attract buyers.

Sellers will now be charged a flat rate of 35 cents to list an item on the site for 30 days instead of seven days. They will also be allowed to list multiple quantities of the same item for a one-time listing fee of 35 cents. Listing fees in media categories such as movies, music, games and books will be lowered to 15 cents.

...

eBay is also jiggering the commission it charges sellers when they close a sale. Most product categories -- like computers and electronics -- will see the fee go down, however, items like books and DVDs will see an increase.

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"Without changes to the searching technology at all, a fee change of this sort could be disastrous by flooding the site," says Brown, who has a sell rating on eBay.

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http://www.cnbc.com//id/26314989?__source=yahoo|headline|quote|text|&par=yahoo

Will eBay Users Buy the New Strategy Now?

Posted By:Jim Goldman

...

eBay

EBAY INC EBAY 24.96  -0.43  -1.69%  NASDAQ

Quote  |  Chart  |  News  |  Profile

[EBAY  24.96    -0.43  (-1.69%)   ]

announced new fee changes today, lowering the listing fee for the "Buy It Now" feature by a whopping 70 percent. Sellers can list an item for 30 days under the new plan, and it will cost them only 35 cents. The move is widely seen as a way eBay can encourage those sellers to use Buy It Now, with the hope that they'll engage in fixed-price selling instead of eBay's traditional auction method.

While the move might make it simpler for shoppers to conduct their transactions on eBay, it's yet another change for eBay listers, along with changes to the company's fee structure, feedback and search results in recent months.  Already frustrated sellers are once again subject to more changes at eBay that the company is convinced are good for the broader community at large, but some members of that community might think differently. Listings are down, and some sellers are on the wires today saying fewer of their items are selling, and those that are are selling for lower average prices.  And in fact, while eBay is dramatically lowering the listing fee for Buy It Now, it's increasing the final cut of the transaction it'll take to offset the listing fee reduction.  You can imagine how well that's going over with sellers.

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http://seekingalpha.com/article/91812-ebay-the-doldrum-years?source=yahoo

EBay: The Doldrum Years
Erick Schonfeld
August 20, 2008

Can anything put the wind back in eBay’s sails? The once-iconic auction site is making cosmetic changes to its fee structure and moving away from the auction model to emphasize more fixed-price listings. But it’s hard to get excited these days about eBay. It seems that the Web has moved on and eBay (EBAY) is stuck in still waters.

...

But now people are comfortable trawling the Net for the best bargains, and eBay is no longer the first place they go. Partly that is because eBay has done such a good job creating a semi-professional class of online sellers, that it is harder and harder to actually find bargains there. So online shoppers are going elsewhere.

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http://seekingalpha.com/article/91831-ebay-s-new-fixed-price-move-amazon-envy?source=yahoo

EBay's New Fixed-Price Move: Amazon Envy?
Larry Dignan
August 20, 2008

...

Let’s face it. This move by eBay is all about Amazon (AMZN). Amazon's fixed price structure is easier. And to be honest I have always viewed eBay as the shop of last resort (like when you can’t get your kid a hot toy because you procrastinated). I don’t have the time or inclination to monitor some auction. Give me a price and I’ll pay it or walk.

...

EBay in its statement noted that the fee reductions will set it up nicely for the holiday shopping season. The question, however, remains: Will consumers go to eBay to buy something over Amazon? Probably not.

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http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/08/20/ebays-new-changes-likely-to-irk-small-sellers/?mod=yahoo_hs

EBay’s New Changes Likely to Irk Small Sellers (Even More)
Posted by Kelly Spors
August 20, 2008, 2:18 pm

Small eBay sellers had hoped the auction site would address some of their gripes. And this morning, it did announce some changes — but they’re only likely to make some sellers angrier.

...

While the company is reducing some seller fees, it’s not addressing some of the core eBay seller gripes, as we laid out last week.

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http://www.forbes.com/2008/08/20/ebay-consumer-online-markets-equity-cx_cg_0820markets13.html?partner=yahootix

Ebay AimsTo Fix Growth
Carl Gutierrez, 08.20.08, 1:20 PM ET

Auction powerhouse Ebay is looking for growth through its fixed-price business, but it might be too late to catch up with Amazon.com.

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Ebay needs to reinvigorate growth. Ebay has been tinkering its vast Internet marketplace in hopes of turning around a troubling trend: its number of active users is barely rising. In the most recent quarter, the figure rose 1.4%, to 84.5 million.

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Wednesday's announcement wasn't well recieved by Ebay's sellers. Jonathan Garriss, executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance and head of Gotham City Online, which sells shoes on Ebay, said his group's members are seeing fewer of their listed items sell, and lower average prices for things that do sell.

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http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/ebay-cuts-deep-enough/story.aspx?guid={2857DEA9-2282-49A8-80D5-79D09719CA73}&siteid=yhoof

EBay's price cuts may not solve the problem
Commentary: Online auctioneer outgunned by Amazon's large infrastructure
By MarketWatch
Last update: 2:40 p.m. EDT Aug. 20, 2008

...

But it is unclear if simply slashing listing fees will help the company overcome the advantages possessed by its main rival -- Amazon.com.

On Wednesday, eBay (EBAY 24.96, -0.43, -1.7%) initiated a hefty price cut of more than 70% on listing fees of its "Buy it Now" items, and extended the length of time the items can remain for sale on the site. This follows similar moves earlier this year as the company works to tweak its prices to what it calls a "success-based" fee structure, meaning that most of its revenue will depend on the sale of an item, not merely its listing fee

...

Jim Friedland, a Cowen & Co. analyst, said that while he expects the fee changes to boost listings on eBay, the changes will not dramatically improve the company's competitive position. "Amazon offers a more compelling selling platform and buying experience," Friedland wrote. EBay is also facing competition from Google Inc. (GOOG 485.00, -5.50, -1.1%) , which allows sellers to post listings for free.

As eBay shifts more toward becoming a fixed-price site, it will become more like a standard online retailer, without the advantages. EBay's differentiator has always been its auction process and the unusual collectibles available on the site, and if that goes away, what's left to distinguish eBay from the rest of the online retailing pack?

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In fact the "demand for junk" began to wane not due to decrease in demand, but when eBay implemented IT's Best Match algorithm. Which hid collectibles and "junk".

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http://seekingalpha.com/article/91854-ebay-s-aim-at-amazon-off-target
EBay's Aim at Amazon: Off Target
by: Michael Shedlock posted on: August 20, 2008

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Demand For Junk Is Waning

It's no surprise, at least in this corner, that sales growth at eBay has slowed the most since 1998. After all, the Future Is Frugality. (And that future is Now).

Somehow eBay (EBAY) wants investors to think that it can slash fees and make up for it on the back end and/or by stealing market share from Amazon (AMZN). Is Amazon supposed to sit back and let this happen? Will lower fees even boost sales? I believe answer is no to both.

This is not the "gotta have it now" mentality of the past few years to say the least.

...

Insiders Bailing As Fast As Possible

Meg Whitman is bailing as fast as humanly possible.

 

Shareholders of eBay have lost money for three straight years, while insiders grant themselves massive amount of options, only to bail on the the second they acquire them. In one paired transaction on May 14-15 2008, Whitman made a cool $6+ million in a day.

Since January 2005, eBay has fallen from $59 to $25, a drop of 57.6%. Sadly, the stock is still massively over-priced given that it is neither a value play or a growth play. Worse yet for eBay is that consumer sentiment towards consumption has hit a secular peak. The bottom in sentiment is years, perhaps even a decade away.

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From ebay Stores Forum - Store Owner Survey - Is Everything OK?

For new newsgroup readers, these are not our forum posts. Any comments to the posters below should be made on the applicable thread, marked in bold below.

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From eBay Stores Forum
Store Owner Survey - Is Everything OK?
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=1000513528&tstart=0&mod=1182191824633

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fairly_dinkum  (6 )       Jun-18-07 09:27 PDT

I listened to the Town Hall on Saturday. The only question that had any impact for me concerned the Sponsored Links that show up underneath Active Listings. I'm talking about the row of text links with the header that reads, Sponsored Links.

I'm not talking about the box that included links to the Amazon site and other selling sites. The seller asking the question wasn't talking about them either. But, guess what? Mr Cobb answered about those ads. Said they were a mistake and were pulled last Monday.

Out of my pure pessimistic nature, I did a search to see if any Yahoo Sponsored Ads appeared. Guess what? Go ahead, guess! They were NOT showing up on Saturday either. I hadn't checked in a while, so maybe they'd pulled those last Monday, as well.

Today, they're back. Tell me that ain't just the slickest thing, EVAH. Hide your horedom when you're out in public, then when you're back home let the games begin, anew.

Many report they can't see 'em. Do this: Log out. Clear ALL cache, cookies, history...every dang thing in your browser. Reboot, if necessary. You absolutely have to get rid of any parasitic ebay-cookie that will identify you, and they are longer lasting and more ID-descriptive than they used to be!

