On June 28, 2003, four CEOs gathered on stage at an eBay Live conference panel to discuss eBay's Preferred Solution Provider Program. The four CEOs of leading, long-time auction-management service providers were Munjal Shah (Andale), Alec Peters (Auctionworks, now Marketworks), Scot Wingo (ChannelAdvisor), and Rodrigo Sales (Vendio).
What a difference three years make. Munjal Shah stepped down from Andale in 2004, and Alec Peters stepped down from Marketworks in 2005. In June, Vendio announced it took a majority stake in Andale, and last week, Vendio announced it had completed its acquisition of Andale's assets (http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i15/s01).
In some ways, it's surprising there hasn't been more consolidation in the industry. Other long-time vendors have also held their own, such as Zoovy and AuctionHelper, and as eBay took a more open approach toward developers, many more companies have entered the space (http://solutions.ebay.com).
One of the challenges for developers is to keep pace with changes on eBay's platforms (sellers can relate to this). Hopefully attrition won't make this task more difficult - eBay, like other large high-tech companies, has been losing some personnel to the temptation of greener pastures (known as start-ups) - here's the most recent departure people are talking about (http://rogeliochoy.blogspot.com/2006/11/rockyoucom.html). Once an employee of a publicly traded company is fully vested in their stock options, it may not be easy to keep them.
It was an all-around busy week of reporting, with PESA (Professional eBay Sellers Alliance) going under the microscope after it instituted membership dues.
PESA has called itself a nonprofit organization since 2004 and incorporated as a nonprofit corporation in New Hampshire in 2005. After asking members to pay $99 dues last month, certain members asked for more transparency. (The Board has not revealed financials since June 2005.)
PESA's Board then told members it had decided not to pursue nonprofit status and was in fact owned by one person, and that person would distribute shares to 100 of the nearly 1,000 members. In addition, questions were raised about the Board's decision to partner with a new organization launched by PESA's Executive Director.
When the controversy spilled over onto industry discussion boards, AuctionBytes took a look at what was going on (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m11/i13/s01). For the record, I initiated the investigation after reading public discussion boards, no member reached out to me. It was my idea to contact sponsors to better understand the organization's financial accountability.
Rather than attacking members who ask for accountability, I suggest that PESA members focus on demanding the accountability and transparency they are owed. There's a pretty simple way to end the controversy and get on with business, and that is in the hands of PESA's Board of Directors.
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.
