EventHorizon1984 Log

Frederick Smith FedEx CEO - "we look at Amazon as a wonderful company"

Frederick Smith FedEx CEO - "we look at Amazon as a wonderful company"
EventHorizon1984
20 December 2018

 

“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

The knowledgeable people at FedEx had this interesting exchange, at their November FedEx Corp Earnings Call.

• FedEx Corp (FDX) Q2 2019 Earnings Conference Call Transcript
  Motley Fool Transcribers, 18 December 2018

“Have you seen any impact from Amazon Air?”
Ken Hoexter of Merrill Lynch

“Again, the short answer to that question is no.”
Rajesh Subramaniam, FedEx Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

“From me a short and long-term perspective, what is FedEx's strategy to counter competition from Amazon?
David Campbell of Thompson Davis

“I’m not really sure how to answer this question. I mean, we look at Amazon as a wonderful company and service and they're a good customer of ours. We don't see them as a peer competitor at this point in time. For many reasons, we think it is doubtful that will be the case. … I think the prospects of this company is going to be well disrupted, which just occurs over and over again to quote a previous statement is fantastical. So, I'll leave it at that.”
Frederick Smith, FedEx Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

“What does FedEx have regarding the recent expansion of Amazon Air at Northern Kentucky, Rockford International and Alliance Airports?”
Dan Ronan of Transport Topics

“Well, Dan, as we've talked about before, we don't have any concerns. And so far, as you can see, our volumes in the domestic networks are continuing to increase and we value Amazon as a good customer of ours. Thank you.”
Rajesh Subramaniam, FedEx Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

“I think it's also important to recognize and, again, there is a significant misunderstanding, the Amazon Air network is set up to move inventory within the Amazon system, which is prodigious, it's big. It moves not-in-stock and low turn SKUs and forward stocked items for their third-party customers, who can't duplicate inventory. So it's scheduled differently”
Frederick Smith, FedEx Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Have we heard those words, "We don't see them as a peer competitor at this point in time. For many reasons, we think it is doubtful that will be the case," before?

 

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
George Santayana (1863-1952)

Anyone remember eBay INC? Let's go back nineteen years, to 1999.

“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.”
Margaret “Meg” Whitman, 30 May 1999

That was a fascinating bit of hubris, given the mood of the stock market.

• Stock Price 28 May 1999
  • $8.71 ($26.13) eBay
  • $59.40 Amazon

eBay INC stock split 3 for 1 on 2 March 1999.

Maybe not the complete 'mood' of Wall Street.

“Meg Whitman, CEO of pioneering online auctioneer eBay Inc. (EBAY), remains the czarina of Net auctions–and that’s saying a lot. Three tough competitors, Amazon.com (AMZN), Yahoo! (YHOO), and Lycos (LCOS) tried to knock eBay from its perch. It didn’t happen.”
Jim Kerstetter, Businessweek, 15 May 2000

Well. There are mood swings. And then there's mood whiplash.

This is the state of e-commerce, 2018.

• “% of total retail ecommerce sales”

1. 48.0% - Amazon
2. 7.2% - eBay
3. 4.0% - Walmart
4. 3.9% - Apple

This is U.S. retail, 2017. Amounts in billions.

1. $374.80 - Walmart
2. $115.89 - The Kroger Co.
3. $102.96 - Amazon
4. $93.08 - Costco

After over two decades, eBay INC is not much of a retailer.

This is the Bear Market of today.

• $1,458.37 - Amazon
• $28.02 ($1,597.81) - eBay

eBay INC stock has split five times.

• 1999 - 3 for 1 split
• 2000 - 2 for 1 split
• 2003 - 2 for 1 split
• 2005 - 2 for 1 split
• 2015 - 2376 for 1000 split

Leaving $1,597.81 as the 'not split' equivalent.

At least eBay's share price, on paper, caught up to Amazon's. Which may be small consolation to the corporation. As Walmart and Apple seek to claim the crown of 'we're number 2' from eBay.

Meanwhile, will the juggernaut FedEx steamroll Amazon?

Couriers and local delivery service providers' global market share in 2017

1. 38% - DHL
2. 24% - FedEx
3. 22% - UPS

United States market share 2018

1. 35.85% - UPS
2. 35.6% - USPS
3. 16.93% - FedEx
4. 10.87% - DHL

Let us know in eighteen years.

/*

“I’ve got news for Mr. Santayana: we’re doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That’s what it is to be alive.”
Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007)

//

Holding a $500,000 Tournament When No Longer King of The Kill

Holding a $500,000 Tournament When No Longer King of The Kill
EventHorizon1984
11 October 2017

“We just sort of try to ignore any comparison”
King of the Kill Developer. 

