EBay's Bid To Go Beyond Auctions Disappoints

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "eBay is having trouble attracting online shoppers with its new fixed-price sales site, the Wall Street Journal reports. From the article: 'Jonathan Garriss, executive director of the Professional eBay Sellers Alliance, an independent group of eBay sellers, estimates eBay Express accounts for less than 1% of sales for the group's more than 1,000 members, who together sell more than $1 billion a year in merchandise. And while eBay's main auction site attracted more consumer visits than any other online retailer in November, eBay Express was at No. 87 on the list of top shopping and classified sites, according to research firm Hitwise Pty. Ltd.'"

Comments

What was the point?

[Thansal]

I never did get why eBay express was instituted.

If you want to sell an item at a specific cost, just put in a buy it now option. I admit, I don't use eBay, but couldn't you just place the buy it now and reserve at the same point?

Re:What was the point?

[dgatwood]

You could, but people would think you were a complete jerk. You should just do a fixed-price auction. That's what they're for. This, however, appears to be targeted towards eBay stores. As such, prices seem comparable with eBay stores, i.e. not very good. And as someone else mentioned, this hasn't been advertised well at all.

One of the biggest reasons I wouldn't shop here, however, is paranoia. I don't trust eBay merchants when it comes to large purchases. I haven't been burned, but I've gotten close enough to make me uncomfortable. I'd rather deal with a known brick-and-mortar store. If the seller has spent real money setting up a web storefront, they're less likely to turn out to be some child selling stolen goods....

For anything over about $100, I get nervous buying on eBay, and over about $300, I won't touch it. For products under that $300 limit, an eBay merchant has to undercut the best price from a real merchant by at least 15-20% for it to be worth the added risk of buying it from a zero-initial-cost merchant. Since that almost never happens, I almost never buy from eBay merchants. A quick perusal of the eBay express pro microphone category showed Froogle beating their prices on everything but the Peluso, and the eBay Express price was only $4 less on a $1600 mic. A quarter of a percent price difference is inconsequential when weight against my peace of mind.

I buy from auctions a lot more often than from eBay stores because I'm much more likely to actually come out ahead. That said, if an auction isn't at least 30% off Froogle, I won't touch it. With an auction, you have the added risk of having to trust the seller to accurately represent the condition of the product, and I build that added risk into the purchase price that I'm willing to pay.

The combination of those factors is, IMHO, the reason that frugal buyers have largely ignored eBay Express. It's the same products at the same prices as everybody else (plus or minus a tiny percentage), but from eBay---a free seller storefront that has a reputation for representing shady sellers and a history of not recouping people's losses when transactions go wrong. Buying online is all about trust, and eBay doesn't have mine.

Advertising?

[tonsofpcs]

Ever think it may be because of advertising? This is the first time I'm hearing of eBay Express.

Re:Advertising?

[dgatwood]

This is advertising.

But they are having no trouble...

[Billosaur]

...attracting scammers, cheats, and frauds. My wife has had so many problems with eBay, and I'm so unimpressed with them anymore, that I wouldn't bother with their Express site. I can certainly get stuff cheap enough off of Amazon.

USA Only

[CohibaVancouver]

I'm in Canada, and the pool of online retailers here is still fairly small, so one of the first things I do with an eBay search is look for items 'located in Canada' (no duties, no customs brokerage fees, no incorrectly filled out waybills etc.). It's a great eBay feature which allows me to find things I might not otherwise locate from a Canadian e-tailer.

However, eBay Express doesn't support transactions outside of the USA, so I visited the site once and never went back.

eBay doesn't get it

[Electric Eye]

The problem with eBay (and it being a public company) is that it is under constant pressure to drive more and more revenue its way. eBay was successful at ONE thing: online auctions. Now that shareholders demand more, it has to keep looking for more and more businesses. PayPal was a great buy. But the rest? Eh. If they had done all this 8 years ago, that would have made sense. But eBay is synonymous with auctions and nothing else. Same reason why Amazon isn't associated with auctions. The brand has been defined in stone.

They've also done a piss poor job of keeping their sellers happy. They raise fees twice a year, regardless of what people say and always say it's being done for the "health of the marketplace." Their spokesman Hani Durzy says the same shit over and over. yet, eBay is FLOODED with goods and sellers The marketplace is so diluted on eBay now that it's very difficult for sellers to make money anymore.