Type www.ebay.com into your browser. Search for Pierre Cardin Watch. Scroll down below the active listings. Down below the ebay Express box. See 'em?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Second issue is an old one - I raised this concern last March. It involves every single store seller, but just like a lot of "issues", some can't see it. If you have a clean browser, from the above steps, maybe you'll see it.

Go to the Advanced Search screen. Under the heading, From Sellers, tick the circle for "From specific sellers (enter sellers' user IDs)". Type in a Store seller's ID (chopsueysisters is used for this example). Don't change anything else and click on Search. The page that opens will display all auctions, but only 30 store item links.

For the Chopsueysisters example, go to the bottom of the list of 30. See that "Showing 30 of 36 items" link. Click that link.

Did the page open to show all of Chopsueysisters' 36 Store items? Or did the page open to the Store's Portal?


.......................................

For some reason, I feel this post has a lifespan of minutes. I'd love to be wrong on that. I'd also love to read some replies, even if you don't see anything unusual.


"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown

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21 replies     Date posted     Reply #

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rickskatie  (1668 )      Jun-18-07 09:29 PDT     1 of

I'm not sure what Yahoo ads you are talking about but Yahoo auctions closed down forever on Father's Day.

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monkey*see*monkey*do  (Private )     Jun-18-07 09:35 PDT     2 of

            OP is talking about the sponsored ads that are ALL over the site.

Nothing to do with Yahoo auctions.
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fairly_dinkum  (6 )     Jun-18-07 10:09 PDT     3 of

            Thankie Monkey! I know I'm losing my mind, but thanks for confirming a part of it is still intact.





"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown .

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rickskatie  (1668 )     Jun-18-07 10:10 PDT     4 of

I can't find anything but eBay or Victoria's Secret ads. Maybe I'm not looking at the right pages?

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rickskatie  (1668 )    Jun-18-07 10:11 PDT     5 of

Never mind. I just noticed your graphic.

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rickskatie  (1668 )    Jun-18-07 10:12 PDT     6 of

Do we get a kick-back from the advertisers because our (paid for) listed items generated their sponsoered links?

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fairly_dinkum  (6 )      Jun-18-07 10:29 PDT     7 of

            Marty, you reading this? I searched for your items and that first page displays "Showing 30 of 446 items".

When I clicked on the "446 items" link, the page opened to the Stores Portal. NONE of your remaining 416 items are being shown. Please ask your contacts to fix this.

Why is this so important? Under the basic page layout, the left-side navigation box does NOT have an option to input a seller's ID. Even if the buyer is logged-in, but doesn't have that option enabled, there is...

No ability to search for a specific seller's items, except via the Advanced Search page.

This is NOT important if all buyers have that option set for their left-side navigation box.

This is NOT important if newbies to the site are not important.


"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown

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bhearsch  (302 )      Jun-18-07 10:32 PDT     8 of
            I believe the Amazon Marketplace ads have been removed but not the Yahoo Sponsored ads.

The following quote is from the eBay Town Hall Meeting held at eBay Live last Saturday:

http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m06/i18/s04
Donna Klein from Detroit complained about the sponsored links, embedded text advertising on the eBay website. "At the bottom of the page," she said, "you see "buy it on Amazon and Yahoo." What's up with this?"

Cobb said that had to do with eBay's relationship with Yahoo. There was a mistake made where people were starting to go off eBay onto the Amazon Marketplace

"It has been shut down," he said. "But Yahoo search - this is a test." He said it was a question of if a buyer can't find something, do we just have them exit or give them an opportunity to find something? "The jury is still out," he added. But "the number one priority is to drive transactions on the eBay marketplace."

Editor's Note: AuctionBytes confirmed that it is only the Amazon Marketplace ads that have been banned from eBay, the Yahoo sponsored links are set to appear as part of the advertising test.
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fairly_dinkum  (6 )      Jun-18-07 11:05 PDT     9 of

            Yeah, the mistake was, "where people were starting to go off eBay...". How dare people do such a thing?

IT's getting so you can't even have an active link without some dunderhead clicking on it. Pitiful.

The sponsored ads are only now appearing due to the current Finding test and ONLY for null-result searches.

And dawn only happens occasionally.

It's as if Bill Cobb isn't even aware of this issue. Can that be true?


"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown

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chopsueysisters  (2067 )     Jun-18-07 11:13 PDT     10 of

Fairly, I don't know which step you are describing. Is it "items by seller" or "find a member"? I want to see what you are seeing!!



It's 2 weeks & I can't find the featured upgrade section of the SYI form
Can the finding team help me find that?
I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried! rofl

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fairly_dinkum  (6 )      Jun-18-07 11:26 PDT     11 of

Just click on any of the Advanced Search links. The page that opens is "Search: Find Items". The 4th Bold title is "From Sellers".

Tick the middle option "From specific sellers (enter sellers' user IDs" and type in your ID. Then click the Search button or just hit the keyboard Return key.

This is how buyers search for specific seller(s) items, unless they have that left-side navigation setup for the seller ID search-option.


"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown

                                     .

fairly_dinkum  (6 )     Jun-18-07 11:37 PDT     12 of

Follow the link circled below and you'll (most likely) see what our buyers have been seeing for a long time.




"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown

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chopsueysisters  (2068 )      Jun-18-07 12:20 PDT     13 of

            Fairly,

The page that opens is "Search: Find Items". The 4th Bold title is "From Sellers". Tick the middle option "From specific sellers (enter sellers' user IDs" and type in your ID. Then click the Search button or just hit the keyboard Return key.

See I dont have that. This is what I'm at
http://tinyurl.com/28nt3h

Maybe you are in a search test? but the screen shot you are showing? that seems odd no piccy gallery for me. I paid a penny for that, they better be showing my gallery to someone!



It's 2 weeks & I can't find the featured upgrade section of the SYI form
Can the finding team help me find that?
I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried! rofl

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fairly_dinkum  (6 )     Jun-18-07 13:23 PDT     14 of

            Choppy, that link opened the same page as I always see. You'd have to take a screen shot.

This is no test. That advanced search page (screenshot) has always looked like that, as far back as I can remember.

If you haven't cleared all your cache, cookies, etc. then ebay is dogging you. You've got to come to the site just like a newbie.

That screen shot of your Store items is what shows underneath your auction listings, all 14 of them (13 of which have Gal Pics). That is why I mentioned, in the OP, the store items show up under auctions, even if they are your own auction.

Your Gal Pics would not show in such a setting. If you click on that "36 items" link, that is when you'd expect to see the Gal Pics.

Except, the page of your items do not show up...the Store's Portal page does.

"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown

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chopsueysisters  (2068 )     Jun-18-07 13:38 PDT     15 of

Fairly, now I see it. I just didn't read your instructions right & that image wasn't sticking in. I have seen this before and it hits a little closer to home.


http://tinyurl.com/yphx2t Go there, then click the view listings on the first one, displays just like how you are saying. I have seen this on the same sellers display, but not on others. There might of been a newbie I saw that also had it, but I thought it was strange I was only seeing it on hers. Maybe u can check mine see if I show up the same way like that. On click it doesn't look like I'm affected in that view screen



It's 2 weeks & I can't find the featured upgrade section of the SYI form
Can the finding team help me find that?
I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried! rofl

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fairly_dinkum  (6 )      Jun-18-07 13:41 PDT     16 of

Shown below is the upper part of the Advanced Search page, as I see it. See the 'ticked' circle, beside your seller ID?

When the Search button is clicked, your listings show up as shown in the screenshot above. Here's a link to THAT page...scroll down and click on your "36 item" link.

http://tinyurl.com/3btqne

"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown

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postcardsandmore  (4296 )      Jun-18-07 13:48 PDT     17 of

CSS...I just checked and this is terrible!

Someone needs to get this fixed and they need to do it quick.

Has anyone posted over on the search board about it?

When I click on the link provided it shows your 14 auction listings. Then shows 30 of 36 store items with a link to see all 36...but that link just takes me to the stores home page.

This is multiplied 1000 times worse by sellers with hundreds or thousands of listings.

What is going on?????

I was going to restock store but I won't do it until this is fixed.

.

rickskatie  (1668 )      Jun-18-07 13:50 PDT     18 of

Paraphrasing Bill 'Talk to the Cigar' Clinton, depends on what the meaning of OK is...

.

chopsueysisters  (2068 )      Jun-18-07 13:56 PDT     19 of

PC, are you telling me you went to the URL, and clicked me and you're seeing only 14? Split out like how that other seller I noticed was?

Cuz I'm clicking and I see it all, not split out



It's 2 weeks & I can't find the featured upgrade section of the SYI form
Can the finding team help me find that?
I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried! rofl

.

fairly_dinkum  (6 )     Jun-18-07 13:59 PDT     20 of

            This is my last allowed posting, so here goes.