With the $500,000 H1Z1 2017 Invitational happening this October 20-22, Daybreak Game Company LLC must be optimistic over their H1Z1 IP. This October Invitational comes just six months after their $300,000 H1Z1 Fight For The Crown tournament. A small gaming company extrudes enthusiasm, when spending over a six month period, $800,000 in prizes.

Perhaps this large cash outlay is a Daybreak manager prematurely expressing the sentiment, “Nothing Can Stop Us Now!”

Unnoticed by Daybreak, a game called PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, made it’s March 2017 debut on Steam Early Access.

 

“Amazon’s a very competitive company, and I think they are a very good competitor … we are still looking for signs of momentum, and so far, they have not gotten traction.”
Meg Whitman, eBay CEO. 30 May 1999

“I think it's awesome that we can grow together, and we can continue to really define what battle royale means to players and give gamers an awesome experience”
Adriaan Noordzij, Senior Product Manager, about H1Z1 and PUBG. 24 August 2017

The current news about H1Z1’s competition?

On October 11th, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) Creative Director Brendan Greene, reported a new record of “more than 2 million concurrent players.”

Also on October 11th, PUBG’s competitor Epic Games Fortnite, had “reached 3.7 million players” and “had 525,000 concurrent users.”

And of H1Z1?

H1Z1: King of the Kill - SteamCharts.com

And it's companion game?

Just Survive - SteamCharts.com

 

At this point what else could possibly go wrong?

"Automaton Raises $10m and Announces Groundbreaking Game Project Built on Improbable's SpatialOS"

• "Automaton Games, the British independent games studio behind the popular multiplayer psychological stealth and combat game Deceit, today announced that it has secured investment of $10m from Cambridge Venture Partners.
• The new investment is being used to develop a revolutionary massively multiplayer survival-combat game"
• "will feature groundbreaking elements such as: 1,000 concurrent players occupying a detailed shared world"

/*

“The game's peak [concurrent user count] is still really healthy and we're still in the top four on Steam … There's some seasonality to what happens with our games”
Antony Castoro, General Manager
September 2017

//

EverQuest II - Tell Us What You Think! The Sequel

EverQuest II - Tell Us What You Think!
 The Sequel
EventHorizon1984

5 June 2017

 

“Intrepid Studios is growing according to today's Ashes of Creation press announcement. Five new members have joined up that bring development experience from EverQuest to H1Z1.”
New Team Members Bring a Wealth of Experience

 

Daybreak Game Company has emailed a second 2017 EverQuest II survey. We presented the first 2017 survey in an earlier article.

As two months earlier, here's what showed up in the Gmail box.

 

The new survey is as short as the previous one. However the emphasis is different.

What was previously question #7, is now question #2. For those who prefer text, the new question #2.

• 2. How likely is it that you would recommend EverQuest II to a friend of colleague?

 

“I would like to say that EverQuest 2 has a chance to pull itself out of the toxic hole that its managed to throw itself down, but right now the game needs to focus on bringing the player base back.”
Rissa Trent, March 2017

 

Asking the same question. in two months apart surveys, indicates Something's Afoot. Or Daybreak's Marketing department is completely inept.

Let's sidetrack to marketing EverQuest II. And let's not go into the """fantastic marketing""" taking place on Twitter.

You think marketing, and you think 'advertising.' Maybe something like simple timely press releases. 

But do a Google search for "everquest 2" under news. By the way, it's now June.

 

EverQuest II and Ashes of Creation? Someone at Daybreak blew product SEO.

But, Maybe this is a Google fluke.

 

Nope.

 

“Hopefully, if the liquidation firm shuts us down, Amazon Games will pick us up.”
Uwkete-of-Crushbone, May 2017

 

Daybreak Games may be asking the 'would you recommend to a friend' question, to determine if EverQuest II is worth keeping around.

But Daybreak Games may be asking the question, because customer impressions are important. Change a bad impression, and you can keep a customer. And gain new customers.

 

Time will tell.

/*

Remind anyone of EverQuest Next?

“Carve your own destiny in New World, a massively multiplayer, open-ended sandbox game set in a living, cursed land. Choose how you play, what you do, and whom you work with or against in an evolving world that transforms with the seasons, weather, and time of day.”
Amazon Game Studios

New World [Download]
https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Game-Studios-World-Download/dp/B01M07V5OS

//

EverQuest II - Tell Us What You Think!

