Info about Spring update on ecommercebytes

[ryanrobyn]

Go and read for yourslf. I know that it is early and we might be surprised if it turns out okay, but from EVERYHING one reads, it wil be a gigantic gain for the  Bonanza marketplace and the downfall of Ebay. People want and can afford used items. Why buy brand new items at ridiculous store prices, especially for children who immediately outgrow them?  We are not Amazon and Ebay can never offer the prime shipping deal Amazon does. I could smell the beginning problem when I heard the Ebay chairman tell Trump that shipping takes 2 days to arrive. Dreamland is what I call it. The important thing to me is if the worst is stated will the store owners be allowed to end their yearly subscriptions without a BIG penalty or will they use it unfairly as a big revenue gain. Good luck to all - the buyers and sellers.

[tweetystwades]

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@vintagecraze50wrote:

I think people are taking this Drama blog out of context on several levels. Wenig wants people to be able to compete with other websites offering the same things and compete with better prices to win their business. At some point everyone is going to have some BOTTOM LINE on how low they can go and sell things without going under. Look at this simply without DRAAAAAMA.  I did not read ANYTHING in that drama blog that said used/refurbished blah blah were being eliminated from the website--Where are people even going with that.

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I would also like to know why these questions were not addressed in the weekly chat.  Sellers have so many questions, I skimmed through the thread but didn't see the answers. 

They need to address the small seller, and people that sell new items that may have small issues.  I buy clothes wholesale, most new with tags. In every lot I will have some items that do not have tags, missing button, seam rip, stain, etc...  Will I be able to sell here, and have my items seen?

[lookng2015]

Tbh I think the blues have as few clues as we do at this point.

[d-k_treasures]

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@percgrabbe-0wrote:

Think about it EBAY doesnt care if you make a sale. They already got you for the listing fees whether they sell or not. Then they list the competitors and big box store prices right in your listing and drive away your sales. Now they dont even want people to see your listing. This is going to go over like a lead balloon for ebay.  People dont really come here for new items. They come here for missing parts and hard to find items and vintage collectible.  EBAY is greedy and only cares about the fees they make from big ticket items and the money the big box stores are handing them to advertise on the listings us chumps create for them. 

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If you aren't listing what the big boxes and china sellers sell, then why care about their prices? They won't show up on your listing, and if they do, it's not what the buyer was looking at/for anyway.

[mr_lincoln]

@lookng2015

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@lookng2015wrote:
Tbh I think the blues have as few clues as we do at this point.

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They're reading the same e-commerce articles we are ... wonder if they're converting their own eBay IDs ...

[bubbleman2010]

The big feature is the payment roll out the rest of the announcements are just three card monte to draw your attention away. To make the switch work buyers will get the paypal spinning forever circle or the greyed out unclickable paypal link and will be told please use ebays direct checkout. If it results in around the same exodus as what took place during the mandatory paypal rollout place will be a ghost town....

[castlemagicmemories]

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@vintagecraze50wrote:

I think people are taking this Drama blog out of context on several levels. Wenig wants people to be able to compete with other websites offering the same things and compete with better prices to win their business. At some point everyone is going to have some BOTTOM LINE on how low they can go and sell things without going under. Look at this simply without DRAAAAAMA.  I did not read ANYTHING in that drama blog that said used/refurbished blah blah were being eliminated from the website--Where are people even going with that.

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So @vintagecraze50, you feel this is just another option, like guaranteed three day delivery, or listing auction or fixed price, or searching newly listed or ending soonest?  So this is just a change to the new items category?  

I like vintage, used and unique.  Collectibles. Holiday decorations.

[sandmansales]

A category program that depends of 50 million unique sellers to give an accurate description with no exceptions is doomed to fail.

"New" here varies by seller. Brand new listings "with only one scratch" or that has "only been used for two days."

Even brand new sealed items wouldn't work. "Brand new sealed, packaging is slightly distressed." "Bar code cut off for rebate." Etc.  Buyers looking for gifts would not be happy.

The only instance where this would succeed would be goods shipped, warehoused or jobbed from the manufacturer like Amazon.

Regardless of ebay's extraordinarily and highly transparent resolve to clone Amazon, it will never happen.

What ebay should be doing is clean up their search filters, their existing categories. Actually police said categories and violate the offenders instead of creating more tools to patch that which has been a history of failed executions.

Personally, I think the time is perfect for a large company to recognize this opportunity and present a truly legitimate alternative where small p2p sellers can be recognized and appreciated rather than treated like a disease and pushed aside by asian counterfeiters. Most sellers I'm aware have been ready and waiting, even praying for that for years.

[vintagecraze50]

Yeah, when all the sites have the same items for the same prices then what is everyone going to compete with next. Customer service perhaps, reputuation perhaps, a 400 dollar rebate for each item you sell there instead of here?  I switched my cable company for att becuase I got a 400 dollar rebate.

[vintagecraze50]

You would create the Esin to get into a product category exclusive to Ebay--now that would not help at all as far as a google search cause you just cannot nor would there ever be a way to do that. But, it would be a way to search it in an Ebay catalogue. Probably useless as well.

[vintagecraze50]

Yeah, cheapest is not always the goodest.

