Randy Smythe spilled the “Blog Juice” yesterday in his MyBlogUtopia. eBay and Buy.com have partnered up to bring Buy.com’s in-season merchandise to Buy.com’s eBay Store. This results in Buy.com having over 180,000 items listed in Fixed Price format. All items in the Buy.com store require immediate payment and as far as I can see, these are all 3 day listings.
The following quote from eBay spokesman Usher Lieberman can be found in Randy’s blog article:
“eBay is aggressively using price as a lever to improve the value and selection on eBay.com. Consistent with our goals, we have entered into a partnership with Buy.com to bring their new-in-season merchandise onto eBay.com. We expect to learn a great deal from this partnership and we will build upon the results.”
Last month at the ECMTA Spring Summit, Lorrie Norrington stated in her keynote address that the eBay we know today will not be the eBay we see a year from now, and to emphasize this Lorrie said “You ain’t seen nothing yet”. It appears that she was preparing sellers for just this type of change.
Visions of an eBay we won’t recognize may come to those sellers (like me) that have been selling on the site for more than 6 or 7 years, as a very difficult pill to swallow. In fact, the equal opportunity that Pierre Omidyar speaks of in the recent video released by eBay on the eBayInk blog seems to disappear in light of this partnership.
What this all boils down to is the COMPLETE and TOTAL change in the eBay marketplace to one of commercial domination where there will no longer be a place for auctions, individual or small to medium sized businesses. Mark my words and your calendar. Within the next 12 months there will be either a spin off site for auctions, or eBay will simply do away with the auction format just like they are planning to do with the LiveAuctions.
Scott Pooler of TradingAssistantJournal.com, as well as I (and I would assume many others) have tried to post comments on the article posted by Richard Brewer-Hay. Unfortunately as is noted in Scott’s post, it appears that eBay is suffering another “glitch” or is again moderating the posts to the blog. Whatever the reason, rest assured there will be significant “noise” about this!
“May old acquaintance be forgot” to those of us individuals and small businesses that built eBay to what it is today. It truly has become time to move on,,,, eBay has, why shouldn’t we?
Filed under: Internet Marketing, PESA/ECMTA, PayPal, ebay | Tagged: buy.com, ebay, ecommcerce, Lorrie Norrington, Myblogutopia.com, onlineauction, Pierre Omidyar, Randy Smythe, selling on ebay, selling online
You can go to soauctionit.com and sell your ditigal prducts there… Their fees are alot less then ebay. They are new however, they have had success with the search engines picking them up fast. They just need more sellers like you.
Thanks,
Matt Soares
I’ve been a member of eBay since the 1900’s. It’s a great tool and a good way for people who want to buy something or sell something. It’s also a great business tool. I’m a Power seller and have done very well over the years with eBay. Now we have to modernize. I understand that, but to catapult all of us into a fray of good and bad decisions is not the way to keep the faithful and get new sellers and buyers.
Let’s look at the neutral feedback. It is usually used to inform the seller that something was not quite right but the item was fine and so was the transaction. There is a positive feedback, neutral feedback and negative feedback. Two of those count as negative to sellers. Not fair! Wouldn’t it be more constructive if you changed the timber and attitude of the neutral feedback and call it a suggestion or an improvement service provided to the seller to help his business get better? The buyer can also include a negative if he doesn’t like what the seller did or a positive to let him know that it went well and will get better with more help from sellers. Let them feel as if we are working in unison and not dueling with each other for merit points, like in high school. I know you are trying to get rid of the shipping scammers and the no-show goods seller. But they only compromise 5 to 7% of us. This feedback change is like selling the store because someone stole a package of chewing gum. I am a Power Seller and pride myself on my reputation. But if can be stripped away so easily by discrimination instead of help. We are doomed. Lowering .05 here and there is not even a band aid. What you need to do is gain more trust from buyers, eliminate the non-buyers that waste our time and give sellers a new and professional look, so buyers will gain more confidence in eBay. Right now, we have to pay for a store, pay to upgrade it, pay monthly fees and more. If eBay would come out with their own interface that looks like a big business and let sellers use it might give that “show business” look needed to attract better buyers and certainly aid more sellers. I’m rambling on, sorry, but I feel very strongly about this and hate to see it disintegrate.
Thank you,
Ben