EverQuest II - Tell Us What You Think!

EventHorizon1984

6 March 2017

 

“Essentially, it's another timesink for end-game players”
Philip Kollar
Touring the living remains of an 11-year-old MMO

 

Surveys regarding EverQuest II are few. The last time any here received an EverQuest II survey, the previous owner got hacked.

Years later, here's what showed up in the Gmail box.

 

The survey is short.

All properties of Daybreak Game Company have been suffering outages, since 2 January 2017.

Meaning question number five should have been a no-brainer, for management.

Is San Diego based Daybreak Game Company really looking to improve customer service? Is this merely a method to placate the dwindling user base?

Or is the owner of Daybreak Game Company, Columbus Nova, looking for an excuse to offload the EverQuest franchise?

Time will tell.

/*

"EverQuest co-creator John Smedley is leading a new San Diego-based studio for Amazon Game Studios"
15 February 2017

//

Ebay, PayPal, Hewlett-Packard - Breaking Up Is Hard.

Ebay, PayPal, Hewlett-Packard - Breaking Up Is Hard.
EventHorizon1984
8 October 2014


“Breaking Up Is Hard To Do”
Neil Sedaka, Howard Greenfield, 1962

Convention wisdom about the 2015 split of eBay INC, says the separate parts will be quickly sold off.  Might not happen quickly.

In The Wall Street Journal article, “Dealpolitik: EBay, PayPal Takeover Talk May Be Premature”, Ronald Barusch makes this interesting point.

“eBay probably has massive gains on its PayPal shares that would trigger huge taxes if the deal didn’t qualify as a tax-free spin-off.

For up to two years after the spin-off, an acquisition of either PayPal or eBay (regardless of which company is spun off) could destroy the tax-free status of the deal and trigger an enormous corporate tax. In spin-offs, the agreements usually make the company that’s taken over bear the risk of that tax.

Such an agreement operates as a kind of poison pill of its own: Anyone trying to take over one of the companies would indirectly be responsible for that big tax bill”

The short version being:

“The bottom line is that those expecting a quick deal following the spin-off may be jumping the gun.”

Of course with eBay INC CEO John Donahoe leading the separation plans, there is no guarantee that a monetarily smart long-term plan will be made.  I.E. shareholders could be stuck with a huge tax bill, while John Donahoe skates.


“A monkey could drive this train.”
Margaret “Meg” Whitman, during her tenure as eBay INC CEO.

“Monkey sees, monkey does.”
Alexander Boot and Shoe Company, 1892

On the heals of John Donahoe splitting eBay INC, Margaret “Meg” Whitman is leading the charge to split Hewlett-Packard.  However not into “Hewlett” and “Packard.”

Hewlett-Packard to split into two public companies, lay off 5,000
October 6, 2014
Supantha Mukherjee and Edward Chan

“Hewlett-Packard Co said it would split into two listed companies, separating its computer and printer businesses from its faster-growing corporate hardware and services” … “HP said its shareholders would own a stake in both businesses through a tax-free transaction next year.” … “Whitman, who will be CEO of HP Enterprise, the business that will sell computer servers and networking gear and data storage to businesses.”

Perhaps the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ reference is not entirely fair. 

Meg Whitman is planning “a tax-free transaction” and will be CEO of one of the split companies.  John Donahoe has not mentioned “tax-free” and will not be CEO of either the new eBay or PayPal.

Plus:

• 2 January 2014 to 8 October 2014, Hewlett-Packard stock has surged, $27.98 to $35.92.
• 2 January 2014 to 8 October 2014, eBay INC remains stagnant, $53.94 to $54.51.

Meanwhile, at the close of market. 8 October 2014:

• Alibaba - $88.30
• Amazon - $322.70
• American Express - $87.41
• MasterCard - $74.06
• Visa - $212.36

“I didn’t think eBay was right for me.”
John Donahoe, 17 June 2013

Indeed.

/*

Addendum 9 October 2014

No one here has received anything directly from eBay INC, about their separation into "eBay" and "PayPal".

Whereas days after the public announcement, Hewlett-Packard sent this Today:

We're no fan of Meg Whitman, but Hewlett-Packard does keep it's customers informed.

eBay INC, 'not so much.'

/*

“No sequel for you.”
Jack Slater, Last Action Hero (1993)

//

eBay Stock Is On Fire Meme - 2013 Part Deux

eBay Stock Is On Fire Meme - 2013 Part Deux
EventHorizon1984
1 January 2014


"MasterCard Inc. (MA), the second-biggest bank-card network"
Dakin Campbell and Elizabeth Dexheimer, 10 December 2013

The full quote, from Bloomberg News is:

"MasterCard Inc. (MA), the second-biggest bank-card network, said its board of directors approved an 83 percent dividend increase and a 10-for-1 stock split."