YES!!! You got it choppy! That is what happens when the seller has fewer than 30 items. If you click on that "page 2" link, it will open to another "2 page" view.

When you click on THAT page's "page 2" link...you go to the Store's Portal page.

The seller will NEVER have an entire page of their items show up!

YES..someone has finally saw it! Don't forget what you've seen. Some don't believe it or think that it isn't important.

This problem manifests itself in various ways, depending on if the user is logged-in, how many items the seller has, more craap than I have figured out.

I first reported it to CS in March of last year. You can imagine how "complicated" an issue it can be just explaining to CS how to see the problem. I gave up after about 6 emails.

I feel that only the Storesteam could get this issue resolved. They could be instructed in how to replicate the problem and they could have the tenacity to see it fixed.

Could.

Thank You!


"Balancing the needs of the sellers" does not equate to a choice between delivering paid-for services, or not delivering those services. The only things balanced by such failures are your books.
~unknown

.

chopsueysisters  (2068 )     Jun-18-07 14:07 PDT     21 of

            you should write to Jeff King!



It's 2 weeks & I can't find the featured upgrade section of the SYI form
Can the finding team help me find that?
I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried! rofl

.

postcardsandmore  (4296 )        Jun-18-07 14:13 PDT       22 of

            I wish I knew how to do a screen shot and then post it here.

Because I say 14 core listings, then 30 of 36 store listings and then the link that should have shown me all 36 (the missing 6) just took me to the stores home page..not yours.

So, those missing 6 listings can't be seen!

Just think what happens to someone with 1000, 2000 or even 200 listings

.

Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 4 One Year Old

eBay Express was officially one year old on 14 June 2007.

• If you missed the Official Announcement from eBay regarding the anniversary, don't worry about it.  They never issued one.
  

eBay Corporate proclaims that eBay Express is a popular success.

    http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/32757
    eBay Q1 2007 Earnings Call Transcript
    April 18, 2007 5:00 pm ET

• "Lastly, eBay Express continues to experience increased adoption and growing success. For those of you who remember our eBay velocity statistics from the old days, on eBay Express an article of clothing sold every 67 seconds during the quarter, while a piece of jewelry sold every 2.5 minutes." Meg Whitman

But despite the glowing praise, and after over a year of promotion to the world, is eBay Express really popular? Or is this a Corporate eBay Urban Myth?

To answer this, let's use the free Alexa (www.alexa.com). There are always questions of accuracy with any tool, and Alexa is no exception. While there exist several subjective reports regarding Alexa's measuring methodologies, there are NO objective reports or hard proofs showing Alexa's lack of accuracy. Each reader will have to judge whether findings from Alexa meet their own criteria for usefulness.

Keep in mind that if you want Professional numbers, you have to pay Professional prices. Alexa is FREE.

Sites will be pulled from the often referred to Auction Site list from Power Sellers Unite. And we'll throw in some extras and ringers. The ringers provide a means to compare like sites, and to show the accuracy limitations of Alexa.

For the number of items on eBay Express, let's use eBay Corporates' assumption that everything on eBay.com is on eBay Express. We'll leave out the ongoing contribution from Half.com, given eBay does not provide those numbers.  eBay Store counts are left out because eBay provides no day-to-day counts, and as of the end of April 2007 eBay began pursuing an aggressive policy of reducing the visibility of eBay Stores products.

Ultimately, as can be seen from the charts below, the number of items available is not necessarily proportional to the number of potential buyers. Or as put by the old saw, 'size doesn't matter.'

Here are the terms and the raw data chart.

Reach:
Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. For example, this means if you took random samples of one million Internet users, on average 19,400 of them visit eBay.com

Page Views per user:
The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the users visiting the site.

Statistics quoted as of 16 June 2007

............................................... Page Views ...... Reach per
.............. Number of ... Traffic Rank ..... per user ........ million users
............... Listings .... Now . 3 mos AVG .. Now . 3 mos AVG . Now . 3 mos AVG
eBay ......... 11,486,992 ..... 20 ....... 19 . 14.3 .. 14.9 ... 19,400 .. 20,240
eBay Express . 11,486,992 .... n/a ... 49,658 .. n/a ... 1.7 ...... n/a ...... 35
Bidville ...... 1,049,214 .... n/a ... 83,845 .. n/a .. 10.7 ...... n/a ..... 8.6
eCRATER ......... 572,505 . 12,004 ... 13,003 .. 6.3 ... 5.3 ....... 80 ...... 81
uk.ebid.net ..... 532,266 . 15,494 ... 20,655 . 29.3 .. 14.7 ....... 30 .... 30.5
Blujay .......... 174,511 .... n/a .. 117,485 .. n/a ... 2.7 ........ 9 ...... 11
Tazbar .......... 151,023 . 73,229 ... 50,160 . 11.2 .. 16.2 ....... 10 .... 11.5
ePier ........... 127,203 . 86,224 .. 129,260 .. 5.5 ... 2.1 ....... 10 .... 10.5
Wagglepop ........ 94,198 .... n/a .. 131,138 .. n/a ... 7.5 ...... n/a ..... 6.5
Yahoo! ........... 66,426 ...... 1 ........ 1 . 13.7 .. 14.5 .. 250,500 . 253,500
AuctionQuests .... 54,502 .... n/a .. 112,093 .. n/a .. 11.3 ........ 7 ..... 5.9
HiBidder ......... 37,599 . 77,150 ... 55,659 . 27.7 .. 34.9 ........ 6 ..... 8.2
PlunderHere ...... 30,827 .... n/a ... 69,762 .. n/a .. 47.1 ........ 7 ..... 5.4
Bid-Alot ......... 28,014 .... n/a .. 221,684 .. n/a ... 2.4 ...... n/a ..... 5.6
Overstock ........ 21,344 .. 1,162 .... 1,187 .. 7.0 ... 6.3 ...... 630 ..... 630
StuffPals ........ 18,397 .... n/a .1,183,176 .. n/a ... 4.0 ...... n/a ..... 0.4
WeBidz ........... 17,621 .... n/a ... 66,734 .. n/a .. 19.5 ...... 7.5 ..... 8.5
Lowbid ........... 11,344 .... n/a .. 451,411 .. n/a ... 6.6 ...... n/a ..... 1.3
Ewaey ............... n/a .... n/a .. 609,259 .. n/a ... 5.9 ...... n/a ....... 1

Amazon .............. n/a ..... 32 ....... 31 .. 5.5 ... 5.8 ... 17,050 .. 16,995
BestBuy ............. n/a .... 531 ...... 527 .. 6.3 ... 5.8 .... 1,350 ... 1,345
Buy.com ............. n/a .. 1,409 .... 1,402 .. 3.7 ... 3.8 ...... 730 ..... 697
CompUSA ............. n/a .. 3,157 .... 2,209 .. 4.9 ... 4.8 ...... 305 ..... 398
eBay ProStores ...... n/a .. 9,275 ... 11,288 .. 6.8 ... 5.2 ...... 100 ...... 90
WalMart ............. n/a .... 509 ...... 431 .. 6.2 ... 6.1 .... 1,400 ... 1,565

** Per conflict of interest notice, we have in the past or currently have items on or have bought from eBay, eBay Express, Yahoo!, Bidville, eCRATER, Blujay, Wagglepop, Overstock, Ewaey, Amazon, BestBuy, Buy.com, CompUSA, WalMart, Google. All shares of eBay stock were sold in the summer 2004.

Let's move measures of popularity, Page Views and Reach, leftward.

Remove Yahoo! as they have closed shop on auctions. They're still Number 1 anyway.

Organizations have good and bad days. Let's use 3 months data to average this out. Round up everything. Order lists according to Page View and Reach.

3 Month Average
............. Page Views .. Reach per .. Number of
.............. per user . million users . Listings
PlunderHere .... 48 ............. 6 ....... 30,827
HiBidder ....... 35 ............. 9 ....... 37,599
WeBidz ......... 20 ............. 9 ....... 17,621
Tazbar ......... 17 ............ 12 ...... 151,023
eBay ........... 19 ........ 20,240 ... 11,486,992 <=
ebid ........... 15 ............ 31 ...... 532,266
AuctionQuests .. 12 ............. 6 ....... 54,502
Bidville ....... 11  ............ 9 .... 1,049,214
Wagglepop ....... 8 ............. 7 ....... 94,198
WalMart ......... 7 ......... 1,565 .......... N/A
Overstock ....... 7 ........... 630 ....... 21,344
Lowbid .......... 7 ............. 2 ....... 11,344
Amazon .......... 6 ........ 16,995 .......... N/A
BestBuy ......... 6 ......... 1,345 .......... N/A
ProStores ....... 6 ............ 90 .......... N/A <==
eCRATER ......... 6 ............ 81 ...... 572,505
Ewaey ........... 6 ............. 1 .......... N/A
CompUSA ......... 5  .......... 398 .......... N/A
Buy.com ......... 4 ........... 697 .......... N/A
StuffPals ....... 4 ............. 1 ....... 18,397
Blujay .......... 3 ............ 11 ...... 174,511
ePier ........... 3 ............ 11 ...... 127,203
Bid-Alot ........ 3 ............. 6 ....... 28,014
eBay Express .... 2 ............ 35 ... 11,486,992 <===

eBay Express is dead last in Page Views per user.  eBay should reconsider touting to the Press that Page Views is an all important statistic of site performance.

