Another high-profile eBay seller has ceased its activities. You can read about it in the AuctionBytes Newsflash article (http://digbig.com/4gtjp). This is the second high-feedback eBay seller - Glacier Bay DVD, being the first - that has shut down operations in the past several weeks. One wonders if increasing competition across categories is the main reason for these closures, or if there is a limit to which an eBay business can grow before the law of diminishing returns kicks in.
Selling on eBay has, to me, always seemed like it was designed for "lean and mean" business models. Can that model bear the burden of adding overhead, such as renting warehouse or retail space, purchasing large lots of inventory and hiring employees? I expect to see more sellers, including drop-off stores, reevaluating their business models over the next 12 months.
eBay has just rolled out its category expansion project and Custom Listing Frame feature in eBay Stores. Expanded categories make it easier for shoppers to peruse your eBay Store listings, and Custom Listing Frame is an excellent way to try and keep shoppers in your Store. (As you may know, the challenge on eBay is to keep shoppers looking at your listings, not other sellers' listings.) You can set up navigation tools on View Item pages so shoppers can see a hyperlinked list of all of your categories. Read Ron Mansfield's article in today's issue to learn more about the new Stores features.
Overstock.com Auctions told users in a forum announcement that it was working on some new features to be rolled out in the first and second quarters of this year (http://digbig.com/4gthx). Among the new features are stores and an integrated payment service provider. (I have no idea if that means Google Payments.)
I'll be in Washington next week to hear eBay and MercExchange argue before the Supreme Court over the Appeals Court ruling about an injunction against eBay's Buy It Now feature. The Supreme Court is likely to announce its decision in June. It's hard to see how eBay - which is so ferocious about protecting its own intellectual property - could have let things get to this point. But whichever way the Supreme Court rules, my understanding is that it goes back to the District Court, where the judge will have to sort it all out. For example, eBay says it introduced a design workaround after the trial in 2003 so that it is no longer infringing on MercExchange's patents; MercExchange says they've been monitoring eBay's system and says eBay continues to infringe. It sounds like enough to keep things interesting - and the lawyers busy.
Thanks for reading.
About the author:
Ina Steiner is Editor of AuctionBytes.com and author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). She has a background in marketing and research in the high-tech and publishing fields. If you have story ideas, comments or questions, send them to ina@auctionbytes.com.