Which got us thinking about previous articles on finance and stock prices.

We'll keep this short.  Here's a list companies and stock prices mentioned over the years.

	3/31/2008*	12/31/2013	$ Increase	% Increase	Dividends
eBay	$29.87	$54.87	$25.00	83.70%	No
Amazon	$70.25	$398.79	$328.54	467.67%	No
Apple	$143.27	$561.02	$417.75	291.58%	Yes
Google	$435.64	$1,120.71	$685.07	157.26%	No
Starbucks	$17.06	$78.39	$61.33	359.50%	Yes
Hewlett-Packard	$47.59	$27.98	-$19.61	-41.21%	Yes
Visa	$62.36	$222.68	$160.32	257.09%	Yes
MasterCard	$222.99	$835.46	$612.47	274.66%	Yes
American Express	$43.72	$90.73	$47.01	107.53%	Yes
Discover	$16.70	$55.95	$39.25	235.03%	Yes

* 31 March 2008 is the date John Donahoe became CEO of eBay INC.

The current CEO of Hewlett-Packard is Margaret Whitman.  Margaret "Meg" Whitman was the CEO of eBay INC prior to John Donahoe.

Meg Whitman became HP CEO on 22 September 2011.  Here's the head-to-head during the appropriate time frame.

	9/22/2011	12/31/2013	$ Increase	% Increase	Dividends
Hewlett-Packard	$22.80	$27.98	$5.18	22.72%	Yes
eBay	$31.67	$54.87	$23.20	73.26%	No

 

Consistent. 

Hope you chose the right stocks.

Happy New Year! 

/*

“He chose poorly.”
Grail Knight (Robert Eddison 1908-1991), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

/*

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eBay Stock Is On Fire Meme

eBay Stock Is On Fire Meme
EventHorizon1984
10 October 2013


"well-biased samples can be employed to produce almost any result anyone may wish."
Darrell Huff, How To Lie With Statistics

A recent variation of the meme "eBay INC is a long term stock" was made by eBay INC seller FurryFriend702 on EcommerceBytes.

To quote:

• "Ebay stock has been on fire"

This FurryFriend702 continues cherry picking data with:

• 
• "The fact is, Ebay stock has done extremely well over the last several years.  This is a five year chart: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=EBAY+Basic+Chart&t=5y> All of you should wish you owned this stock during this period."

Here's the chart FurryFriend702 wants you to see:

Chart from Yahoo! Finance

Since John Donahoe became CEO of eBay INC on 31 March 2008, don't you wonder about what's missing?

"And you're in good, or at least respectable, company.  A news magazine has used this method to show the stock market hitting a new high, the graph being so truncated as to make the climb look far more dizzying than it was."
Darrell Huff, How To Lie With Statistics

Years ago disingenuous stock analysts hyping a favorite stock, would point to the massive increase in stock price over the years.  They would use as a base the price of a stock in 2009.

Well ... Wall Street "crashed" in September 2008, sending stock prices diving.

Chart from Money.CNN.com

Spoiler Alert, stock prices rose after the "crash."

Chart from Money.CNN.com

Any similarity between the above five year rise in the DJIA (Dow Jones Industrial Average) and the five year rise in eBay INC stock price is not coincidental.

Of course it would be equally disingenuous to show a stock price diving, with the end point being after September 29 2008.

To be fair, here's eBay INC's stock price over it's lifetime:

Chart from Yahoo! Finance

Included is the missing left side of the FurryFriend702's trough.

We find it amazing that people still attempt to fool others by using "crash" stock prices to make a point.

"Place little faith in an average or a graph or a trend when those important figures are missing."
Darrell Huff, How To Lie With Statistics

Our focus is on eBay INC stock price performance during CEO John Donahoe's entire tenure.  A stewardship that began on 31 March 2008.

Here's how our usual four stock group, plus Google, starting with share price on 31 March 2008.

	3/31/08	10/10/13	$ Increase	% Increase	Dividends
eBay	$29.87	$53.42	$23.55	78.84%	No
Amazon	$70.25	$305.17	$234.92	334.41%	No
Apple	$143.27	$489.64	$346.37	241.76%	Yes
Google	$435.64	$868.24	$432.60	99.30%	No
Starbucks	$17.06	$77.12	$60.06	352.05%	Yes

How do you think John Donahoe is performing stock wise?