3 Month Average
.......... Reach per .... Page Views . Number of
......... million users ... per user .. Listings
eBay ......... 20,240 ....... 15 .... 11,486,992 <=
Amazon ....... 16,995 ........ 6 ........... N/A
WalMart ....... 1,565 ........ 7 ........... N/A
BestBuy ....... 1,345 ........ 6 ........... N/A
Buy.com ......... 697 .........4 ........... N/A
Overstock ....... 630 ........ 7 ........ 21,344
CompUSA ......... 398 ........ 5 ........... N/A
ProStores ........ 90 ........ 6 ........... N/A <==
eCRATER .......... 81 ........ 6 ....... 572,505
eBay Express ..... 35 ........ 2 .... 11,486,992 <===
ebid ............. 31 ....... 15 ....... 532,266
Tazbar ........... 12 ....... 17 ....... 151,023
Blujay ........... 11 ........ 3 ....... 174,511
ePier ............ 11 ........ 3 ....... 127,203
HiBidder .......... 9 ....... 35 ........ 37,599
WeBidz ............ 9 ....... 20 ........ 17,621
Bidville .......... 9 ....... 11 ..... 1,049,214
Wagglepop ......... 7 ........ 8 ........ 94,198
PlunderHere ....... 6 ....... 48 ........ 30,827
AuctionQuests ..... 6 ....... 12 ........ 54,502
Bid-Alot .......... 6 ........ 3 ........ 28,014
Lowbid ............ 2 ........ 7 ........ 11,344
Ewaey ............. 1 ........ 6 ........... N/A
StuffPals ......... 1 ........ 4 ........ 18,397
 
In Reach per million users, eBay Express is less popular than Overstock, eCRATER, and it's sibling ProStores, and barely more popular than the much smaller sites.

3 Month Average
............... Traffic .. Number of
................ Rank ..... Listings
eBay ............... 19 . 11,486,992 <=
Amazon ............. 31 ........ N/A
WalMart ........... 431 ........ N/A
BestBuy ........... 527 ........ N/A
Overstock ....... 1,187 ..... 21,344
Buy.com ......... 1,402 ........ N/A
CompUSA ......... 2,209 ........ N/A
ProStores ...... 11,288 ........ N/A <==
eCRATER ........ 13,003 .... 572,505
ebid ........... 20,655 .... 532,266
eBay Express ... 49,658 . 11,486,992 <===
Tazbar ......... 50,160 .... 151,023
HiBidder ....... 55,659 ..... 37,599
WeBidz ......... 66,734 ..... 17,621
PlunderHere .... 69,762 ..... 30,827
Bidville ....... 83,845 .. 1,049,214
AuctionQuests . 112,093 ..... 54,502
Blujay ........ 117,485 .... 174,511
ePier ......... 129,260 .... 127,203
Wagglepop ..... 131,138 ..... 94,198
Bid-Alot ...... 221,684 ..... 28,014
Lowbid ........ 451,411 ..... 11,344
Ewaey ......... 609,259 ........ N/A
StuffPals ... 1,183,176 ..... 18,397
 
Compared to the previous reports (see bottom), eBay Express has been slowly sinking in this ranking. But by Traffic Rank eBay Express remains fair compared to other substantially smaller competing sites.

To comprehend the magnitude of these numbers, let's use Yahoo! and Google in this last list.

3 Month Average
............ Reach per .. Page Views . Number of . Traffic
.......... million users . per user .. Listings ... Rank
Yahoo! ....... 250,500 ...... 15 ........ 66,426 ...... 1
Google ....... 238,850 ....... 7 .... EVERYTHING ...... 3
eBay .......... 20,240 ...... 15 .... 11,486,992 ..... 19
ProStores ......... 90 ....... 6 ........... N/A . 11,288
eBay Express ...... 35 ....... 2 .... 11,486,992 . 49,658

Is eBay Express leading the competition? According to the metrics, mixed results.

Is eBay Express popular?

What do you think?

This article is a followup to:

• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 3
• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 2
• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular
• The Online Competition To eBay And Industry (Loss) Leader eBay Express

See also addendum:

• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 2 Compete   

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Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 2 Compete

We'll change the methodology somewhat in this version.

Instead of the free Alexa (www.alexa.com) service, we'll use the services of the free Compete (http://snapshot.compete.com) service.

Compete advertises itself as a more accurate and better than Alexa.

Since there are no hard facts to support or deny claims of accuracy, for Alexa or Compete, judgement should be reserved on the exact details provided.

The current data from Compete covers up to April 2007. We will use this baseline. Also the Compete data is a snapshot in time and not a running average. Situations can change rapidly on the Internet. Numbers can go from good to bad and back again in days.

For a June 2007 view using Alexa (www.alexa.com) see:
    Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 3

In April 2007 eBay Express was one year old. After a year of promotion to the world, was eBay Express popular?

To answer this, let's use the free Compete (http://snapshot.compete.com), Auction Site list from Power Sellers Unite (www.powersellersunite.com). And throw in some ringers.

For the purpose of relative site comparison only, inventory counts will be left out.

Here are the terms and the raw data chart.

Rank:
The Compete Rank is based on People Counts and does not consider page views or number of visits made to the site. Rank is often used as a complement to People Count to privide a relative metric that shows the significance of a site.

Pages Per Visit
Pages Per Visit is used as an engagement metric. Pages are also known as Page Views and represent how many clicks a person makes on a given website.

People Count:
People Counts are also known as unique visitors - they only count a person once no matter how many times they visit a site in a given month. People Counts are typically used to determine how popular a site is.  


Month Snap Shot In Time - April 2007
................. Traffic . Pages Per .. People
.................. Rank .... Visit ... Counts (Hits)
eBay .................. 3 ... 29.0 .... 78,533,631
eBay Express ...... 2,336 .... 3.4 ....... 785,870
Bidville ......... 59,173 ... 33.3 ........ 27,364
Yahoo ................. 1 ... 21.4 ... 116,096,827
eCRATER ........... 8,172 .... 6.2 ....... 235,799
ebid.net ......... 84,652 ... 15.1 ........ 17,944
Blujay ........... 34,903 .... 6.6 ........ 49,971
Tazbar .......... 480,518 ... 14.0 ......... 2,037
ePier ............ 23,312 ... 11.6 ........ 78,490
Wagglepop ........ 50,455 .... 6.0 ........ 32,820
AuctionQuests ... 284,729 .... 8.8 ......... 4,048
HiBidder ........ 266,370 .... 4.5 ......... 4,382
PlunderHere ..... 446,558 .... 4.4 ......... 2,259
Overstock ........... 159 ... 12.4 ..... 5,916,812
StuffPals .......... > 1M .... 1.0 ........... 585
WeBidz ........... 94,849 .... 6.6 ........ 15,587
Lowbid .......... 242,242 ... 26.8 ......... 4,900
Bid-Alot ........ 158,023 .... 6.0 ......... 8,289
Ewaey .............. > 1M .... 1.3 ........... 325

Amazon ................ 9 ... 10.4 .... 47,608,312
BestBuy .............. 78 ... 20.7 ..... 9,971,408
Buy.com ............. 779 .... 6.6 ..... 1,978,685
CompUSA ........... 1,364 ... 10.1 ..... 1,251,416
ProStores.com ..... 7,029 .... 9.9 ....... 273,962
WalMart .............. 18 ... 14.9 .... 24,144,210

Let's remove Yahoo! The site measures for Yahoo! include listings and everything Yahoo! They are Number One, so let's move on.

Numbers will be rounded up. Order the above list according to Pages Per Visit, People Counts, Traffic Rank.

