Tackling ebay's dominance

[einbachsystems]

WITH REFERENCE TO EBAY'S LATEST FEE INCREASE AS OF 22/08:

Why don't the bigger ebay sellers (and I understand there are quite a few), which provide ebay with a large chunk of their revenues, set up a purpose built website where they can duplicate all of their listings from ebay? Publicity of the new site could be pushed through google and the media etc etc and eventually this site could potentially 'threaten' ebay and force their directors to stop being so greedy.

Buyers could buy from this other site but still have the option of buying from ebay. Ebay rule breaking could be avoided by sellers not advertising this external site in their listings but quietly lettting word spread through other means and consistently duplicating all of their listings.

If I had the time and the resources to pull this off then I would set such a FREE site up myself and start pushing it. If successful, it could be turned into a profitable competitor to ebay.

What do you guys think? Do you think these latest fee increases will be the straw that broke the camel's back? I think 9.9% Final Value Fee is starting to look a bit excessive and have stopped selling on ebay for the moment.

 

[the white rose]

@einbachsystems

Blooming heck! Just got the email and basic shop fees are increasing from £6 to £14.99! That is taking the piss! Fortunately for me, my Ebay selling days are coming to an end as my publishing days are beckoning. Not before time, it seems.

I seem to remember lots of people a few years back squawking about how there could be no rival to MySpace, just as people now are saying there can be no rival to Ebay.

Er...

 

[Alison Jones]

I cannot believe ebay are charging basic shops 20p for every listing compared to 3p. If you want this at 5p you have to register as a business which is no good for people just selling off their own unwanted belongings - ie clothes they outgrown, books they've read and dvd's they've watched etc.

Also ridiculous charging £14.99 for a shop.

I mainly sell off my books as buy loads and unless I sell them when I've read them my husband won't let me buy any more as the whole house is chocka block with my books.

I might have to sell by other means as ebay far too steep prices.

Alison

 

[the white rose]

I cannot believe ebay are charging basic shops 20p for every listing compared to 3p. If you want this at 5p you have to register as a business which is no good for people just selling off their own unwanted belongings - ie clothes they outgrown, books they've read and dvd's they've watched etc.

Also ridiculous charging £14.99 for a shop.

I mainly sell off my books as buy loads and unless I sell them when I've read them my husband won't let me buy any more as the whole house is chocka block with my books.

I might have to sell by other means as ebay far too steep prices.

Alison

I'm in the same position as you, Alison. I've been selling off surplus domestic items to allow me to stay at home and focus on my writing, and books have been one of those commodities.

I'm going to close my Ebay shop now, but they've only given their clients 3 days grace to sort this out. If you don't close your shop within the next 3 days then the 30 days in advance shop charge is going to fall within the new charging period which commences 24th September, and you will be billed at the new rate even if you closed your shop on, say, the 30th August. That's how I understand it, anyway, please anyone correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Christiane]

I read this on another forum and quite a few people only making little money are closing their shops.

My question is: will customers still look on ebay for stuff? If the sellers go elsewhere, what about the buyers, will they go elsewhere?

I looked at ebid last night and hate the design. I checked some sellers for products I sell, and they didn't seem to sell much at all. At the moment, I am not sure ebay has any strong competition, hence they do what they like. They're going to turn into Amazon soon!

 

[Logan]

ebid is just a loss of time and money...

Listed my products for a while now and not even an offer!

ebid has a long way to go...

 

[Mister B]

But looking at it from the other side...if more people are closing their ebay stores then there would be a proportionate fall in competition. Most notably from the low margin operators which has to be good for those that stay.

More business at better margins? Worth a thought Rodney.

Mister B

 

[Mister B]

To be honest, until this morning, I had not bothered to look at the new fee structure. As I don't sell much on ebay, it was not really of that much interested.

However, having had a look now, there are some seriously hefty increases which, when combined with the Paypal fees, make Amazon look like good value

What interests me most though, is that the difference ininsertion fees between the different types of stores is now quite large and for larger retailers, it will make sense for them to upgrade their stores. i.e. By listing 235 products a month, it would be cheaper to pay the extra store subscription fee and save on the insertion fees. Now, this all makes sense, but at some point there will be more anchor stores and featured stores than they have room for.

