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Is eBay set to introduce a free listing format?
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Something is in the wind at eBay according to Ina Steiner at Auctionbytes.com. as written in her article "Donahoe's Big Gamle"
From the article:
eBay is moving toward a free listing-fee model. But will eBay's new CEO John Donahoe roll out such a dramatic change in one bold move, or will he roll out free-listings in stages - by category? It appears the former scenario is well within the realm of possibility, and in fact may be coming in time for the holiday shopping season. This could explain many of the changes eBay has made in 2008.
While at first pass, free listing fees may seem like a good idea to a lot of people, I would submit that there is a good chance that it will hurt many experienced sellers. The last time eBay reduced listing fees, it upped it's final value fees. The end result of this was that people with a successful sell through rate were penalized by having to pay more to eBay in fees, not to mention the flood of absolute junk that began to clog up the eBay search.
After these and other complicated changes, a lot of sellers fled eBay. It's become apparent that this has had a big effect on the company as it scrambles to regain lost market share. Now it's looks like they are going to try to remedy these ills with more of the same behavior that created them. What will final value fees jump to if a free listing format is the new selling model? 10%, 15%?
eBay may argue that Amazon gets this kind of a % without problem and they are correct, but that's Amazon, it has a completely different business model that allows for the tolerance of that fee structure. Does eBay want to be eBay, or does it want to be Amazon?
I understand that Wall street is creating a lot of pressure for the eBay board to perform in ways that will boost stock price. The problem with this is that eBay was founded on a very basic "old school" auction format, and has run away from that business model for the last few years. Getting a better share price takes a solid foundation and some time. Gimmicks and changes installed with only quick shareholder profit in mind will ruin a good company pretty fast. I think that's what's going on here.
The fix as I see it:
- Get back to basics.
- Get a licensed auctioneer or two on the eBay board
- Slow down on the changes. I'm a 10 year eBay veteran Powerseller seller that spends about 45 hours a week online. If the constant, rapid changes are too much for me to track, can you imagine how overwhelmed someone with less experience feels when trying to navigate eBay's site?
- Take a pile of ad money and put it into customer support. Why do only Powersellers have access to eBay phone support? Also, many times the eBay overstressed support team gives bad information based on either, old policy, policy they don't completely understand, or they simply direct you to the site's help section on the topic.
- Step back and realize that eBay wasn't built by corportate, they may have provided the outline, but eBay was built by the people who populated the site. People who quickly became evangelists for eBay because they found somewhere they could have a little control over their interenet sales, get good money and do so in an easy way. They never wanted a online Walmart, and they still don't. In fact I would argue that the rise of eBay was in many ways a pushback against the coroporate big box business model.
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