Arrogant Ebay

Bob Peterson wrote:
snip
The only thing that will reduce fees to sellers is some kind of competition
and what little there is right now is pretty pathetic.


The reason that current competition is pretty pathetic is that most of
it is run by someone who thinks that if they open up a site on a shoe
string, and promote it by spamming a bunch of newsgroups, they can
suddenly become real competition for a multibillion dollar company with
a huge advertising budget. Yahoo and Amazon are the exceptions, but
they failed in their bids to become legitimate competitors to eBay years
ago, and the huge losses they incurred on their auction sites have
deterred most big companies from trying to take on eBay. Amazon is
still a major player in the used book market, but their selling method
that's successful, i.e., the marketplace, wouldn't really be workable
for most eBay merchandise.

The real competition to eBay, when it comes, is going to require two
things, a big company with a well known name and a huge advertising
budget, and a new idea. Amazon and Yahoo auctions were big companies
with a well known name and a huge advertising budget, but the only idea
they had was to copy eBay and tinker with the minor details. To take on
eBay, someone's going to have to do something dramatic and innovative,
something that buyers like better than eBay. For a big company to pour
a bunch of money into something like that, investors have to forget
about all the money that Yahoo and Amazon lost in online auctions.

Richard Ward wrote in message ...
Bob Peterson wrote:
snip
The only thing that will reduce fees to sellers is some kind of competition
and what little there is right now is pretty pathetic.


The reason that current competition is pretty pathetic is that most of
it is run by someone who thinks that if they open up a site on a shoe
string, and promote it by spamming a bunch of newsgroups, they can
suddenly become real competition for a multibillion dollar company with
a huge advertising budget. Yahoo and Amazon are the exceptions, but
they failed in their bids to become legitimate competitors to eBay years
ago, and the huge losses they incurred on their auction sites have
deterred most big companies from trying to take on eBay. Amazon is
still a major player in the used book market, but their selling method
that's successful, i.e., the marketplace, wouldn't really be workable
for most eBay merchandise.

The real competition to eBay, when it comes, is going to require two
things, a big company with a well known name and a huge advertising
budget, and a new idea. Amazon and Yahoo auctions were big companies
with a well known name and a huge advertising budget, but the only idea
they had was to copy eBay and tinker with the minor details. To take on
eBay, someone's going to have to do something dramatic and innovative,
something that buyers like better than eBay. For a big company to pour
a bunch of money into something like that, investors have to forget
about all the money that Yahoo and Amazon lost in online auctions.

Just what would be dramatic and innovative enough to be worthwhile? I
think an auction site could well survive if it had the deep pockets
and the will to do so. I am amazed that neither amazon nor yahoo ever
seriously promoted their auctions.

I don't think any serious tinkering is needed with the auction
formats, in fact even if the rules were the same, just having
competition is a good thing, and would tend to keep fees down.

The problem I see is that how do you get people - both buyeres and
sellers - to come to your auction site? There has to be some reason
people would want to go there, and the drama and/or innovation issue
should probably be applied to that problem rather than tinkering with
the rules a bit. I doubt any serious player is going to have any
significant difference in their rules versus what ebay's rules are.
ebay's rules are pretty reasonable for the most part, with a few minor
annoyances, but it works pretty well. the big problem is their
continually increasing fees.

(bob peterson) writes:
Just what would be dramatic and innovative enough to be worthwhile? I
think an auction site could well survive if it had the deep pockets
and the will to do so.

I think there is another way that a competing auction site could
start from zero and achieve success: they'd have to 1) cater to some
specific, specialized nice market that 2) involved something which
is difficult, impossible or intractably annoying to buy or sell on
eBay.

I envision something that would start as one more place on the list
of places serious buyers and sellers of whatever would search or
list items on, on a regular basis. Eventually you'd hope to become
the venue of first (or only) resort for an increasing number of
buyers and sellers. Once you reach a certain critical mass, the
"fax effect" will sustain interest (as eBay demonstrates).

Although I hesitate to admit in public to even knowing that such
a thing exists, I will point to www.furbid.ws as a real-world example.
(Warning: NSFW, and contents will make you want to wash your brain
out with soap.)

A somewhat more mainstream example might be a _safe_ way to buy and
sell laptop computers. (Auction site also acting as QA test lab and
escrow service?)