If you sell high and buy low, there is money to be made keeping track of a stock's highs and lows.  If you held on to a particular stock as a 'long term investment', hope it was the right stock.

/*

"You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when you're sittin' at the table.
There'll be time enough for countin' when the dealin's done."
Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

/*

Related articles:

eBay INC Stock Price During CEO John Donahoe's Tenure

eBay INC Stock Has Turned Around Under CEO John Donahoe; Really?

The eBay INC Is A Long Term Stock Meme

/*

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Amazon Studios Presents Zombieland The Series

Amazon Studios Presents Zombieland The Series
EventHorizon1984
19 April 2013

Zombieland (2009, Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin) was a very entertaining zombiepocalypse horror comedy film.  It's one of those movies, like Shaun of the Dead (2004, Simon Pegg) or Army of Darkness (1992, Bruce Campbell), you show the uninitiated to give a taste of the horror flick genre.  Adding to the Zombieland fun, there's now Zombieland The Series.

Amazon Studios, yes part of Amazon.com, financed Zombieland The Series and has just made the twenty-nine minute pilot available free to the public.  According to the promo, the series is "from the original creative team behind the hit movie."

The answer to the question, 'will there be more', is up to the viewers.

In a method reminiscent of The NBC Mystery Movie format, Amazon Studios has presented fourteen pilots ¹⁵ on it's Pilot Season page.  Whether all, some, or none of these pilot episodes become series is based on feedback from the viewers.

Zombieland fans, get your cardio on.  View and vote.

Oh, and expect the next innovation (copying Amazon) from eBay; eBay Videos.

/*

15 - Amazon Instant Video Pilots

1. Anniebots   (Katie Griffin, Addison Holley)
2. Creative Galaxy   (Susan Roman, Amariah Faulkner)
3. Positively Ozitively   (Andrea Libman, Nicole Oliver)
4. Sara Solves It   (Nicole Oliver, Shannon Chan-Kent)
5. Teeny Tiny Dogs   (John Tartaglia, Colleen Smith)
6. Tumbleaf   (Gary Littman, Christopher Downs)
7. Alpha House   (John Goodman, Mark Consuelos)
8. Betas   (Joe Dinicol, Karan Soni)
9. Browsers   (Bebe Neuwirth, Brigette Davidovici)
10. Dark Minions   (Clancy Brown, Phil LaMarr)
11. Onion News Empire   (William Sadler, Jeffrey Tambor)
12. Supanatural   (Jameeliah Garrett, Lily Sparks)
13. Those Who Can't   (Nikki Glaser, Kyle Kinane)
14. Zombieland   (Tyler Ross, Kirk Ward, Maiara Walsh, Izabela Vidovic)
    

/*

Swiss Army Knife
Zombieland Rule #33

/*

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The eBay INC Is A Long Term Stock Meme

The eBay INC Is A Long Term Stock Meme
EventHorizon1984
1 February 2013

Every few weeks an investment article comes out touting eBay INC as a long term stock.  The article typically spins the strength of the company and the stock price over the last quarter or two.  Like clockwork this is followed by a small buying frenzy; raising the price.  Followed by quick profitable sales within the week; the price dips.  Followed by another article ...

We like to think of 'long term' as years, not days.  So how has eBay INC been doing 'long term'?

John Donahoe became eBay INC CEO on 31 March 2008.  Let's use that as a starting date, and the opening bell share price of $29.87.  Then let's add the mix of companies we've been using, that have been compared to eBay INC as competitors or peers.

		Share Price
	3/31/08	1/31/13	$ Increase        (1)		% Increase   (2)		Dividends
eBay	$29.87	$55.97	$26.10	$5.40	87%	18%	No
Amazon	$70.25	$265.50	$195.25	$40.40	278%	58%	No
American Express	$43.21	$58.81	$15.60	$3.23	36%	7%	Yes
Apple	$143.27	$455.49	$312.22	$64.60	218%	45%	Yes
Discover	$16.00	$38.39	$22.39	$4.63	140%	29%	Yes
Google	$435.64	$755.69	$320.05	$66.22	73%	15%	No
MasterCard	$218.00	$518.40	$300.40	$62.15	138%	29%	Yes
Starbucks	$17.06	$56.12	$39.06	$8.08	229%	47%	Yes
VISA	$62.60	$157.91	$95.31	$19.72	152%	32%	Yes
Walmart	$52.20	$69.95	$17.75	$3.67	34%	7%	Yes
(1)	Average Yearly Increase Per Share
(2)	Average Yearly Percent Increase

Do keep in mind most of the 'lower' return companies pay a dividend, while there is no dividend income from eBay INC.  The eBay INC's official investor page states:

Are you getting your money's worth holding on to eBay INC long term?

