Yahoo auctions and eBay's monopoly

sprintstar

Do any of you old school sellers remember Yahoo auctions? They were only a fraction of the size that eBay was, even back then, but I remember them being pretty good, always used to list stuff on there as well as eBay as it was completely free, then one day (4-5 years ago?) they ceased to exist and redirected to eBay instead. Always wondered why they stopped, I assume eBay bought them out, just like they have done with other competing sites.

I think the reason eBay has such a total monopoly now is in the early days of auction websites, there was definately potential for there to be a serious competitor, but none of them were particularly good (I'm thinking QXL here), so eBay just went from strength to strength, and now no other site really has a hope of competing, ebid etc are just too little too late.

I've noticed a bit of an anti-eBay mindset on here, but I for one don't really mind eBay's dominance, for a start it means that all your potential buyers are in one place, and at the end of the day the reason why it became so big in the first place is because it's always been the best auction site. As much as it would be nice to have a decent competitor to keep eBay in check, I think the opportunity for that has well and truly passed. Any thoughts?

Hermia

I used to use yahoo's auctions quite a lot. I think my feedback was 400+ when it sadly disappeared. I used to find that if I was selling something unique or rare it was better to use ebay as there was a larger audience. When I sold everyday stuff like CDs etc I used yahoo as they would sell just as well and I didn't have fees to worry about.

rdwarr

Half of my furniture came from Yahoo! auctions
Best buy was £23,000 worth of Dyrlund rosewood office furniture that I gor for £2000 - the guy even delivered it and spent the day putting it all together!
I also got an 8x4 dining table with a built-in slate bed snooker table underneath plus six handmade oak chairs to go with it for £1000.
You don't seem to get bargains like that on eBay - roll on Google!

rdwarr

Didn't somebosy set up "TheBlokeInThePub" and transfer Yahoo! feedback to that? I wonder what became of him.

sprintstar

rdwarr wrote:

You don't seem to get bargains like that on eBay - roll on Google!

To be honest I can't see Google offering an alternative to eBay, unless anyone knows any different? They seem to be closely tied as it is (noticed the amount of advertising and hits on Google for eBay pages when you search?) - I reckon the revenue Google must making from eBay is enough to keep them happy and out of the online auction business, for now at least

sprintstar

But yeah, there were always some good deals on Yahoo, trouble with eBay is that if something's on there, you can guarantee it's going to be seen by the masses and will end up being priced accordingly.

Amazombie

rdwarr wrote:

You don't seem to get bargains like that on eBay - roll on Google!

I think you'll find that Ebay and Google signed an agreement recently to work together so there wont be any competition for Ebay from Google in the forseeable future.

Watch out Amazon!

Agutka

I recently found an old notebook with my Yahoo auctions details, so long ago...

Ebay set up in Poland over a year ago, and had to compete with the very popular 'Allegro' auction site (Ebay-Google partnership? If you type in Allegro into Google it comes up waaaay down the list). Just looking at it now, Allegro seems to be going strong, with Ebay lagging behind (10-1 items listed). And bank transfers are the way to pay! Or you pay at the post office when you pick up your package - but I really don't understand how that works - surely post ofiices would have to have warehouses attached?

soolin

I remember freeserve auctions, I was with them for ages even before ebay but they went under in the end. Freeserve auctions were actually very similar to ebid in that listings were free and you just paid a small FVF, and they suffered from the same problems....pages and pages and pages of absolute rubbish all listed because it was free.

Also like ebid they had an automatic relist so when the stuff didn't sell the first time, you could just relist automatically so the stuff just stayed their for ever and hid any decent auctions. It was awful trying to sell anything.

There was also another one that I think is still going, firday auctions (there is one with a similar name, but FA were tiny, never more than about 80 items listed!). That was friendly with a great user forum but realistically no good for selling, just good at being sociable.

Soo

EDIT: I can't find the old Friday auctions anymore, I just looked. I think the big 'Friday ads' that started out a few years back has the name now as their opening screen calls themselves 'Friday auctions' and it isn't the same one at all.

Chuckman

Yahoo! Auctions are still going strong in Japan, they have such dominance over there that Ebay doesn't even have a presence in the country. Bought a few items via a middleman over the years and have always had a good experience every time.