I mention all this only out of academic interest, and as part of
the possible market that would benefit from competing auction sites.
Start one myself? What, do you think I'm nuts?

bob peterson wrote:

Richard Ward wrote in message ...

Bob Peterson wrote:
snip

The only thing that will reduce fees to sellers is some kind of competition
and what little there is right now is pretty pathetic.


The reason that current competition is pretty pathetic is that most of
it is run by someone who thinks that if they open up a site on a shoe
string, and promote it by spamming a bunch of newsgroups, they can
suddenly become real competition for a multibillion dollar company with
a huge advertising budget. Yahoo and Amazon are the exceptions, but
they failed in their bids to become legitimate competitors to eBay years
ago, and the huge losses they incurred on their auction sites have
deterred most big companies from trying to take on eBay. Amazon is
still a major player in the used book market, but their selling method
that's successful, i.e., the marketplace, wouldn't really be workable
for most eBay merchandise.

The real competition to eBay, when it comes, is going to require two
things, a big company with a well known name and a huge advertising
budget, and a new idea. Amazon and Yahoo auctions were big companies
with a well known name and a huge advertising budget, but the only idea
they had was to copy eBay and tinker with the minor details. To take on
eBay, someone's going to have to do something dramatic and innovative,
something that buyers like better than eBay. For a big company to pour
a bunch of money into something like that, investors have to forget
about all the money that Yahoo and Amazon lost in online auctions.


Just what would be dramatic and innovative enough to be worthwhile? I
think an auction site could well survive if it had the deep pockets
and the will to do so. I am amazed that neither amazon nor yahoo ever
seriously promoted their auctions.

They did promote their auctions. At the time they did it, there were
serious questions about whether eBay could survive the competition from
what were at the time much larger and better financed companies, with a
huge web presence. The problem wasn't that they didn't promote them,
the problem was that they didn't attract the buyers.


I don't think any serious tinkering is needed with the auction
formats, in fact even if the rules were the same, just having
competition is a good thing, and would tend to keep fees down.


But there can't be any competition if they don't do something seriously
different. They need to create a reason for buyers to go to their
auction sites rather than to eBay. Copying eBay has been tried by big,
well financed companies. It didn't work. The only way for a site to
compete with eBay is to distinguish itself from eBay in some
dramatically different way, and in a way that is attractive to buyers.
People do this all the time, it's how eBay got started. They had the
advantage then of no competition, so they didn't have to have huge sums
of money to get started. Anyone trying it today will need huge sums of
money, along with the original idea.

The problem I see is that how do you get people - both buyeres and
sellers - to come to your auction site? There has to be some reason
people would want to go there, and the drama and/or innovation issue
should probably be applied to that problem rather than tinkering with
the rules a bit. I doubt any serious player is going to have any
significant difference in their rules versus what ebay's rules are.
ebay's rules are pretty reasonable for the most part, with a few minor
annoyances, but it works pretty well. the big problem is their
continually increasing fees.

I'm not talking about tinkering with the rules, I'm not complaining that
eBay's rules aren't generally reasonable. I think that for someone to
effectively compete with a well funded company that dominates the
market, they will have to have a new concept, different from eBay's
concept, that can be used to sell the same type of merchandise. When
eBay started, the concept of online auctions was a new idea, people
generally sold off of news groups, or sold off of their own web pages
with fixed price sales. Some of those web pages are still successful
despite eBay, because they're different from eBay. To compete against
eBay, someone is going to have to come up with a totally different way
for people to sell their merchandise to end users, that will allow them
to sell the same type of merchandise people sell on eBay.

Richard Ward wrote:

Bob Peterson wrote:
snip
The only thing that will reduce fees to sellers is some kind of competition
and what little there is right now is pretty pathetic.


The reason that current competition is pretty pathetic is that most of
it is run by someone who thinks that if they open up a site on a shoe
string, and promote it by spamming a bunch of newsgroups, they can
suddenly become real competition for a multibillion dollar company with
a huge advertising budget. Yahoo and Amazon are the exceptions, but
they failed in their bids to become legitimate competitors to eBay years
ago, and the huge losses they incurred on their auction sites have
deterred most big companies from trying to take on eBay. Amazon is
still a major player in the used book market, but their selling method
that's successful, i.e., the marketplace, wouldn't really be workable
for most eBay merchandise.

