EBay Says It Wants Retailers On Board To Help Compete With Amazon

[engine]

EBay Says It Wants Retailers On Board To Help Compete With Amazon [reuters.com]

EBay Inc, once a scrappy auction site for mom and pop sellers, is enticing some of the world's largest retailers by arguing it can help them compete better against e-commerce leader Amazon.com Inc.

EBay Chief Executive John Donahoe and other executives have been telling retailers that Amazon is their enemy, while eBay is a friend because, unlike Amazon, it holds no inventory.

[Marshall]

Every feel "so many options, so little time" should become a store owner's mantra?

Marshall

[ecommerceprofit]

Good to see ebay starting to treat merchants better regarding seller abuse - I know this topic is about something else...but I'm happy to see others starting to take on Amazon more because Amazon is making me angry with their policies...trying to get off their site a little at a time...

[jwolthuis]

eBay holds no inventory, yet they charge a per-item / per-month insertion fee to merchants wanting to upload their inventory.

It's a perfect plan; collect hundreds of dollars from each merchant, before the merchant sells a single item. (A merchant with 1000 SKUs will pay eBay $6000 per year, regardless if any items actually sell).

I can list products on Amazon for free, just by clicking the "Have one to sell?" link.

If eBay wants to seriously take on Amazon, they need to drop their auction mentality, and fix their broken insertion fee structure, to encourage merchants to list items.

[Digmen1]

If ebay wants to take on Amazon they need to become more seller friendly.

Or they need to give up auctions and sellers, and just buy some stock and become an online retailer.

[J_RaD]

eBay holds no inventory, yet they charge a per-item / per-month insertion fee to merchants wanting to upload their inventory.

they are charging for bringing eyeballs to your product.... think thats to much?

go build a site and try to grind it on your own..... a simple listing fee is nothing to a PPC campaign and years of building.

can list products on Amazon for free, just by clicking the "Have one to sell?" link.

go get serious on amazon and have them hold your funds, and not release your stock...... yea really friendly.

sometimes they'll even flat out steal your stock, and your funds.

[jwolthuis]

they are charging for bringing eyeballs to your product.... think thats to much?

Yes, I do.

They charge a Final Value Fee for each item that is sold. Aka, a "conversion". I understand this fee, and don't feel that it's too much.

But the per-item, per-month Insertion Fee for the sake of "eyeballs" is rediculous and expensive. A merchant with 1000 SKUs will pay eBay $6000 per year, regardless if any items actually sell.

[J_RaD]

it depends on lots of things.

but if you aren't going to test sell thru and blindly post 1000 SKU's at BIN and hope and pray they sell... yes are stuck with a bill.

its the same as paying for PPC keywords that bring views but no sales... you don't keep paying for that.

[votrechien]

but if you aren't going to test sell thru and blindly post 1000 SKU's at BIN and hope and pray they sell... yes are stuck with a bill.

its the same as paying for PPC keywords that bring views but no sales... you don't keep paying for that.

But it is a market place, not a search engine.

Fee structure aside (and I tend to agree the listing fees are a bit out of date) eBay has an incredibly clunky interface. We sell on multiple market places, and eBay is easily the bane of a large majority of our problems due to integration issues.

[J_RaD]

I think the listing fee thing keeps just tire kickers or crazy people that don't know what they are doing from just littering all over the place.

you can play around with your free listings each month but anymore then that and you better know what you are doing or you can quickly go backwards, not to mention if you aren't organized and have no clue what its like to move JUST 100+ units a month you can lose them...ship slow...just a whole host of screw ups that can leave the customer thinking WTF!

[jwolthuis]

I think the listing fee thing keeps just tire kickers or crazy people that don't know what they are doing from just littering all over the place.

That's an idea. But then why do they charge the Insertion Fee to store subscribers and power sellers? They have shown that they are not just "tire kickers", and yet the fee still applies to them.

[J_RaD]

the store sellers get a discount on fees and other things.

you do your math and figure out which is best for you. Store owners get a discounted insertion fee, but they get a per month store fee... again.. math.

power sellers... its not really really hard to be a power seller, you just have to move a semi decent amount of stuff and you can hit bronze no prob.... but you have to do an A+ job at it as well. Silver is next which is a little bit tougher but if you can't make bronze or silver you - aren't serious - suck at customer service - have crap shipping speeds - or are just disorganized

which means ebay doesn't want you cause you provide a neg impact on their brand.

work your butt off, use your brain, you'll have success... its the easy money people that run into issue.

[jwolthuis]

Finally eBay got the message [announcements.ebay.com]!

[Digmen1]

And didn't they just loose a big bricks and mortar retailer Marcus Neiman ?

[RhinoFish]

help us win now, and later, well, we'll forget. :-)