Ultimately, I think that it is a step in the wrong direction for ebay...

Mister B

 

[Tim R-T-C]

Problem is, the sellers could move, but will the buyers? People know and to a degree trust eBay and most have never heard of eBid and the like.

Setting up a new website to rival eBay would be a long and costly process and as we saw with "cuil" - all the media hype in the world won't help a sinking ship.

 

[yankee candleman]

I sell on Ebay and this month (last 30 days) I sold about 50 items bringing in about £600 Gross, after fees and paypal charges I was left with about £440.

Now that they are increasing their fees, I have worked it out that it would cost me an extra £40 a month just to list my items, another £10 for monthly subscription and I bet that the paypal charges go up before Christmas.

So it is costing me a third of my gross takings to be on Ebay or about £200 a month.

Add the VAT into the equation, the time and effort of postage and packing and the wages for someone to do all this, I think I would lose £100 a month.

I can counteract this by writing the loss off against advertising and always kid myself that I get "great" customers on Ebay but in reality I rarely sell anything other than reduced items on there.

Ebay know there is no alternative so they can do this, increase fees to an unprecedented high and screw small business owners and people who want to make a few quid from old stock or surplus items.

Sadly, there is no alternative at this moment. Someone kindly left a message in my inbox advertising their new auction site but like ebid, it will be a lot of work and effort for no return at this moment in time, and the fact that the majority of Ebay sellers are private individuals, Ebay wont care about losing the "minnows" like ourselves as long as they keep the sharks and they have done that quite well by rewarding mass sellers with a set fee and only 1p each to add their 1000's of items.

I will close the Ebay shop as financially it has never been that good and not worth all the time and effort invested so I will give it a month so I can contact the 500 or so people who have bought items from me and will change my website to include a deal section similar to my Ebay shop.

Just means that marketing will be crucial to the sales rather than hope a potential buyer floats your way on Ebay. I use fastmail as my email system and it works quite well as I have over 2000 customers included in that already so I will just root through the paypal invoices and use their emails to contact them asking permission to include them in my mailing list.

I suggest anyone else not turning over £1000 with a minimum 60% gross profit on Ebay does the same.

 

[connell83]

i pay at least £400 a month in ebay fees (plus paypal fees which ebay owns! at probably another £200 a month)

I wish ebid or someone became a true ebay rival as ebay fees are getting rediculous now.

They should not be allowed a market monopoly.

 

[gbsales]

We are Gold Power Sellers on Ebay. VAT & Inland Revenue registered (and taxed accordingly!). Recently our sales have gone into free fall. I'm not at all sure what our Power Seller status will be by the end of the quarter. I am actually undecided about the fee change as it may result in the site becoming unviable for the competitors who don't register as a business, don't have to pay VAT or tax on income. There are so many of these types "under the tax mans radar" and as there are so many, they are also quite un-policeable. If the fee structures drive some of those guys away, then good. However we are "home" based with very low margins ourselves, so it might just drive us away too.

 

[Dave S]

We sell on eBay and it's our main sales channel (something we are working on changing). From a pure fees point of view, this is good news. We currently spend about £2000 per month in fees of 3 eBay accounts and I expect this will plummet downby about 40% (random stab in the dark guess there but it should be significant)

eBay want rid of the flea market / car boot image, and want the Amazon image. ie. they want rid of small casual sellers and want to retain the businesses selling on there. This is probably a good move from eBay's point of view. Although the flea market image actually attracts a lot of people. eBay will have done their homework here and they will know they will lose some buyers in one demographic but if in increase sales in another demographic then it's worth it.