Month Snap Shot In Time - April 2007
............. Pages Per ... People ...... Traffic
.............. Visit    . Counts (Hits) .. Rank
Bidville ....... 34  ....... 27,364 ...... 59,173
eBay ........... 29 .... 78,533,631 ........... 3 <=
Lowbid ......... 27 ......... 4,900 ..... 242,242
BestBuy ........ 21 ..... 9,971,408 ......... 779
ebid.net ....... 16 ........ 17,944 ...... 84,652
WalMart ........ 15 .....24,144,210 .......... 18
Tazbar ......... 14 ......... 2,037 ..... 480,518
Overstock ...... 13 ..... 5,916,812 ......... 159
ePier .......... 12 ............ 15 ..... 128,551
Amazon ......... 11 .... 47,608,312 ........... 9
CompUSA ........ 11  .... 1,251,416 ....... 1,364
ProStores.com .. 10 ....... 273,962 ....... 7,029 <==
AuctionQuests ... 9 ......... 4,048 ..... 284,729
Buy.com ......... 7 ..... 1,978,685 ........ > 1M
eCRATER ......... 7 ....... 235,799 ....... 8,172
Blujay .......... 7 ........ 49,971 ..... 134,206
WeBidz .......... 7 ........ 15,587 ...... 94,849
Bid-Alot ........ 6 ........ 78,490 ...... 23,312
Wagglepop ....... 6 ........ 32,820 ...... 50,455
HiBidder ........ 5 ......... 4,382 ..... 266,370
eBay Express .... 4 ....... 785,870 ....... 2,336 <===
PlunderHere ..... 4 ......... 2,259 ..... 446,558
Ewaey ........... 2 ........... 325 ........ > 1M
StuffPals ....... 1 ........... 585 ........ > 1M

eBay Express is near the bottom in Pages Per Visit.  And given the prime visibility afforded it, eBay Express still performs poorly compared to eBay ProStores. eBay should reconsider touting to the Press that Page Views is an all important statistic of site performance.

Month Snap Shot In Time - April 2007
.............. People ...... Pages Per .. Traffic
........... Counts (Hits)..... Visit     .. Rank
eBay ......... 78,533,631 ..... 29 ........... 3 <=
Amazon ....... 47,608,312 ..... 11 ........... 9
WalMart ...... 24,144,210 ..... 15 .......... 18
BestBuy ....... 9,971,408 ..... 21 ......... 779
Overstock ..... 5,916,812 ..... 13 ......... 159
Buy.com ....... 1,978,685 ...... 7 ........ > 1M
CompUSA  ...... 1,251,416 ..... 11 ....... 1,364
eBay Express .... 785,870 ...... 4 ....... 2,336 <===
ProStores.com ... 273,962 ..... 10 ....... 7,029 <==
eCRATER ......... 235,799 ...... 7 ....... 8,172
Bid-Alot ......... 78,490 ...... 6 ...... 23,312
Blujay ........... 49,971 ...... 7 ..... 134,206
Wagglepop ........ 32,820 ...... 6 ...... 50,455
Bidville  ........ 27,364 ..... 34 ...... 59,173
ebid.net ......... 17,944 ..... 16 ...... 84,652
WeBidz ........... 15,587 ...... 7 ...... 94,849
Lowbid ............ 4,900 ..... 27 ..... 242,242
HiBidder .......... 4,382 ...... 5 ..... 266,370
AuctionQuests ..... 4,048 ...... 9 ..... 284,729
PlunderHere ....... 2,259 ...... 4 ..... 446,558
Tazbar ............ 2,037 ..... 14 ..... 480,518
StuffPals ........... 585 ...... 1 ........ > 1M
Ewaey ............... 325 ...... 2 ........ > 1M
ePier ................ 15 ..... 12 ..... 128,551
 
In People Counts, eBay Express is less popular than the much smaller Overstock.com, but does have significant leads over the other substantially smaller sites.

Month Snap Shot In Time - April 2007
................. Traffic . Pages Per .. People
.................. Rank .... Visit ... Counts (Hits)
eBay .................. 3 ... 29.0 .... 78,533,631
Amazon ................ 9 ... 10.4 .... 47,608,312
WalMart .............. 18 ... 14.9 .... 24,144,210
BestBuy .............. 78 ... 20.7 ..... 9,971,408
Overstock ........... 159 ... 12.4 ..... 5,916,812
Buy.com ............. 779 .... 6.6 ..... 1,978,685
CompUSA ........... 1,364 ... 10.1 ..... 1,251,416
eBay Express ...... 2,336 .... 3.4 ....... 785,870
ProStores.com ..... 7,029 .... 9.9 ....... 273,962
eCRATER ........... 8,172 .... 6.2 ....... 235,799
ePier ............ 23,312 ... 11.6 ........ 78,490
Blujay ........... 34,903 .... 6.6 ........ 49,971
Wagglepop ........ 50,455 .... 6.0 ........ 32,820
Bidville ......... 59,173 ... 33.3 ........ 27,364
ebid.net ......... 84,652 ... 15.1 ........ 17,944
WeBidz ........... 94,849 .... 6.6 ........ 15,587
Bid-Alot ........ 158,023 .... 6.0 ......... 8,289
Lowbid .......... 242,242 ... 26.8 ......... 4,900
HiBidder ........ 266,370 .... 4.5 ......... 4,382
AuctionQuests ... 284,729 .... 8.8 ......... 4,048
PlunderHere ..... 446,558 .... 4.4 ......... 2,259
Tazbar .......... 480,518 ... 14.0 ......... 2,037
StuffPals .......... > 1M .... 1.0 ........... 585
Ewaey .............. > 1M .... 1.3 ........... 325

By Traffic Rank eBay Express is a solid number 2, again compared to other substantially smaller competing sites.

To comprehend the magnitude of these numbers, let's use Yahoo! and Google, in this last list.

Month Snap Shot In Time - April 2007
.............. People ...... Pages Per .. Traffic
........... Counts (Hits)..... Visit     .. Rank
Yahoo! ...... 116,096,827 ..... 16  .......... 1
Google  ..... 113,883,603 ..... 13 ........... 2
eBay ......... 78,533,631 ..... 29 ........... 3 <=
eBay Express .... 785,870 ...... 4 ....... 2,336 <===
ProStores.com ... 273,962 ..... 10 ....... 7,029 <==
 
 
Is eBay Express leading the competition?  Mixed results based on the metrics.

Is eBay Express popular?

What do you think?

This article is an addendum to:

• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 3
• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 2
• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular
• The Online Competition To eBay And Industry (Loss) Leader eBay Express

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From eBay Stores Forum - Why would you want to sell on Amazon?

For new newsgroup readers, these are not our forum posts. Any comments to the posters below should be made on the applicable thread, marked in bold below.

The highlighted poster regularly posts eBay's Spin on various topics.

The other posters have a vested interest, in being successful regardless of the selling venue.

From eBay Stores Forum
Why would you want to sell on Amazon?
http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=2000371797&tstart=0&mod=1179685267232

pas**     May-19-07 16:58 PDT
I have read in several places that selling on Amazon is great - at 15% commission for most items plus .99 on every transaction whats so great about it? I think eBay and Paypal fees are bad enough so why would you want to sell on Amazon?

       

20 replies     Date posted     Reply #

den**     May-19-07 17:26 PDT     1 of 20
I think the reasoning, is that if your items are those that typically sell good on Amazon, then regardless of the commissions and fees, if you are making money on those sales, it is worth listing there.
If your items are sitting on ebay without sales or high competition killing the prices, then a cheaper commission doesn't mean anything.

pas**     May-19-07 17:38 PDT     2 of 20
Thats a good point. I guess if you have already met your profits margins and you are looking to move product and it moves on Amazon and not e Bay then it make sense.

But there must be more to it... I say that because many products that do sell well on eBay are still listed in mass quantity.

       

pos**     May-19-07 17:45 PDT     3 of 20
Because a site that makes it money from commissions rather than dozens of relists has more vested in seeing that you succeed.

Ebay makes far far more from listing fees than from FVFs.

myr**     May-19-07 17:47 PDT     4 of 20
Add up your ebay LISTING FEES.

There are NO LISTING fees on Amazon.

So the 99 cents per transaction on Amazon is worth it, also for $40 a month you can buy a program to have all the 99 cent fees waived. (Called Pro-merchant store)

The bottom line is stronger and ALWAYS IN THE BLACK!

Plus- no Paypal fees.

That is the way I understand it, but for a few moments of your time you could go to the free Amazon site + read all about it.
Just my 2 cents...........Myrna

pos**     May-19-07 17:49 PDT     5 of 20
Myrna you are correct. I won't be paying the 99 cent fee just the FVF and can list unlimited amount of items.

itspostingtime  (2 )      May-19-07 17:51 PDT     6 of 20
This has recently been the subject of discussion on a few threads here. There's a very interesting webinar in which two big sellers, both of whom sell on both Amazon and ebay (and elsewhere) discuss and compare ebay and Amazon. It runs about 45 minutes. Since I don't sell on Amazon, I can't say much more....I'll only note that, as I understand it, Amzon has various programs, and these guys are presumably in one designed for big sellers. So whether all of their comments would be accurate for smaller sellers I can't say (although I'd guess in general, they would be)

Here's a link:

http://tinyurl.com/2y8xhx

I think it's important to realize that different sites are, well, different. I do see a lot of people focusing primarily on fee comparisons, as if that were the most important element of a comparison, and I really think it's only one of many, and usually not the most important....after all, there are free sites out there, but if you sell nothing on them, "free" is no benefit . And if you are on a high fee site but sell a lot and have good profit margins, then that site is worth it.

