@gamersbaystore wrote:
ebay told sellers they were going to use the funds from promoted listings to pay for ads, including in Google shopping. There's no reason why they should be begging for more money the way they are.
ebay did in fact lose millions of buyers this past 2 years, which is obviously going to have a huge negative impact on sellers. The media reports do not lie.
Yes, I sell a lot of DVD's, but I am not a closed book and open to other products. I got my start here selling vintage products, but stopped selling them simply because its getting impossible to obtain them anymore.
I don't plan to stop selling DVDs either, rather I'm just raising my prices to coincide with the rising costs. If ebay and the postal service are going to charge more, then I have to as well, just the way it goes.
It really doesnt matter what one sells, ebays fees are ridiculous, and its getting very difficult for sellers in general to turn a profit anymore.
I dont know where eBay said they'd use PL revenue for Google Ads but where revenue comes from towards that is rather immaterial. Such ad's would be general positioning, I forgot what Google deems it terms wise, been a while. I can go on Google and pay for CPC ad's that target MY products versus eBay in general. eBay is providing an interface to that basically.
Sure eBay's lost buyers, I can cite oodles and I mean oodles of reasons for that and every single one of them be valid. Some are within eBay's realm directly and most are not. For example the mobile experience I deem very unfriendly and I'm a software engineer, I've done UI's and by no means a UI expert but even I can shape things up better than they are IMHO without knowing "Whats behind" the UI interface, that'd be important in design/developing a UI. Folks not getting what they ordered be that non-delivery, wrong item, counterfeit, this/that, all bad Karma for traffic retention. Anything other than "Smooth as Silk" can result in loss of buyers.
No standards in listing, another no no these days. Sellers should be selecting from product list, "New", "DVD", "DIE HARD" on and on and on and eBay creating the listing STATIC. Consistency counts. When I'm looking to buy Die Hard last thing I want do is sift through 1000 listings or need drill down. Listing entry need mimic consumer search in as much as possible and toss in some "Fuzzy search" to get other related items exposure as that's how folks shop, its how cross sell can happen. Have to better control consumer search to find qualifying Database result. In other words since ever so many now shop mobile the "Mobile First" paradigm in engineering for a site like eBay is NOT just display, its the whole shebang. In order for it to be the whole "Shebang" and smooth as silk buying experience both sellers and buyers need be forced into a mobile paradigm by nature of user interfaces. That's considerably changes and due to sheer amounts of "DIE HARD" movies for sale, still has a plethora of exposure issues, where Amazon shines. eBay COULD leverage even more, "I want buy the DIE HARE New, lowest price total from vendor with best performance curve." Bang, nothing needed, one button.
eBay's lost allot more buyers to competitors, Etsy's growth, Poshmark's growth, Temu being a rocketship and of course mainstream retail working in Walmart's footsteps, likely the biggest reason. Retail has mainstreamed the web, no longer a "Wonderful little add on" and that changes the face of the web as now its more similar to brick and mortar where its always been a "Competition for the dollar" aka: Getting the customer shop with me when they've finite money spend. I've said it before, study after study been done about Walmart, when they set up Super stores all forms of businesses struggle as people buy more there leaving less money to spend elsewhere.
"I can get my TP there, my frozen dinners, some fruit, that pesky garden hose, pick up my prescription, get my shoes and sox, that gallon of paint, toy for Lil' Bonzo's birthday, the wife wants some plants and oh, yeah, my Magic The Gathering cards... All in one stop and more at prices that generally are better than if I travelled all over to get those things spreading my money around. Why I can even get flowers for her rather than paying three times as much at the Florist."
Compare how many flowers Walmart hauls into every store for Mothers Day, Valentines to any other entity. Boy they clean up! There online model is killer! Now we have to compete against that!
Now my common sense think, "Well I sell ancient software so I dont compete with Walmart or Macys at all!"
Yet I still do, because they are sucking in dollars and sucking in traffic that has those dollars whom are not spending them here as they've finite money.
Retailers my friend KNOW their business FAR FAR better than pretty much any of us. They dont care WHAT people buy, they care WHERE they buy.
Take you're inventory, you pay for it not consign it. They all consign it.
You consider you're inventory a monetary asset, "I feel its worth $$$$nnnn." Retail inventory is WORTH "$$$$nnnn" because they can return it for price protection, credit towards other merchandise. So to them, sorta like money in the bank in that even unsold they can turn it back into credit for other merchandise. You on the other hand may not be able to and thus reality is, you're inventory is not asset, its liability until such as a point that it sells and is turned back into money, an asset.
THATS REALLY HARD to compete against and its why small businesses as a "whole" get demolished by big business. They are trying to compete at basically a loss at every corner, traffic, traffic retention, acquisition, operating capital, all of it. That "Overhead" you spoke of in prior message is for most part a complete write off for the big players, its an asset, not a liability as long as they make enough dough. A little store cant write off $2000 a month rent when they only made $20,000 all year long, cant make money from loss when the monies not there. Yet Walmart write off a million dollar a year lease for each store as they've $400 Billion in revenues and atop the consigning most everything.
You take those models online and apply them to delisted, overstock, manufacturer blow outs and what they can creatively do as OEM's like say Cuisnart whomever, there just no way any cottage seller going to compete against that FOR THE CONSUMER spending. It's yet another part of Amazon's model as a retailer that has put them SO FAR atop ANY Other player its just night and day. Their only concern is Walmart as there sits an entity who not only has the abilities but the asset to come after em' and market shares with storefronts all over the place changing the consumer confidence equation, "Walmart will always do right by your online shopping experience. Period."
Now ebay, they are literally being punched whichever way they try turn. Punched by retail, punched by focalized competitors, punched by manufacturers, punched by attorneys, punched by government, punched by the USPS, punched in every single direction.
As I've said many a time my friend there's lots of yelling go about on these forums but at best a VERY VERY VERY miniscule if ever discussion whereby sellers are inventing idea seeds to actually help eBay do better.
Lots of folks know the myriads of problems but at best there is handful who even attempt think of ways whereby things might be better.
As I said before Government solution to all such matter is "Kill the marketplaces" for cottage sellers. Done. That was clear as crystal with the introduction of the Shop Safe Act.
KrazzyKats