The thing that worries me is not the fee change, but the search change. It's no longer a case of "ending soonest is at the top" (which means you can spit out a listing every day and know that you will get x amount of exposure for you money. It's now an algorithm based search on seller performance, sell through rate of the ad and price. It's the price bit that worries me from a sellers point of view. Idiot sellers will drop prices until they are selling at wafer thin margins to get the number 1 position. Everyone else will have to follow suit and then all sellers will be selling at little profit. Great for buyers as they get a bargain, probably great for eBay as buyers will visit the site more knowing that they can get the cheapest prices. Bad for sellers sadly.


In response the the original post. I think it's unlikely that anyone can compete with eBay at the moment. That is except for one company.... Google. They could probably do it. Now if we had google auctions open tomorrow that would be an exciting day for me. It would most likely be a fair system and be innovative too. Bring it on Google, I'm not sure exactly why they haven't yet but it's surely crossed their minds....

 

[Bizicycle]

We had tried to set up a fairer auction site about 8 months ago specifically to benefit the big sellers on ebay. We had our design and web developer ready but our analysis into the prospect had shown that it just wasn't feesible. As we were going to make the site £30 annual subscription for members, free to sell etc we thought it would have been a popular alternative. But after discussing things with the few powersellers we could get hold of it was clear that ebay's dominance is the sole fact the sellers will never leave them. Being such a popular website makes it too good a marketplace not to be involved in.

We have shelved our development for now but would maybe consider persuing it again if anyone could suggest a good way of attracting as many big sellers as possible. If we got alot of big sellers involved they could help spread the word to as many potential customers as possible through their previous customer lists.

 

[yankee candleman]

Dave, not all small sellers are car boot/flea market traders, some like myself are respected business's and use Ebay as an outlet for extra money. I am FSB registered, a member of the Urban Center Management team and also involved in quite a few other professional organisations.

I am pleased that for yourself, it works out better as it will for all high turnover business users but it "smells of wee!" to coin a phrase.

It is very much the large sellers pushing out the small, not very much unlike the Tesco/Asda supermarket thing.

Will Ebay be a better place without the small business's, the sole traders and the work from home part time sellers?

Personally, I don't think it will you know.

 

[Dave S]

Bizicycle. The problem, as I'm sure you are already aware is that any large sellers aren't going to spend the time (or even the £30) setting up on your site as you have no buyers, and you can't attract buyers without any sellers.

Most sellers want additional channels. I won't give up eBay unless if becomes unprofitable.

I guess the best way for you to attract sellers is to set it up so that it literally takes 10 mins so get all your inventory on there. So maybe have it so that it will accept a Turbo Lister export with no modifications. I'd put my inventory on your site if I could sign up with turbo lister (free) import all my ebay listings and then simply uipload to your site without making any changes to the csv. If it took more than 15 mins I wouldn't bother though unless there was proven traffic.

I'd also suggest ditching the £30 subscription and charging a final value fee on everything sold. Think about it, if you did manage to say 1000 sellers on there, you would be taking £30,000 per year. You wouldn't be able to support the site, never mind promote it for that. (Unless you were going to charge buyers £30 too, in which case no buyers will sign up)

 

[Mister B]

eBay want rid of the flea market / car boot image, and want the Amazon image. ie. they want rid of small casual sellers and want to retain the businesses selling on there. This is probably a good move from eBay's point of view. Although the flea market image actually attracts a lot of people. eBay will have done their homework here and they will know they will lose some buyers in one demographic but if in increase sales in another demographic then it's worth it.

And here lies the crux of the matter.

At the end of the day, ebay is a commercial entity whether we like it or not. They obviously have done their research and taken a commercial decision for which you cannot criticise them. No different to any other commercial marketplace.

Mister B

 

[Dave S]

Sorry Yankee Candleman, I wasn't suggesting that you, or any other sellers were flea market type sellers. I know a lot of large businesses use eBay as an additional sales channel.

What I mean is that eBay have a bad image of a flea market and they know it, as buyers have told them this. This is why they are trying to push out the smaller sellers. They want it to end up like Amazon.
The recent changes are squeezing sellers to offer the best service at the lowest price in the hope that they can shed the image of a site full of second hand junk and scammers. As sellers, we know that that;s not the case, but many buyers don't bother with eBay because of it's image.