/*

"The long term used to mean three-, five- or 10-year holding periods for stock investors looking to wring out risk and boost their odds of making money."
"Performance statistics going back 60 years suggest that holding stocks for 20 years — yes, 20 years — may be what it really takes to ride out the market's ups and downs, smooth out returns and make a buy-and-hold investment pay off."
Adam Shell, 8 June 2011

/*

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Do You Know What Your Amazon Cloud Is Up To?

Do You Know What Your Amazon Cloud Is Up To?
EventHorizon1984
26 October 2012

The Amazon Web Service (AWS) had an East Coast service outage on October 22nd.  The interruption of service lasted several hours. 

According to TechCrunch:

• "What started as a small issue affecting some instances of Amazon’s Elastic Cloud Compute (EC2) in North Virginia became a full-blown outage of AWS in North Virginia. Major services, such as Reddit, Foursquare, Minecraft and Heroku, are down. GitHub, imgur, Pocket, HipChat, Coursera and others are affected"

In brief, the usual short-term whoops that happens with all large computer systems.  But what c|net added was interesting:

• "Amazon isn't saying what happened, but a spokesperson said the problem isn't due to an attack, as some have speculated. A member of hacker group Anonymous claimed responsibility for the outage via a tweet, but the Amazon spokesperson said that's not accurate and that no attack occurred."

While the claim is likely an Anonymous wannabe or puffery, the hackability of some Amazon services is not fictional.

It was almost a year ago when this article appeared:

Amazon's EC2, Eucalyptus hacked
SC Magazine
Darren Pauli, 28 October 2011

• “Effectively, a successful attack on a cloud control interface grants the attacker a complete power over the victim's account, with all the stored data included,” researchers at Germany’s Ruhr University wrote in a paper.
• "We had full access to all customer data, including data authentication, tokens, and even passwords in clear text," researcher Mario Heiderich said.

The article had this warning at the end:

• "Critical infrastructure and services are making ever more use of cloud computing," he said. "It is therefore an urgent need to identify the security gaps in cloud computing".
  Juraj Somorovsky

Don't comfort yourself believing this is theoretical.  As we noted in May 2011, there was this incident:

Sony Network Breach Shows Amazon Cloud's Appeal for Hackers
Bloomberg
Joseph Galante, Olga Kharif, Pavel Alpeyev, 16 May 2011

• For three pennies an hour, hackers can rent Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)’s servers to wage cyber attacks such as the one that crippled Sony Corp. (6758)’s PlayStation Network and led to the second-largest online data breach in U.S. history.
• A hacker used Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud, or EC2, service to attack Sony’s online entertainment systems last month, a person with knowledge of the matter said May 13.

This article had this warning at the end:

• The episode will cause individuals and companies to rethink what data to put on the cloud and force companies to potentially double what they spend on application security, said Murray Jennex, an associate professor at San Diego State University who specializes in computer systems security. In the long run, it will be cheaper than being hacked, he said.
  “This puts cloud computing into proper perspective,” Jennex said. “Everybody’s been thinking it’s chic and ignoring the security aspect. I think this reminds companies that things that make them great need to stay under their control.”

Our point is not that Amazon's Cloud is more vulnerable that other systems.  It isn't; ask Sony about THEIR data security.  Our point is that we see far too many people buy into the hype of the safety and security of Cloud Computing.  And when they** move to Cloud Computing, do the computer equivalent of leaving their house keys under the door mat.*

*  Then too, we do see people** getting a web site and putting the keys under the mat.
**  Yes, this article is partially directed to 'you know who you are'.

In security matters, treat Cloud Computing no differently from other computer services.

"No boom today.  Boom tomorrow.  There's always a boom tomorrow."
Susan Ivanova

Now we do have a small bone to pick with Amazon AWS Services - Cloudfront.

Previous emails to Amazon Cloud customer service about their problem users have always resulted in mixed results.  Translation:  No Response.

Here's our public comment about the Amazon Cloud user from IP 46.137.248.139, who is using the Amazon AWS Services - Cloudfront - FRA.  This is what he did recently to an associated site.

