Business Puzzle - How to take on EBAY

[Top Hat]

First off, I don't' want to start an auction site.

These been a few auction sites popping up on UKBF asking advice etc.

So I thought it would be a nice intellectual challenge for you all.

Here's the challenge
Someone very rich and eccentric comes to you and says they want you to launch a new auction site, moneys no problem, they want to knock ebay off the top spot.

How would you go about it?

[exotic detail]

Simple, Be totally different! Be everything ebay isnt

Simon

[Online Trader]

Simple Buy eBay

[openmind]

Simple Buy eBay
Good answer ;)

I would have to agree with the first reply and identify niche areas where eBay fails. Off the top of my head though I cannot really think of that many...

[phoog]

Free, everything free, target local area's,pay people to use it ..or at least "reward" them enough to make it worth their while, you'd need seriously deep pockets
oh..you could try and somehow tie it in to a socialnetwoking, forum,chat,product reviews type thing...myspace/facebook with sales, it would be the first "super do everything for everyone" site

might be easier and quicker to discover another planet with life on and set up ebay there :)

[kulture]

The only way to get ebay off the top spot is to do it better and let everyone in the world know about it.

The one company that immediately springs to mind that could do it would be google.

Any aution site would need a easy payment method like paypay. It is easy to imagine that e-bay could restrict paypals use on a competitor auction site. Google would need its own payment solution (guess what it has!).

It would need a way of listing thousands or products (e.g Froogle and google base).

If would need to start a massive advertising campaign.

If they chose to do it, I can see them succeeding.

[ken_uk]

Spend more than eBay on marketing, including bribing lots of Hollywood producers to mention it in more films than eBay has been mentioned in. Same for soap opera's etc.

Lower fees than ebay, free for a while.
Dont be greedy, and plough some decent money into hosting and optimising, so its not dog slow like ebay is.
Spend plenty on quality support, policing and dispute mediation.
Set up your own courier service, at a great price for the sites customers.
Dont have shareholders - kiss of death as they want cash, not quality, they rarely understand the quality can lead to more cash long term.
Crack down *hard* on thieves, crooks, and bad sellers/buyers - have no mercy.
Dont redesign the site on a regular basis, as users get sick of having to find where everything is when the site changes around just as they learned where everything was after the last pointless shake up.
Dont hire anyone that currently works at ebay.
Free import and listing for exising ebay/other sites customers to dual list at first, then move over. A simple import and go option....
An api not written by clueless people, with good documentation, and that remains stable without changing on a regular basis.
Open source integration with most popular open source ecommerce packages.
Manually check accounts (especially large ones) for quality, and boot them if not high quality - even if means losing money on that account.
Recommend all problem customers or not 'high quality' accounts use ebay instead.
Have your own payment processor, again great prices for site customers.

[exotic detail]

Crack down *hard* on thieves, crooks, and bad sellers/buyers - have no mercy.

The reason i dont use ebay is because it is full of scammers, the last thing i sold was a mobile phone and i got 10 scam emails A DAY!!

Its a waste of my time, so i dont use it.

Also Ebay customer service is RUBBISH! Can anyone find a phone number to contact them on? erm....No and still i doubt it would be 0800

Simon

[dave_n]

1. no 'buy now' - an auction is an auction
2. have a warning message flash the screen when a 2nd hand item is approaching the price of the same item if it was new.
3. charge companies to register on the site and show a listing of the companies when an used item is near the new price (see 2)
4. as 2 but vice versa - a company gets an email when a 2nd hand item is nearing the new price and company can contact highest bidder with offer.

[Hedgie]

Charging business users an annual fee would be a good start. Might get rid of a few of the bad ones.

[office man]

moneys no problem
How would you go about it?


it soon would be when his millions would not make a dent in ebays armour:(

[fenton]

The only way to get ebay off the top spot is to do it better and let everyone in the world know about it.

The one company that immediately springs to mind that could do it would be google.

Any aution site would need a easy payment method like paypay. It is easy to imagine that e-bay could restrict paypals use on a competitor auction site. Google would need its own payment solution (guess what it has!).

It would need a way of listing thousands or products (e.g Froogle and google base).

If would need to start a massive advertising campaign.

If they chose to do it, I can see them succeeding.

Google are soon to launch a social networking site. Watch this space.!

[SharonH]

Google are soon to launch a social networking site. Watch this space.!


No!!! I have enough trouble holding down the rest of them! I do have a job you know!

[RedEvo]

We've had a pop (http://www.fortherightprice.co.uk) for a bit of fun - it ticks away in the background quite nicely and has an 'angle'.

d

[Page]

I would befriend him - tell him it was possible -and then provide loads of expensive consultancy advice until he realised that it was not possible.

That or return him back to the funny farm before they missed him.

[RayB]

The answer is simple - buy Google, who in turn have enough money to buy Ebay - sorted :)

[No-Posh-Bag]

Charging business users an annual fee would be a good start. Might get rid of a few of the bad ones.

That is a good idea.

[creospace]

Drop listing fees.

[DuaneJackson]

If money really was no issue then it's simple.

Advertise pretty much constantly on TV.

Run at a loss for a couple of years (no fees for anyone, etc) to grab market share.

Et voila.

But I stil think the best response was "Buy eBay"

[Astaroth]

To be honest if buy ebay was out the question then to realisticly make it without spending billions in marketing you would really need to look at a partnership with a massive brand (eg Amazon, Tesco if uk only, etc)

The only other option, but doesnt feel like a money is no object type decision, would be to go down a very different route or niche market. http://www.autoebid.co.uk/ is a fairly good example where they do reverse auctions for cars (ie buyer posts requirements and sellers give their lowest bid to supply it)

[Baby's Best]

Try ebay kind of auction on second life!

Quote: "might be easier and quicker to discover another planet with life on and set up ebay there :)"

There you have it.

I watched a programme last night on BBC4 about our future. REally interesting! They dedicated a bit of their time to this new type of life, called secondlife. It is basically a virtual life where you can live and trade (earn real money) and gather with friends and do whatever you like - in the virtual world. It is supposed to become a very big thing in the next 10 years or so - so there is our future!

Try set up your auction there!:)

[Astaroth]

There are already sites for selling SecondLife items both in SecondLife itself and outside of it.... certainly nothing big at the moment though.

Going slightly off of a tangent, I found it amusing the other day to find a photo/ graphic art site that now has SecondLife as a major category of images

[An Oasis]

Tell him to save his money Ebay is full of over priced tat that surely no one wants, who the hell would want to waste money providing a facility that is #1 in that department?