The real competition to eBay, when it comes, is going to require two
things, a big company with a well known name and a huge advertising
budget, and a new idea. Amazon and Yahoo auctions were big companies
with a well known name and a huge advertising budget, but the only idea
they had was to copy eBay and tinker with the minor details. To take on
eBay, someone's going to have to do something dramatic and innovative,
something that buyers like better than eBay. For a big company to pour
a bunch of money into something like that, investors have to forget
about all the money that Yahoo and Amazon lost in online auctions.

A successful challenger, of course, would have to have HIGHER fees than
eBay.

Getting rid of all the nuisance crap would be their major advantage.

--
Many thanks,

Don Lancaster
Synergetics 3860 West First Street Box 809 Thatcher, AZ 85552
voice: (928)428-4073 email: fax 847-574-1462

Please visit my GURU's LAIR web site at http://www.tinaja.com

"bob peterson" wrote in message
om...

The problem I see is that how do you get people - both buyeres and
sellers - to come to your auction site? There has to be some reason
people would want to go there, and the drama and/or innovation issue
should probably be applied to that problem rather than tinkering with
the rules a bit. I doubt any serious player is going to have any
significant difference in their rules versus what ebay's rules are.
ebay's rules are pretty reasonable for the most part, with a few minor
annoyances, but it works pretty well. the big problem is their
continually increasing fees.

For many people, eBay's low fees are the best part of
the deal.

A newspaper ad gets limited coverage, and costs much more
per day. An antique/trade show costs about $3 a square foot per
day, for a weekend ($200 and up), with exposure limited to
whoever walks in the door. An antique mall will cost about
$200 a month per booth, plus 10% of the selling price.

I can list an item on eBay for 60 cents, expose it to an
audience of millions, know that some will actually click on
the ad, and sell a higher percentage of my items. I don't
have to travel (vehicle, motel, food expenses), I don't have
to set up (and break down) a display .... and I have the
flexibility to sell pretty much whatever I want to.

My monthly eBay fees have never approached 25% of
what it cost to sell in other venues.

My only complaint now is competition -- not in selling,
but in finding items. But that's a factor in eBay's
success, and probably a failure on my part. My
daughter's sales yesterday were higher than mine
have been all month

Kris

These people on here have no realization that real world consumers
require constant reminders to buy - it's called advertising and promotion.
Everyone claims thay don't want advertising, but if its the right kind -targeted
to their needs, they DO want it. Do you people spend all your time
complaining to the post office about every piece of unsolictied junk
mail you receive in your mailbox? Do you refuse to read an ad because
you didn't "request" it? Do you refuse to buy from any vendor who advertises
because you are smart enough to look for someting you want on your own?
I think not!!!!

On Thu, 23 Oct 2003 14:09:33 GMT, "a. linklurker" stay.in.your.
wrote:


Why don't you stick your nose in Frank Provasek's asshole?


Isn't it odd that these people who believe in following all of the
rules that they have made a "solemn promise" to observe don't
mind violating their ISP's rules against profane, vulgar, hurtful
posts?

"Israel Bick" wrote in message
news:1103_1067013859@frank...
These people on here have no realization that real world
consumers require constant reminders to buy - it's called
advertising and promotion. Everyone claims thay don't
want advertising, but if its the right kind -targeted
to their needs, they DO want it.

No one here has said otherwise. The OP sent spam
to people who **do not** want it, NOT to those who
indicated that they did. The OP refuses to set up an
opt-in system, wherein the customers who wanted the
spam would happily receive and respond to it.

Do you people spend all your time complaining to the post
office about every piece of unsolictied junk mail you receive
in your mailbox?

No. I don't have to pay to receive it, it doesn't clutter up
my mailbox and prevent me from getting my wanted mail,
and it goes straight in the trash can, unopened, without
entering the house.

Do you refuse to read an ad because you didn't "request" it?

Actually, yes. I don't read or respond to unsolicited
advertisements of any form.

Do you refuse to buy from any vendor who advertises because
you are smart enough to look for someting you want on
your own? I think not!!!!

I think so!!!!!

I do not buy from ANY company that has spammed me,
or used a telemarketer -- even if I've done business with
them before.

Kris

"Israel Bick" wrote
"a. linklurker" wrote:
Why don't you stick your nose in Frank Provasek's asshole?

Isn't it odd that these people who believe in following all of the
rules that they have made a "solemn promise" to observe don't
mind violating their ISP's rules against profane, vulgar, hurtful
posts?


Aw, gee.
Actually, you don't know the rules well, or, at all.

link