I don't know what the solution is, but eBay certainly doesn't have it. eBay Express is a dog. They threw in the towel in China (which was a HUGE initiative for them the past two years that has failed miserably), their stock is flatlined and every initiative outside of auctions has essentially failed.

Re:eBay doesn't get it

[rcastro0]

I'm even more amazed at eBay sellers that sell for more than the best prices on Froogle or other search sites. The shocking thing, though, is that people actually buy this stuff at those higher prices.... Apparently, there are still plenty of suckers out there.

Well, there are a lot of suckers out there for sure. But plenty of people in the other end of the sucker scale are paying those higher prices you are talking about. For instance the smartest Brazilian buyers will pay higher prices to eBay sellers because they will ship to Brazil, and be flexible on what they declare to the post office as the package contents. Oh, and before you get too imaginative, it just needs to be declared as worth less than US$ 50 so that it goes through customs without the 60% import taxes. How smart is that ? Well, an unlocked Treo 650 will cost, shipping included, less than 50% of what you would pay at a Brazilian cell phone store.

Even if I could convice pricewatch and froogle stores to ship to Brazil, they certainly would not be flexible on what they declare for customs, and the "Sender" label not being "John Smith" would also be a magnet for customs inspection/taxing.

I do not really know how much this "international consumer arbitrage" is a factor compared to regular suckers, but I can tell you it is a factor that will only grow over time, as people get used to it.

Ebay's buy it now was in jeapordy

[mrshowtime]

The reason why ebay express was created was that ebay faced a very distinct possibility that they were going to lose the buy it now feature from their auction site, as the company that won the patent infringement lawsuit sought not only damages, but a permanent injunction against ebay. So ebay was trying to steer the "buy it now" portion to ebay express AND attempt to legitimize the tainted image of high profile "buy it now" auctions. Fortunately for ebay, the Supreme court ruled in favor of ebay, and it happened to be a landmark blow to "patent trolls" everywhere.

I am curious though, how long ebay can continue to raise it's fees and continue to offer LESS features and service and still maintain it's business model. Personally, I think the worst thing ebay ever did was to go public. It never needed to go public, it was a cash cow and was one of the few initial Internet businesses that actually made a LOT of money by doing essentially nothing, but hosting servers. Now ebay's future is dictated by the stockholders.

Inevitable...

[crossmr]

Ebay's glory days are long since passed. There came a point where they went from being the cool little niche pseudo-yardsale, to being some clearing house for every piece of crap some wholesaler from hong kong can get a hold of.

They do everything they can to screw the buyer, and are surprised when a new initiative fails? Issues I've spotted, reported and gotten bullshit form letters in response to:
1)Sellers charging too much for shipping - They give an example of someone charging $20 to ship a DVD as bad. I found someone charging $60 to ship a USB Thumb drive via the slowest cheapest USPS method possible.
2)Sellers setting their "handling" fee as a percentage of final sale - I found a fellow who'd listed all his auctions stating that the handling fee was 4% of the final sale price or something of that nature.
3)Keyword spamming - How many times have you seen an item listed as: DLink NOT Linksys
4)Misrepresenting items - A linksys befsr41 is not a modem. Funny how that descriptor appeared only in the title and nowhere in the description.
5)Listed multiple entries for the same item - I once came across a seller who had about 30 of the identical item, carbon copy listings, all listed at once all ending at the same time. Their ToS either limits to 5 or 10.

These are just some of the things that I've seen in violation of the ToS, but all from "powersellers". Each time I get a bullshit form letter about how they trust their sellers to do the right thing.

I've also seen numerous examples of abuse of the feedback system. "Powersellers" hold it hostage until you leave yours to ensure they can retaliate if they mess up. I've seen constant entries like this:
Buyer leaves: "Item took 3 months to be delivered from 1 state over. Item was broken, not even the the right item and I think the seller urinated on it before sending it. Seller doesn't respond to e-mails."
Seller leaves in response: "Bad ebayer stay away!!!!!!!11!!!omg."

Ebay was supposed to be a buyers market, but its turned into a wholesalers market where they rule the roost. More and more people are realizing that and when a solid replacement comes along I think you'll see it pick up quite a bit. Hopefully it won't fall prey to the same issues Ebay did.