I'm certainly not rejoicing at the recent changes. Everything eBay make a change,. we have to change selling strategy which takes huge amounts of time. If they left it alone I would be more than happy.

And you are right, it probably won't be better without the smaller sellers and work at home part timers etc. This is how I started off in ecommerce, and I'd still be working in a call centre if I hadn't! Certainly wasn't knocking the smaller sellers, I just understand why eBay are doing what they are doing. At the end of the day, they do what is better for their shareholders, they don't care about your business or mine really.....

 

[garyk]

I guess the best way for you to attract sellers is to set it up so that it literally takes 10 mins so get all your inventory on there. So maybe have it so that it will accept a Turbo Lister export with no modifications. I'd put my inventory on your site if I could sign up with turbo lister (free) import all my ebay listings and then simply uipload to your site without making any changes to the csv. If it took more than 15 mins I wouldn't bother though unless there was proven traffic.

Now that is a smart idea!

Still need to spend a fair bit on promotion but like you say Dave making the transition as easy is possible has to be the way to go. I remember years ago WordPerfect was the leading word processor, M$ were an upstart with their MS Word and they targetted WP users by including the same keyboard shortcuts as WP and specifically writing a help manual and calling it 'Help for WordPerfect Users'.

 

[yankee candleman]

True but then private sellers will still flood the place with their junk and it will be difficult for the buyer, who only wants to spend a fiver on a few things, to be able to find anything to buy.

I think it works out at about £1.30 to sell an item for £5 including paypal and auction fees so it is becoming less likely that anyone will list sale items for less than £10.

Ebay will lose the image of being the pocket money playground and it may start to be like Amazon but I rarely use Amazon to buy from as I do not find it any cheaper than using google and going to the sites direct. In fact, I find it easier to do it that way.

Ebay marketplace flopped badly and they must be feeling the pressure for that and trying to compensate somehow by introducing new ways to encourage large selling organisations to sell more.

If I had the budget, I would put on a 1000 items and employ someone to parcel them all up and send them but I do not think it is feasible. Instead, I will try out a few of the free auctions and like I said in my original post, try and market my leads better.

 

[noidea]

To most people selling on eBay is a hobby not a business.

There are many genuine sellers but the businesses which makes a fair sum are the ones who describes items wrong, high postage costs, VAT not included in auction (even though they would have to pay VAT for each transaction so just gaining soem profit), doesn't use paypal etc.


It's funny about the shops. I have noticed many people don't bother with them any more. I'll be honest if someone has a shop I 9 times out of 10 click sellers other items anyway and not the shop link.

 

[Bizicycle]

Thanks for the input Dave. I was just setting what my initial idea was, obviously it wasn't feesible and your points are very close to our initial feedback. I would be very keen to take on alot of ideas from traders on here especially if alot of us are ebay sellers (of all sizes ). I like your idea of the turbo lister import and that will be the first thing we'll look into if we could get something up and running.

If we were to make it totally free to join and post though do you not think that would make the site open to abuse? e.g fake sellers.

Thinking about a new approach say totally free to join and post but paying a final sale fee of around 4% sounds like a fair deal to me, what do you think?

 

[yankee candleman]

To most people selling on eBay is a hobby not a business.

There are many genuine sellers but the businesses which makes a fair sum are the ones who describes items wrong, high postage costs, VAT not included in auction (even though they would have to pay VAT for each transaction so just gaining soem profit), doesn't use paypal etc.


It's funny about the shops. I have noticed many people don't bother with them any more. I'll be honest if someone has a shop I 9 times out of 10 click sellers other items anyway and not the shop link.

Not sure which business you use but I buy from other business's quite often and they all take paypal and give me a VAT invoice.

Also, to making such a sweeping judgment is rather harsh on the sellers who do make the effort to get it right.

In 7 years of Ebay I have never had an issue with a business seller which I have not resolved and I wish I could say the same about private sellers.

 

[noidea]

Not sure which business you use but I buy from other business's quite often and they all take paypal and give me a VAT invoice.

