Do you feel competition from ebay sellers?

Talk about market share of CE products that Ebay eats up

[iloveu]

We are in consumer electorics industry (not niche market) full of price competition. Since the 1st day of our ecommerce, we have been feeling huge competition from ebay. Customers like to compare our product prices with ones they can find at Ebay, then say "yours is very expensive." I browse many forums about CE products, finding most guys buy and recommend other guys to buy stuff at Ebay. Our regular resellers won't buy from us and switch to ebay sellers to get a cheaper price. Our competitors sell more and more products at Ebay, but our regular shopping sites sell less and less. I just want to know how many guys here feel ebay affects your business? How many percent of CE products that Ebay eats up? If there is no other choice, we probably have to focus on selling at Ebay in the nearest future.

[jwolthuis]

The effects of eBay depend greatly on your market. We sell a wide variety of widgets, and our customers appreciate our shopping cart, which provides a single shipping cost for the contents of the entire cart.

Historically, the lack of a true shopping cart has hurt eBay. Sellers typically dealt with multi-item shipping offline, i.e., "contact us for multiple item shipping discounts".

Now with eBay Express, they can advertise shopping cart functionality. The jury is out on how well it actually works. My initial impression is that their shipping costs are quite high.

As for individual product costs, eBay sellers must play the discount card. Customer loyalty is virtually non-existent on eBay, so "how low can you go" is the game plan.

The difficulty that eBay sellers face are the high listings fees charged by eBay; a problem not faced by eCommerce sites.

[vincevincevince]

Most Ebay sellers are no different to any other online store, other than the fact that they select a ready-made shop system with built-in traffic and marketing.

If you find you are unable to compete with them on any front then perhaps you should investigate quite how they manage to undercut you for the same products and emulate it yourself.

Perhaps they are importing directly, in bulk? Selling OEM versions? Stacking high and selling cheap?

There may be other ways in which you can compete - your pre-sale and after-sale service, extended warranties and guarantees, ability to process a wider range of payments, more information about the product - more alternative products. Product advice 'wizards' to select the most appropriate product may help?

[sun818]

Online comparison shopping is so easy these days, that all other factors being equal - price is the final decider. Anytime you sell a commodity product like consumer electronics, you end up competing on price. How often have you gone to a retail shop to window shop then go online to find the lowest price?

The lowest price does come with pitfalls though. If there is a 1% defect rate first 30 days, but 10% defect rate in the first 90 days, offering a 30 day warranty is going to save the seller a lot of money. They in turn, can offer you better pricing with the possibility of your product going bad after 30 days. You'll likely pay a high restocking fee to return a product. And, oh yeah, you are responsible for return shipping. If you're shopping for lowest price, the seller has to skim somewhere.

[vincevincevince]

One problem with consumer products is that everyone has the same product. As was stated above, price comparison is very prevalent in that market.

The stores which come out at the top of the price comparison results and still make a profit on each sale are eventually the big winners. Stack them high and sell them cheap. Because if you're not the cheapest then you won't shift many items any more.

[iloveu]

I think the Ebay effect is it draws more and more traffic through low selling price and market penetration strtegies, then the traffic to regular shopping sites seems to get drained finally. Also, the conversion rate at Ebay is much higher than the one at ecommerce sites due to its structured data and low price. Comparing our ad expenses at Google, Bizrate, and many others with listing expenses at Ebay, we find the latter generates much more profits.

[Essex_boy]

Ebay is a funny place.

Every buyer is an expert on the subject that are buying in on, margins I find low.

So it doesnt really surprise me taht you are feeling the pinch.

Have you attempted to import your products?

[fiu88]

Wer have several competitors who sell through trad. e-comm. channels as well as E bay..We have always avoided Ebay, and do very well...however, we are leaving at least 100K/month of potentiAL Ebay sales on the table... I wish I could find a knowledgeable Ebay seller to partner with us ....Otherwise...we can easily match or beat any E bay price...some come to us and are happy to purchase outside of ebay...others are lost...cant win 'em all I guess...

[Pugwash]

We develop web sites and actually recommend to some companies that they also sell items on eBay as a cheap form of marketing.
Personally I buy quite a lot of my home products on eBay, but when I want something with reliable delivery times, safe in the knowledge that it WILL arrive, I use a proper shop site.
As eBay have got bigger, the awareness of it's failings have also increased. BBC1 have covered them recently about flaws in the PayPal system for sellers.