I definitely think for some sellers, selling on both Amazon and ebay can be a good idea....but, as always, it depends on your business strategy and the nature of your inventory.

sct**     May-19-07 18:35 PDT     7 of 20
For a majority of items (like books, dvds, electronics, etc), the quality of the site for buyers is amazing for shopping. The search is simple, and accurate, there are ratings, links to similar items, so you can really compare when you shop. I sell books online on Amazon and the sales are much better than on eBay, by my experience. However, for our shop we sell items that do much better on eBay. It just depends on the product.

alb**     May-19-07 20:41 PDT     8 of 20
Amazon is great if your the buyer, sucks if your the seller. Commission prices are sky high, yet when ever I want to sell a book from classes I'v taken in college thats where I go.

hom**     May-19-07 21:38 PDT     9 of 20
Amazon is great if your the buyer, sucks if your the seller. Commission prices are sky high

On ebay they would take 15-25% depending on the week. Not including merchant fees.

Amazon takes 15%, no listing fees, no merchant fees & items sell for full retail.

So I make twice as much profit on amazon than I did when selling on ebay.

You need to look at the bottom line. 10-15% for commissions is about average for online selling with advertising & affiliate programs.

gar**     May-20-07 08:35 PDT     10 of 20
Why would you want to sell on Amazon?

Why would you not? I'm happy to sell anywhere.

owe**     May-20-07 08:43 PDT     11 of 20
I love selling on Amazon. I think those that are so hung up on the fees are fogetting that there is so much more involved in selling than just fees.

For example, on Amazon, I do not have to hold the buyers hand, there are no NPBs, there are no crazy questions to deal with, no feedback bombers, etc... it's just pretty much straight-forward e-commerce. I can concentrate on selling my items to buyers rather than wasting time trying to combat eBay's lastest goofy rule or enhancement.

~Ann~

way**     May-20-07 09:31 PDT     12 of 20
Another reason - now your item on amazon just might show up in search results here on ebay *lol*

tom**     May-20-07 10:10 PDT     13 of 20

I think that when most people think about buying a book they think of Amazon. I have a particular book that I have several copies of in my eBay store, on half dot com, and on Amazon. In the last 6 months I've sold one copy out of my store, zero on half, and 29 on Amazon.

I think eBay really messed up the books category when they went to item specifics and it is difficult to sell most books on eBay.

On the other hand, some books with unique or popular topics seem to sell better on eBay. I had one children's book that contained prints of paintings by folk artist Howard Finster that never sold on Amazon but sold out on eBay every time I listed it.

So..... check both out and sell where it works best for you. A sale is a sale and as long as you make a profit, even if a smaller one, who cares where it sells. It is also very easy to list books on Amazon.

oce**     May-20-07 10:12 PDT     14 of 20
just took a look around the river. is there any "seller identification"? looks to be just item specific. how do you upsell additional items? do you write the buyer and ask if he wants matching items?

also, I saw someone said no paypal fees. is this because you use goo....cxout? how does the seller get paid from the river? at every sale, once a month, etc? and how are you invoiced? monthly or does it come right out of the sale price?

is there any way to see what has sold in a particular category?

going to look around some more. thanks for any help!

tom**     May-20-07 10:18 PDT     15 of 20

Since there are no listing fees (except for the $39.95 per month if you are a Marketplace seller) Amazon takes the fees out of the sale and hold it in a account that they transfer to your checking account every two weeks. You can request a transfer before the two weeks are up if you desire. They have there own payment system and buyers pay Amazon with their credit cards.

oce**     May-20-07 10:22 PDT     16 of 20
thanks!

tom**     May-20-07 10:25 PDT     17 of 20

While I was typing my last post I just sold another copy of the book I sold 29 of in the last six months on Amazon so make it 30!

gre**     May-20-07 10:46 PDT     18 of 20
how do you upsell additional items? do you write the buyer and ask if he wants matching items?

No, you are completely out of the loop. While it means you don't have that opportunity, you also don't get buyers asking if you can cut a nickel off of your shipping rate, or to use their fedex account or, or, or. No invoices to deal with, their cart is seemless.

also, I saw someone said no paypal fees. is this because you use goo....cxout? how does the seller get paid from the river? at every sale, once a month, etc? and how are you invoiced? monthly or does it come right out of the sale price?

Comes right out of the sale price. Seller account works similarly to a paypal account. They use Amazon checkout, nothing for seller's to worry about.

is there any way to see what has sold in a particular category?

Amazon doesn't have the 'completed items' that ebay does. A strength, IMO, for sellers. They do have sales ranking available.

Let me give you an example, on Friday I purchased a new commercial-grade pizza oven (like new, open box). It took me all of 30 seconds to list it on Amazon. Woke up yesterday morning, it was sold and I was paid. All that was left to do was ship it.

Amazon takes some getting used to, but I'm very happy with it, and selling more there than I ever did on Ebay.

fae**     May-20-07 10:56 PDT     19 of 20
Your fee for Amazon pays first of all for access to Amazon's customer base - which is considerable.

Ann summed it up - it's straight e-commerce. It's been a pain for us to list on Amazon because the listing format is fixed but once listed it is straight order fulfilment.

Faerie
faerie's finest - enchanting your life with flavor

 

oce**     May-20-07 11:21 PDT     20 of 20
thanks all! appreciate all the responses.

I have many new in box items and thinking this may be another venue. Just can't get into having my own website...too much work. and I sell such a variety of items of which I can't (or seldom) get more.

I'm thinking if I have to compete with Macy's on ebay, might as well compete on the river, too (or instead).

Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 3

eBay Express will be Officially* one year old this month.

eBay Corporate proclaims that eBay Express is a popular success.

    http://internet.seekingalpha.com/article/32757
    eBay Q1 2007 Earnings Call Transcript
    April 18, 2007 5:00 pm ET

    "Lastly, eBay Express continues to experience increased adoption and growing success.
    For those of you who remember our eBay velocity statistics from the old days, on eBay Express
    an article of clothing sold every 67 seconds during the quarter, while a piece of jewelry sold
    every 2.5 minutes." Meg Whitman

But despite the glowing praise, and after a year of promotion to the world, is eBay Express really popular?

To answer this, let's use the free Alexa (www.alexa.com), and an Auction Site list from Power Sellers Unite. And throw in some extras and ringers.

For the number of items on eBay Express, let's use eBay's assumption that everything on eBay.com is on eBay Express. We'll leave out the ongoing contribution from Half.com. We'll also leave out eBay Store counts because as of the April 2007 eBay began pursuing an aggressive policy of reducing the visability of eBay Stores products.

Ultimately, as can be seen from the charts below, the number of items available is not necessarily proportional to the number of potential buyers. Or as put by the old saw, 'size doesn't matter.'

Here are the terms and the raw data chart.

Reach:
Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. For example, this means if you took random samples of one million Internet users, on average 18,650 of them visit eBay.com

Page Views per user:
The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the users visiting the site.

Statistics quoted are as of 5 June 2007.

............................................... Page Views ...... Reach per
.............. Number of ... Traffic Rank ..... per user ........ million users
............... Listings .... Now . 3 mos AVG .. Now . 3 mos AVG . Now . 3 mos AVG
eBay ......... 11,629,538 ..... 20 ....... 17 . 15.7 .. 15.0 ... 18,650 .. 20,530
eBay Express . 11,629,538 . 55,637 ... 44,456 .. 1.6 ... 1.7 ....... 35 ...... 37
Bidville ...... 1,017,535 . 64,977 ... 81,030 . 13.8 .. 11.1 ...... 9.5 ..... 8.9
Yahoo ........... 718,801 ...... 1 ........ 1 . 13.8 .. 14.7 .. 247,999 . 255,100
eCRATER ......... 556,089 . 16,034 ... 13,431 .. 3.3 ... 5.5 ....... 80 ...... 79
uk.ebid.net ..... 513,749 . 29,019 ... 20,589 . 12.2 .. 14.4 ....... 25 .... 30.5
Blujay .......... 168,455 .... n/a .. 112,060 .. n/a ... 3.0 ........ 8 ...... 11
Tazbar .......... 156,856 .... n/a ... 44,425 .. n/a .. 17.5 ...... n/a .... 12.5
ePier ........... 127,203 .... n/a .. 126,320 .. n/a ... 2.0 ..... 12.5 ...... 11
Wagglepop ........ 97,357 . 63,829 .. 140,567 . 25.3 ... 5.8 ........ 7 ..... 6.7
AuctionQuests .... 56,961 .... n/a .. 102,366 .. n/a .. 14.0 ........ 7 ....... 6
HiBidder ......... 35,001 . 67,352 ... 52,895 . 22.7 .. 32.1 ........ 7 ..... 8.6
PlunderHere ...... 28,220 . 87,745 ... 69,225 . 12.7 .. 50.2 ........ 7 ..... 5.2
Overstock ........ 23,860 .. 1,156 .... 1,155 .. 6.9 ... 6.3 ...... 625 ..... 640
StuffPals ........ 18,401 .... n/a .1,159,728 .. n/a ... 4.0 ...... n/a ..... 0.4
WeBidz ........... 17,594 .... n/a ... 67,164 .. n/a .. 18.1 ........ 9 ....... 9
Lowbid ........... 12,397 .... n/a .. 318,140 .. n/a ... 6.6 ...... n/a ..... 2.3
Bid-Alot .......... 1,515 .... n/a .. 412,619 .. n/a ... 6.4 ...... n/a ..... 1.4
Ewaey ............... n/a .... n/a .. 731,762 .. n/a ... 6.4 ...... n/a ..... 0.9