Also, to making such a sweeping judgment is rather harsh on the sellers who do make the effort to get it right.

In 7 years of Ebay I have never had an issue with a business seller which I have not resolved and I wish I could say the same about private sellers.

shut up. lol. I meant either one or more of those factors not all.

I disagree with the "effort" part - people are looking to make money that means not making a loss... and greed.

Give me a seller for example...

What feedback score do you have?

 

[mickyboy73]

eBay has suffered a massive slump in visitors to its US site over the last 6 months.

In January 08 eBay had 2 Billion page views per month but this has fallen to 1.65 Billion by July 08.

In terms of people visiting the site, this equates to around 76 Million people visiting the site in January 08 which has fallen to 63 Million people by July 08 and that has been a constant decline over the period.

I think eBay is on the way out and over the next 6 months we'll see other sites, which have always been around, get pushed to the front and become as popular as eBay used to be.

Personally I can't wait and I have always loved eBay as a buyer and seller but times have changed now.

I see that in the next 12 months Google will own some of eBay and we'll see eBay features intergrated with Google accounts in some way with a move towards mobile device usage.

 

[yankee candleman]

I am fortunate to have 100% feedback over the last 12 months and even before that, my negative was all from private sellers who I had purchased faulty goods from.

I did have one negative feedback from a guy in Portugal who bought a laptop from me which was advertised "Spares or Repair!" and he said I sold him a broken laptop.

Might be a good idea to make a list of other auction sites as I have now been contacted by a couple who have no fees for setting up or listing.

My scores are all 4.9, even postage which is usually free.

 

[noidea]

It's business.

Companies have a monopoly - things change then someone else takes over.

 

[noidea]

I am fortunate to have 100% feedback over the last 12 months and even before that, my negative was all from private sellers who I had purchased faulty goods from.

I did have one negative feedback from a guy in Portugal who bought a laptop from me which was advertised "Spares or Repair!" and he said I sold him a broken laptop.

Might be a good idea to make a list of other auction sites as I have now been contacted by a couple who have no fees for setting up or listing.

My scores are all 4.9, even postage which is usually free.

Your feedback score? Not % but a numerical figure. It's an integer not decimal.

No fees = No REAL marketing

Advertising revenue (banner ads, contextual etc.) isn't enough to have a half decent campaign to persuade ebayers to use the website...

 

[Dave S]

shut up. lol. I meant either one or more of those factors not all.

I disagree with the "effort" part - people are looking to make money that means not making a loss... and greed.

Give me a seller for example...

What feedback score do you have?

You see this is the reason why eBay are making these changes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking you, but I'm assuming you are mainly a buyer. Huge amounts of buyers have the same views as you, eBay have taken it on board and they are changing the site in the hope that in x years, eBay is seen as a safe place to spend money.

In reality, if you pay by paypal, as a buyer you are extremely well protected. Far more than if you order from anywhere else, or even go into a shop. Buyers get it very good on eBay, you just have to know the procedures to follow if something does go wrong.

For the record I put in loads of effort in ensuring my customers are happy. There are plenty of other sellers like us too.

 

[yankee candleman]

Most sellers do Dave, I get the feeling that noidea likes a bit of an argument you know?

 

[noidea]

Most sellers do Dave, I get the feeling that noidea likes a bit of an argument you know?

and Some people like avoiding questions!!!

 

[yankee candleman]

I am not avoiding anything just do not see the relevance to your question really.

If you are asking how much feedback or how many people have given me feedback, then the number is 627.

I am much more interested in finding an avenue for sales though, rather than discussing the merits of rogue traders on Ebay if I am totally honest with you.

 

[Tim R-T-C]

No fees = No REAL marketing

Advertising revenue (banner ads, contextual etc.) isn't enough to have a half decent campaign to persuade ebayers to use the website...

That is a major factor. Remember the eBay television adverts - they are the biggest player in the market by a long way and yet they still needed adverts to promote themselves. How would a new player do?