46.137.248.139 /MyAdmin/scripts/setup.php 10/26/12 1:03 PM 0 404 GET ZmEu
46.137.248.139 /myadmin/scripts/setup.php 10/26/12 1:03 PM 0 404 GET ZmEu
46.137.248.139 /pma/scripts/setup.php 10/26/12 1:03 PM 0 404 GET ZmEu
46.137.248.139 /phpmyadmin/scripts/setup.php 10/26/12 1:03 PM 0 404 GET ZmEu
46.137.248.139 /phpMyAdmin/scripts/setup.php 10/26/12 1:03 PM 0 404 GET ZmEu
46.137.248.139 /w00tw00t.at.blackhats.romanian.anti-sec:) 10/26/12 1:03 PM 0 404 GET ZmEu

We do realize Amazon, that this had no effect on that site.  And virtually all web sites are immune to this not ready for amateur hour attack.  But maybe he'll learn and try something else, on someone bigger.

Could you have a talk with this Amazon Cloud customer?

Pretty please.

/*

"Captain Gideon, 'security' happens to be my middle name." Captain Elizabeth Lochley
"That's all well and good, but just in case your last name is 'breach' it won't hurt for me to double-check." Captain Matthew Gideon
Crusade (1999)

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eBay INC Stock Has Turned Around Under CEO John Donahoe; Really?

eBay INC Stock Has Turned Around Under CEO John Donahoe; Really?
EventHorizon1984
31 August 2012

The bulk of this article was originally scheduled for publication on July 31st.  Then, 'life happened'.  It is now August 31st, but the updated numbers are just as interesting.

While much is said about eBay INC's stock, there is one fact rarely presented.  The matter of eBay INC stock dividends.  According to eBay INC's official investor page:

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, et al.

Many analysts (who make money on fees You pay them) give the advice 'eBay stock is a long term investment.'  Is this stale, and cliche advice a bad thing?

Well ....

• "Ebay will blow all estimates away!
  The stock has NO choice but to go up
  I predict this will hit $50 before the end of July. . ."
  Ebay Pays My Bills, 11 July 2012

When John Donahoe became eBay INC CEO on 31 March 2008, the opening bell share price was $29.87.  At the 31 July 2012 closing bell, the price was $44.30.

Various organizations tooted "eBay's Comeback".  Our thoughts were ....

• "Sure.  Fine.  Whatever."
  Dana Scully, X-Files, Syzygy

Under the tenure of CEO John Donahoe, eBay INC's share price numbers are fairly cut and dry.

			Share Price
	3/31/2008		7/31/2012		$ Increase        (1)		% Increase   (2)			Dividends
eBay	29.87		44.3		$14.43	$3.33	48%	11%		No

(1)	Average Yearly Increase Per Share
(2)	Average Yearly Percent Increase

This is considered a major turnaround.  At least to the people who want to sell you more eBay INC stock.

But it is amusing to see how eBay INC's numbers compare to the stocks of companies that are considered to be in a downturn or the doldrums. 

For example, two companies that eBay INC is constantly compared to:

			Share Price
	3/31/2008		7/31/2012		$ Increase        (1)		% Increase   (2)			Dividends
eBay	29.87		44.3		$14.43	$3.33	48%	11%		No
Google	435.64		632.97		$197.33	$45.54	45%	10%		No
Walmart	52.20		74.43		$22.23	$5.13	43%	10%		Yes

(1)	Average Yearly Increase Per Share
(2)	Average Yearly Percent Increase

Percentages look the same, don't they?

• "50% to 60% of PayPal's transactions are funded with a credit or debit card, so Visa, MasterCard, and the other card brands still get their normal fees more than half of the time PayPal is used."
  Greg Smith, Jennifer Dugan

What about the financial portion of eBay INC, PayPal?  After all John Donahoe said, "PayPal is a business that will be bigger than eBay".  And PayPal, an eBay INC company, recently announced partnering with Discover.

What is the tale of the tape for eBay INC share price versus the major credit card companies?

			Share Price
	3/31/2008		7/31/2012		$ Increase        (1)		% Increase   (2)			Dividends
eBay	29.87		44.3		$14.43	$3.33	48%	11%		No
VISA	62.60		129.07		$66.47	$15.34	106%	25%		Yes
MasterCard	218.00		436.57		$218.57	$50.44	100%	23%		Yes
American Express	43.21		57.71		$14.50	$3.35	34%	8%		Yes
Discover	16.00		35.96		$19.96	$4.61	125%	29%		Yes

(1)	Average Yearly Increase Per Share
(2)	Average Yearly Percent Increase

With one exception, and that by a small margin, buying stock in a major credit card company was a better long term investment.  And do notice that in addition to the large share price gains, the credit card companies pay a dividend.  eBay INC does not.

