Double Wammy for eBay sellers, eBay prices to rise by at least 10% plus postage going

RFW

MoneysavingArthur wrote: »

sadly their big money comes from people looking for high value branded items, not used rubber chickens anymore.

More's the pity, I actually sold hundreds of rubber chickens when they ran that ad, when the ad came out there weren't actually any on Ebay so I managed to source them quite quick and get them listed:D

MoneysavingArthur

it is still the best place to go if you need something unusual or hard to find. maybe if they lose sight of their original USP in the coming years it could open the doors to a decent competitor...

RFW

MoneysavingArthur wrote: »

it is still the best place to go if you need something unusual or hard to find. maybe if they lose sight of their original USP in the coming years it could open the doors to a decent competitor...

I'm not so sure that their original business model would work now, online customers are much more demanding than they were just a few years ago.

Brooker_Dave

MoneysavingArthur wrote: »

it is still the best place to go if you need something unusual or hard to find. maybe if they lose sight of their original USP in the coming years it could open the doors to a decent competitor...

Ebay are just playing catch up to Amazon.

Ebay have morphed into Amazon, but without the good reputation.

RFW

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Ebay have morphed into Amazon, but without the good reputation.

Seriously? Where are you looking? Ebay made their books and media categories more competitive, but other than that the similarities are minimal.

The biggest increasing revenue stream for either is via mobile and tablet apps, Ebay has leaped ahead of Amazon as far as that goes. Ebay's app is easy to use and easy to search on, Amazon's not so.

The reputations are narrowing too, albeit Amazon's getting worse and Ebay's only slightly getting better.

mikey72

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Ebay are just playing catch up to Amazon.

Ebay have morphed into Amazon, but without the good reputation.

I was thinking the exact opposite.

Amazon saw ebay, and decided to stop being just a shop, and rent space to individual sellers.

It's a real pain, what they need is a filter just for products actually sold by Amazon, as they're the only business on there I buy from.

Brooker_Dave

RFW wrote: »

Seriously? Where are you looking?

See ebay's loss of interest in auctions and love of Amazon style BINs and their duplication of Amazon style payments (in Germany for now).

Brooker_Dave

mikey72 wrote: »

I was thinking the exact opposite.

Amazon saw ebay, and decided to stop being just a shop, and rent space to individual sellers.

Where are the auctions on the Amazon website??

soolin

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Where are the auctions on the Amazon website??

They gave up their auction site and went 'shop' format years ago. Left the auctions to ebay.

Now sellers can set up their own catalogue entries on Amazon and use them like a shop front. I have some of my stock on there, I would actually net slightly less money than I would if I sold on ebay, but I don't sell anything- but it is just useful to maintain a presence on Amazon for certain items (not books) as I don't have to pay to list so can afford to park stock on there as I do on ebid.

RFW

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

See ebay's loss of interest in auctions and love of Amazon style BINs and their duplication of Amazon style payments (in Germany for now).

Which is a different statement to "Ebay has morphed into Amazon".

Given that the nay sayers tend to talk of Ebay's mythical monopoly, it is then surprising that some of those will argue that Ebay has moved into being more competitive with Amazon.

Ebay have long realised that auctions aren't as profitable as fixed price listings (where they can get several thousand sales from one listing as opposed to one for an auction) but they are still aware that auctions are their hook, which is the reason they offer free listings, etc for private sellers.