Amazon .............. n/a ..... 32 ....... 30 .. 5.4 ... 5.8 ... 18,000 .. 17,130
BestBuy ............. n/a .... 509 ...... 528 .. 6.4 ... 5.8 .... 1,400 ... 1,345
Buy.com ............. n/a .. 1,155 .... 1,369 .. 3.5 ... 3.8 ...... 910 ..... 701
CompUSA ............. n/a .. 2,498 .... 2,035 .. 5.2 ... 4.8 ...... 360 ... 416.5
ProStores.com ....... n/a . 13,376 ... 11,021 .. 4.2 ... 5.2 ....... 90 .... 90.5 
WalMart ............. n/a .... 504 ...... 427 .. 6.3 ... 6.1 .... 1,400 ... 1,580

** Per conflict of interest notice, we have in the past or currently have items on or have bought from eBay, Bidville, Yahoo, eCRATER, Blujay, Wagglepop, Overstock, Ewaey, Amazon, BestBuy, Buy.com, CompUSA, WalMart. All shares of eBay stock were sold in the summer 2004.

Let's move measures of popularity, Page Views and Reach, leftward.

Remove Yahoo! as they are closing shop on auctions. And they're also Number 1.

Organizations have good and bad days. Let's use 3 months data to average this out. Round up everything. Order lists according to Page View and Reach.

3 Month Average
............. Page Views .. Reach per .. Number of
.............. per user . million users . Listings
PlunderHere .... 51 ............. 6 ....... 28,220
HiBidder ....... 33 ............. 9 ....... 35,001
WeBidz ......... 19 ............. 9 ....... 17,594
Tazbar ......... 18 ............ 13 ...... 156,856
eBay ........... 15 ........ 20,530 ... 11,629,538 <=
uk.ebid.net .... 15 ............ 31 ...... 513,749
AuctionQuests .. 14 ............. 6 ....... 56,961
Bidville ....... 12  ............ 9 .... 1,017,535
WalMart ......... 7 ......... 1,580 .......... N/A
Overstock ....... 7 ........... 640 ....... 23,860
Lowbid .......... 7 ............. 3 ....... 12,397
Bid-Alot ........ 7 ............. 2 ........ 1,515
Ewaey ........... 7 ............. 1 .......... N/A
Amazon .......... 6 ........ 17,130 .......... N/A
BestBuy ......... 6 ......... 1,345 .......... N/A
ProStores.com ... 6 ............ 91 .......... N/A <==
eCRATER ......... 6 ............ 79 ...... 556,089
Wagglepop ....... 6 ............. 7 ....... 97,357
CompUSA ......... 5  .......... 417 .......... N/A
Buy.com ......... 4 ........... 701 .......... N/A
StuffPals ....... 4 ............. 1 ....... 18,401
Blujay .......... 3 ............ 11 ...... 168,455
eBay Express .... 2 ............ 37 ... 11,629,538 <===
ePier ........... 2 ............ 11 ...... 127,203

eBay Express is virtually dead last in Page Views per user.  eBay should reconsider touting to the Press that Page Views is an all important statistic of site performance.

3 Month Average
.......... Reach per .... Page Views . Number of
......... million users ... per user .. Listings
eBay ......... 20,530 ....... 15 .... 11,629,538 <=
Amazon ....... 17,130 ........ 6 ........... N/A
WalMart ....... 1,580 ........ 7 ........... N/A
BestBuy ....... 1,345 ........ 6 ........... N/A
Buy.com ......... 701 .........4 ........... N/A
Overstock ....... 640 ........ 7 ........ 23,860
CompUSA ......... 417 ........ 5 ........... N/A
ProStores.com .... 91 ........ 6 ........... N/A <==
eCRATER .......... 79 ........ 6 ....... 556,089
eBay Express ..... 37 ........ 2 .... 11,629,538 <===
uk.ebid.net ...... 31 ....... 15 ....... 513,749
Tazbar ........... 13 ....... 18 ....... 156,856
Blujay ........... 11 ........ 3 ....... 168,455
ePier ............ 11 ........ 2 ....... 127,203
HiBidder .......... 9 ....... 33 ........ 35,001
WeBidz ............ 9 ....... 19 ........ 17,594
Bidville .......... 9 ....... 12 ..... 1,017,535
Wagglepop ......... 7 ........ 6 ........ 97,357
PlunderHere ....... 6 ....... 51 ........ 28,220
AuctionQuests ..... 6 ....... 14 ........ 56,961
Lowbid ............ 3 ........ 7 ........ 12,397
Bid-Alot .......... 2 ........ 7 ......... 1,515
Ewaey ............. 1 ........ 7 ........... N/A
StuffPals ......... 1 ........ 4 ........ 18,401
 
eBay Express is slowly sinking in this ranking.  In Reach per million users, eBay Express is less popular than Overstock.com, eCRATER, and it's sibling ProStores, and not much more popular than the smaller sites.

3 Month Average
............... Traffic .. Number of
................ Rank ..... Listings
eBay ............... 17 . 11,629,538 <=
Amazon ............. 30 ........ N/A
WalMart ........... 427 ........ N/A
BestBuy ........... 528 ........ N/A
Overstock ....... 1,155 ..... 21,877
Buy.com ......... 1,369 ........ N/A
CompUSA ......... 2,035 ........ N/A
ProStores.com .. 11,021 ........ N/A <==
eCRATER ........ 13,431 .... 556,089
uk.ebid.net .... 20,589 .... 513,749
Tazbar ......... 44,425 .... 156,856
eBay Express ... 44,456 . 11,629,538 <===
HiBidder ....... 52,895 ..... 35,001
WeBidz ......... 67,164 ..... 17,594
PlunderHere .... 69,225 ..... 28,220
Bidville ....... 81,030 .. 1,017,535
AuctionQuests . 102,366 ..... 56,961
Blujay ........ 112,060 .... 168,455
ePier ......... 126,320 .... 127,203
Wagglepop ..... 140,567 ..... 97,357
Lowbid ........ 318,140 ..... 12,397
Bid-Alot ...... 412,619 ...... 1,515
Ewaey ......... 731,762 ........ N/A
StuffPals ... 1,159,728 ..... 18,401
 
eBay Express has also been slowly sinking in the rankings. By Traffic Rank eBay Express is fair compared to other (substantially smaller) competing sites, including ProStores.

To comprehend the magnitude of these numbers, let's use Yahoo! and Google, in this last list.

3 Month Average
............ Reach per .. Page Views . Number of . Traffic
.......... million users . per user .. Listings ... Rank
Yahoo! ....... 255,100 ...... 15 ....... 718,801 ...... 1
Google ....... 239,450 ....... 7 .... EVERYTHING ...... 3
eBay .......... 23,765 ...... 15 .... 11,629,538 ..... 17
ProStores.com ..... 91 ....... 6 ........... N/A . 11,021
eBay Express ...... 37 ....... 2 .... 11,629,538 . 44,456

Is eBay Express leading the competition? According to the metrics, no.

Is eBay Express popular?

What do you think?

This article is a followup to:

• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 2
• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular
• The Online Competition To eBay And Industry (Loss) Leader eBay Express
  

See also addendum:

• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 2 Compete   

See also the post-Part 3 one year anniversary article:

• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 4 One Year Old

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Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 2

Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular, Part 2
Originally Posted Apr-01-07 11:59:16 PDT

eBay Express will be one year old this month. After a year of promotion to the world, is eBay Express popular?

To answer this, let's use the free Alexa (www.alexa.com), and an Auction Site list from Power Sellers Unite (www.powersellersunite.com). And throw in some ringers.

For the number of items on eBay Express, let's use eBay's assumption that everything on eBay.com is on eBay Express. We'll leave out the ongoing contribution from Half.com.

Here are the terms and the raw data chart.

Reach:
Reach is typically expressed as the percentage of all Internet users who visit a given site. For example, this means if you took random samples of one million Internet users, on average 280,000 of them visit yahoo.com.

Page Views per user:
The page views per user numbers are the average numbers of unique pages viewed per user per day by the users visiting the site.