[vintagecraze50]

Mr Wenig made a statement in one of the two blogs. One blog he spoke of a Big Bang, I believe it was the one where he spoke of the payment processors change to Adyen. What I believe he is referring to is BIG BANG DISRUPTION. If you read about this it is a way to try to very aggressively take down a competitor. If Ebay will gain all of this money from this change as well as selling off certain assets, they will be in a better position to disrupt on a big scale with pricing and other things.  They may be able to offer sellers more perks for coming to their marketplace and being loyal to this marketplace. It's tied into the grouped listings as well as this provides an easier shopping experience and an incentive for sellers to offer all the perks to their customers and the lowest prices. Is it one of many many things that are ways to increase disruption and get an advantage over the competition.

[mr_lincoln]

@vintagecraze50

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@vintagecraze50wrote:

Yeah, cheapest is not always the goodest.

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This deserves a a repeat ...

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@vintagecraze50 wrote:

Yeah, cheapest is not always the goodest.

Cheaper is definately NOT always Gooder with a capital G ...

[ted_200]

Mr Wenig made a statement in one of the two blogs. One blog he spoke of a Big Bang, I believe it was the one where he spoke of the payment processors change to Adyen. What I believe he is referring to is BIG BANG DISRUPTION.

It was about payments, and he also went on to say this wasn't going to be a long slow roll-out transition, like the structured data / product catalog initiative, and it was not going to be optional. 

So I'm thinking that doesn't really need a lot of interpretation.  

If you read about this it is a way to try to very aggressively take down a competitor. If Ebay will gain all of this money from this change as well as selling off certain assets, they will be in a better position to disrupt on a big scale with pricing and other things.  They may be able to offer sellers more perks for coming to their marketplace and being loyal to this marketplace.

eBay is flush with cash, they have been for years.  There is no need for them to "gain all this money" to do anything, if they want to spend the money, they already have it.

Agressively take down a competitor?  Who would that be? 

If you're thinking Amazon and Walmart, yes, it would be helpful to not be stuck with PayPal only.  But they already solved that problem, buyers can use credit card here without PayPay.  They can process our payments for FREE it wouldn't help much, the fees here are high, and eBay sellers cannot get volume prices on inventory - or cut rate shipping deals - like Amazon and Walmart does. 

You're suggesting they're going to subsidize sellers to meet Amazon and Walmart prices?  I don't think so.

It's tied into the grouped listings as well as this provides an easier shopping experience and an incentive for sellers to offer all the perks to their customers and the lowest prices. Is it one of many many things that are ways to increase disruption and get an advantage over the competition.

They are never going to have any advantage with any product that is on Walmart or Amazon.  They're just not.  Those two have already knocked off most of the mom & pop small business retailers in any niche they sell (bookstores, hardware stores, 5 & dime goods), and they're knocking off the old-line retailers of same goods (Sears, Barnes & Noble, Circuit City, Radio Shack, Sports Authority).  They aren't going to crush any competition in any of those sectors, at best they're going to try to avoid being crushed. 

The Grouped Listings is nothing more than the Amazon program of tying every item to an Amazon Identification Number, and then serving those items to buyers on the same page.  In Amazon's case, below the item sold directly by Amazon.  Since eBay has no product, I envision the plan here to be to put the highest paying Promoted Listing in the top spot.  That may be a sensible revenue plan, but if the goal is to beat Amazon & Walmart on price... eBay sellers can't do that paying extra Promoted Listing fees on top of all the other fees and sourcing disadvantages that already exist. 

I just don't see any hope for them with this. 

The only sensible thing to do is to try to dominate in market niches where Amazon and Walmart don't (yet) operate, where margins are high enough to leave money for the seller after paying eBay.   But those markets... antiques, used items, collectibles, OOAK, out-of-current-production, vintage, local and regional items, business & industrial... and AUCTIONS... are all ill-served by catalogs and grouped product listing pages. 

[vintagecraze50]

Thanks Ted for the insight. It seems what you are saying is that Ebay 

 may have missed the boat on the disruption. That there is not a way at this time to disrupt any of the other major marketplaces. That they already have put into place things that Ebay should have done more aggressively in the past. I read that to use this kind of disruption successfully the timing has to be right. So, in essense, you feel that the best way to compete is to capitalize on Uniqueness in the marketplace, not sameness. Well done.

[ted_200]

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@vintagecraze50wrote:

Thanks Ted for the insight. It seems what you are saying is that Ebay 

 may have missed the boat on the disruption. That there is not a way at this time to disrupt any of the other major marketplaces. That they already have put into place things that Ebay should have done more aggressively in the past. I read that to use this kind of disruption successfully the timing has to be right. So, in essense, you feel that the best way to compete is to capitalize on Uniqueness in the marketplace, not sameness. Well done.

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Well, maybe not missed the boat, if that's really their intention... to take on Amazon, be a giant discount retailer.  But if that's the case, then it pretty much supports the theory they're trying to get rid of used items, auctions, and small sellers... that's "sameness" with Amazon & Walmart. 

Maybe they're trying to "disrupt" Etsy?  Or disrupt Wayfair and Overstock?  I don't know.  Seriously, I don't.  I don't understand disruption, the last time that got invoked we were talking about disrupting eBay, not the competition. 

I'm not one of these people who thinks all the corporations and Chinese sellers should get off of eBay so flea market, antique picker, yard sale sellers have no one in their way.  If someone selling on eBay wants to take on Amazon, great!  I just don't see the utility in destroying (disrupting?) market dominance in other sectors (auctions, junk, antiques, used clothes, whatever) and the functionality that supports it, in order to accomodate that. 

I think any attempt to make eBay into the "next Amazon" is more likely to make eBay into the next K-mart.