Incidentally, the news that gets buried in the 2013 PayPal and Discover partnership spin; Discover partners with Google. 

It is not John Donahoe boldly leading PayPal into credit card territory.  It's Discover aggressively expanding into e-commerce by partnering with BillToMobile (3/27/2012), Google (8/16/2012), and PayPal (8/22/2012, 2013).  PayPal got swept up.

• "Why is Apple so Cheap?"
  Andres Cardenal, 12 July 2012

Almost finally, here are the numbers of the three companies we've used in previous eBay INC share price comparisons.

			Share Price
	3/31/2008		7/31/2012		$ Increase        (1)		% Increase   (2)			Dividends
eBay	29.87		44.3		$14.43	$3.33	48%	11%		No
Amazon	70.25		233.3		$163.05	$37.63	232%	54%		No
Starbucks	17.06		45.28		$28.22	$6.51	165%	38%		Yes
Apple	143.27		610.76		$467.49	$107.89	326%	75%		Yes

(1)	Average Yearly Increase Per Share
(2)	Average Yearly Percent Increase

 

Had you bought stock from our mini-trio of Amazon, Starbucks, Apple, you would have made more than the amount you sunk into eBay INC.

• "eBay is bigger than Madagascar"
  Vincent Trivett

To be fair, this is August 31st not July 31st.  Today's stock prices are:

			Share Price
	3/31/2008		8/31/2012		$ Increase        (1)		% Increase   (2)			Dividends
eBay	29.87		47.47		$17.60	$3.98	59%	13%		No
Amazon	70.25		248.27		$178.02	$40.31	253%	57%		No
American Express	43.21		58.30		$15.09	$3.42	35%	8%		Yes
Apple	143.27		665.24		$521.97	$118.18	364%	82%		Yes
Discover	16.00		38.73		$22.73	$5.15	142%	32%		Yes
Google	435.64		685.09		$249.45	$56.48	57%	13%		No
MasterCard	218.00		422.90		$204.90	$46.39	94%	21%		Yes
Starbucks	17.06		49.61		$32.55	$7.37	191%	43%		Yes
VISA	62.60		128.25		$65.65	$14.86	105%	24%		Yes
Walmart	52.20		72.60		$20.40	$4.62	39%	9%		Yes

(1)	Average Yearly Increase Per Share
(2)	Average Yearly Percent Increase

Given the overall changes of non-eBay INC share prices versus eBay INC stock price, it may have been kinder not to include this chart.

If you had heeded the call of your analyst to buy eBay stock on 31 March 2008, as a long term investment?  Today, almost four and a half years later, eBay INC stock is at a sustained price, higher than your purchase price.  You are now $3.98 a share per year ahead.

Temper that $3.98 with the fact that had you instead purchased stocks in aggregate from companies considered to be eBay INC competitors or peers, your investment would have been significantly larger than your eBay INC investment.

As an average investor, the question you face is today 'buy, hold, or sell?'.  Based on the four year stock price track record of the companies above, is 'buy, hold?' really a question that needs to be asked?

eBay INC's next Earnings Call is scheduled for 17 October 2012.

Where will eBay INC's stock price be then?  And what will be the share prices of eBay INC's competitors and peers?

We're projecting an eBay INC $50 share price by early 2013.  The other companies?  Much more of the same.

• "28 years of social media experience with Fortune 500 global brands"
  LiveWorld.com

Finally, do you know that LiveWorld, a corporation that "works with eBay on its active website social venues" has stock?  With eBay INC and Walmart providing LiveWorld "approximately 51% of" it's total revenue, perhaps this is a stock worth checking.

			Share Price
	3/31/2008		7/31/2012		$ Increase      (1)		% Increase   (2)			Dividends
eBay	29.87		47.47		$17.60	$3.98	59%	13%		No
LiveWorld	0.19		0.25		$0.06	$0.01	32%	7%		No

(1)	Average Yearly Increase Per Share
(2)	Average Yearly Percent Increase

 

Affordable too.

/*

"investors may be getting impatient with companies that show no sign of profit, such as Amazon. Its stock has dropped from more than $200 a share in April to around $135 today, while eBay's has only eased from a high of $234 in late April to around $195"
Robert Hof, BusinessWeek, 31 May 1999

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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.

/*

"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.

/*

Related articles:

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

eBay INC Stock Price During CEO John Donahoe's Tenure

/*

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.

/*

"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?

/*

"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  

/*

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.

/*

"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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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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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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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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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?

.

"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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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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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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