Quite a lot of the new sites have popped up offering subscription based fees, including one on this forum during the last week - however I think these are all doomed to failure as no seller is going to commit to paying a fee before they even get started and without sellers there can be no buyers. Yes there are a few small 'free' auction sites, but could the man on the street name any of them?

To be honest, I think the only competition to eBay could come from a social networking site like Facebook setting up an action site tied in to the user's profile. It would allow a lot more accountability but it would probably be aimed more at the casual rather than business sellers.

 

[yankee candleman]

But if Ebay prices itself to such an extreme that private sellers can't sell items themselves, then people will have to look for another avenue to sell their goods.

Maybe Ebid and other auction sites will then start catching on just a little bit more.

 

[rebecca-edwards]

Hi all,

This conversation seems to have gone in the wrong direction as we were discussing fees. Well I have had an ebay shop since June 2008. Until last week we were going to close the shop down but we had a huge transformation. Whent he shop opened we had a feed back score of 8 pretty poor but 100% positive. first two months we sold nothing then after some advice this week we have been on fire against what we normally sell. We sold 14 products which equals to £80 this week alone. Then the bombshell dropped this morning fees are going up. Ebay don't double them oh no its more. So the question is now our sales are taking off and feedback is increasing therefore increasing sales so we shut up shop or gives the new fees 1 little chance. Could the business be out of pocket again? And regarding the flea market comment I can understand where the person who made that remark is coming from because when I have something of high value to sell I would rather sell it somewhere else because chargebacks and Fraud is a big problem on ebay maybe they are trying to change this. With seller prices going up maybe not as much competition but maybe no more bargins therefore not as many buyers. In all honesty most people go to ebay for a bargin and maybe see a product that they like or need therefore a urge to buy but no bargins leads to less interest.

 

[noidea]

I am not avoiding anything just do not see the relevance to your question really.

If you are asking how much feedback or how many people have given me feedback, then the number is 627.

I am much more interested in finding an avenue for sales though, rather than discussing the merits of rogue traders on Ebay if I am totally honest with you.

627 has left feedback, OK... you said you had some negatives...

What's the number of people who have left positive and not neutral or negative?

 

[Dave S]

But if Ebay prices itself to such an extreme that private sellers can't sell items themselves, then people will have to look for another avenue to sell their goods.

Maybe Ebid and other auction sites will then start catching on just a little bit more.

That's a very good point. eBay may be inadvertently creating competition. for themselves.

The small sellers generally have more time to invest in new venues, and don't require as a large turnover from them to justify setting up on them.

So eBay pushes the small sellers over to eBid (or whatever), it's slow at first but then the buyers start moving over there too. Then the medium and large eBay seller see an opportunity and they move over too. Then we have some healthy competition! Well, it would be nice anyway....

 

[yankee candleman]

1 month 6 months 12 months

Positive35 151 210

Neutral000

Negative000


Can't be arsed to go back further and check but be my guest.

 

[yankee candleman]

That's a very good point. eBay may be inadvertently creating competition. for themselves.

The small sellers generally have more time to invest in new venues, and don't require as a large turnover from them to justify setting up on them.

So eBay pushes the small sellers over to eBid (or whatever), it's slow at first but then the buyers start moving over there too. Then the medium and large eBay seller see an opportunity and they move over too. Then we have some healthy competition! Well, it would be nice anyway....

Bit like "Field of Dreams."

If you build it, they will come.

We can but hope.

 

[Dave S]

627 has left feedback, OK... you said you had some negatives...

What's the number of people who have left positive and not neutral or negative?

I have 24,000+ on my main account, 100% score, 4.7 is my lowest star rating, rest are 4.9. 14 neutral in 12 months (7 from one guy who apologised afterwards). 2 negatives. All negs and neutrals have come from people who didn't contact us before leaving feedback. ie. they had a problem but didn't give us chance to sort it.

On my second account we have over 10,000 pos and only 1 neg I think

Find me a high street shop that sells 2000 items per month and gets less complaints than that.

We look after our customers, plenty of other sellers do too. As I said in my previous post, your perception of eBay is not the reality. It is the perception of much of the the general public though, which is why eBay are making these changes.