............................................... Page Views ...... Reach per
.............. Number of ... Traffic Rank ..... per user ........ million users
............... Listings .... Now . 3 mos AVG .. Now . 3 mos AVG . Now . 3 mos AVG
eBay ......... 12,366,494 ..... 16 ....... 16 . 14.8 .. 15.3 ... 19,900 .. 23,765
eBay Express . 12,366,494 . 73,341 ... 23,794 .. 1.9 ... 1.7 ....... 25 ...... 77
Yahoo ......... 1,053,923 ...... 1 ........ 1 . 14.7 .. 15.3 .. 251,500 . 268,750
Bidville ...... 1,053,332 . 51,990 ... 87,695 . 10.8 ... 8.3 ....... 15 ..... 9.8
eCrater ......... 439,821 . 10,171 ... 17,892 .. 8.0 ... 5.7 ....... 80 .... 61.5
uk.ebid.net ..... 433,724 . 29,515 ... 12,988 . 21.6 .. 16.9 ....... 20 ...... 49
MightyBids ...... 273,710 .... n/a ... 70,427 .. n/a .. 10.7 ...... n/a ..... 9.9
Tazbar .......... 139,789 . 31,804 ... 34,355 . 21.9 .. 18.6 ....... 15 .... 16.5
Blujay .......... 134,206 .... n/a ... 95,174 .. n/a ... 3.9 ......10.5 .... 12.5
ePier ........... 128,551 . 67,963 .. 109,711 .. 6.2 ... 2.2 ....... 15 .... 13.5
Wagglepop ........ 97,894 .... n/a ... 73,537 .. n/a .. 15.7 ...... n/a ..... 9.7
AuctionQuests .... 46,855 .... n/a .. 106,312 .. n/a .. 21.5 ...... n/a ..... 5.4
Bid-Alot ......... 43,658 .... n/a .. 183,398 .. n/a ... 3.2 ...... n/a ..... 6.4
HiBidder ......... 24.979 . 46,034 ... 63,954 . 31.5 .. 32.5 ........ 9 ..... 7.6
TheAuctionMan .... 23,389 .... n/a ...... n/a .. n/a ... n/a ...... n/a ..... n/a
Overstock ........ 21,877 ...1,207 ...... 761 .. 5.7 ... 6.5 ...... 650 ..... 897
WeBidz ........... 21,065 . 97,546 ... 61,318 .. 6.5 .. 14.0 ........ 9 ...... 12
Lowbid ........... 20,690 .... n/a .. 318,140 .. n/a ... 6.6 ...... n/a ..... 2.3
whaBAM ........... 20,347 .... n/a ...... n/a .. n/a ... n/a ...... n/a ..... n/a
PlunderHere ...... 17,481 . 94,519 ... 92,601 .. 111 .. 38.4 ...... 2.5 ..... 4.4
Amazon .............. N/A ..... 31 ....... 26 .. 5.6 ... 6.0 ... 17,000 .. 19,865
BestBuy ............. N/A .... 540 ...... 378 .. 5.3 ... 5.9 .... 1,350 ... 1,745
CompUSA ............. N/A .. 2,465 .... 1,381 .. 4.4 ... 4.9 ...... 385 ... 613.5
ProStores.com ....... N/A . 10,794 .... 9,114 .. 4.3 ... 6.2 ...... 105 ..... 104

Let's move measures of popularity, Page Views and Reach, leftward.

Remove Yahoo! The site measures for Yahoo! include listings and everything Yahoo! They are Number One, so let's move on.

Organizations have good and bad days. Let's use 3 months data to average this out. Round up everything. Order lists according to Page View and Reach.

3 Month Average
............. Page Views .. Reach per .. Number of
.............. per user . million users . Listings
PlunderHere .... 39 ............. 5 ....... 17,481
HiBidder ....... 33 ............. 8 ....... 24,979
AuctionQuests .. 22 ............. 6 ....... 46,855
Tazbar ......... 19 ............ 17 ...... 139,789
uk.ebid.net .... 17 ............ 49 ...... 433,724
eBay ........... 16 ........ 23,765 ... 12,366,494 <=
Wagglepop ...... 16 ............ 10 ....... 97,894
WeBidz ......... 14 ............ 12 ....... 21,065
MightyBids ..... 11 ............ 10 ...... 273,710
Bidville ........ 8  ............ 10 .... 1,053,332
Overstock ....... 7 ........... 897 ....... 21,877
ProStores.com ... 7 ........... 104 .......... N/A <==
Lowbid .......... 7 ............. 3 ....... 20,690
Amazon .......... 6 ........ 19,865 .......... N/A
BestBuy ......... 6 ......... 1,745 .......... N/A
eCrater ......... 6 ............ 62 ...... 439,821
CompUSA ......... 5  .......... 614 .......... N/A
Blujay .......... 4 ............ 13 ...... 134,206
Bid-Alot ........ 4 ............. 7 ....... 43,658
ePier ........... 3 ............ 15 ...... 128,551
eBay Express .... 2 ............ 77 ... 12,366,494 <===
whaBAM ........ n/a ........... n/a ....... 20,347
TheAuctionMan . n/a ........... n/a ....... 23,389

eBay Express is virtually dead last in Page Views per user.  eBay should reconsider touting to the Press that Page Views is an all important statistic of site performance.

3 Month Average
.......... Reach per .... Page Views . Number of
......... million users ... per user .. Listings
eBay ......... 23,765 ....... 16 .... 12,366,494 <=
Amazon ....... 19,865 ........ 6 ........... N/A
BestBuy ....... 1,745 ........ 6 ........... N/A
Overstock ....... 897 ........ 7 ........ 21,877
CompUSA ......... 614 ........ 5 ........... N/A
ProStores.com ... 104 ........ 7 ........... N/A <==
eBay Express ..... 77 ........ 2 .... 12,366,494 <===
eCrater .......... 62 ........ 6 ....... 439,821
uk.ebid.net ...... 49 ....... 17 ....... 433,724
Tazbar ........... 17 ....... 19 ....... 139,789
ePier ............ 15 ........ 3 ....... 128,551
Blujay ........... 13 ........ 4 ....... 134,206
WeBidz ........... 12 ....... 14 ........ 21,065
Wagglepop ........ 10 ....... 16 ........ 97,894
MightyBids ....... 10 ....... 11 ....... 273,710
Bidville ......... 10 ........ 8 ....... 992,936
HiBidder .......... 8 ....... 33 ........ 24,979
Bid-Alot .......... 7 ........ 4 ........ 43,658
AuctionQuests ..... 6  ....... 22 ........ 46,855
PlunderHere ....... 5 ....... 39 ........ 17,481
Lowbid ............ 3 ........ 7 ........ 20,690

In Reach per million users, eBay Express is less popular than Overstock.com and it's sibling ProStores, and not much more popular than the smaller sites.

3 Month Average
............... Traffic .. Number of
................ Rank ..... Listings
eBay ............... 16 . 12,366,494 <=
Amazon ............. 26 ........ N/A
BestBuy ........... 378 ........ N/A
Overstock ......... 761 ..... 21,877
CompUSA ......... 1,381 ........ N/A
ProStores.com ... 9,114 ........ N/A <==
uk.ebid.net .... 12,988 .... 433,724
eCrater ........ 17,892 .... 439,821
eBay Express ... 23,794 . 12,366,494 <===
Tazbar ......... 34,355 .... 139,789
WeBidz ......... 61,318 ..... 21,065
HiBidder ....... 63,954 ..... 24,979
MightyBids ..... 70,427 .... 273,710
Wagglepop ...... 73,537 ..... 97,894
Bidville ....... 87,695 .. 1,053,332
PlunderHere .... 92,601 ..... 17,481
Blujay ......... 95,174 .... 134,206
AuctionQuests . 106,312 ..... 46,855
ePier ......... 109,711 .... 128,551
Bid-Alot ...... 183,398 ..... 43,658
Lowbid ........ 318,140 ..... 20,690

By Traffic Rank eBay Express is number 4 compared to other (substantially smaller) competing sites.

To comprehend the magnitude of these numbers, let's use Yahoo! and Google, in this last list.

3 Month Average
............ Reach per .. Page Views . Number of . Traffic
.......... million users . per user .. Listings ... Rank
Yahoo! ....... 268,750 ...... 16 ..... 1,053,923 ...... 1
Google ....... 252,000 ....... 7 .... EVERYTHING ...... 3
eBay .......... 23,765 ...... 16 .... 12,366,494 ..... 16
ProStores.com .... 104 ....... 7 ........... N/A .. 9,114
eBay Express ...... 77 ....... 2 .... 12,366,494 . 23,794

Is eBay Express leading the competition? According to the metrics, no.

Is eBay Express popular?

What do you think?

This article is a followup to:

• Urban Myth or Fact? eBay Express Is Popular

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