It might seem a bit early to mention, but May always finds us scrambling to prepare the AuctionBytes site for our annual eBay Live coverage. As in previous years, we'll be sending our veteran team of writers and photographers to Chicago in June to bring you the most comprehensive coverage available on the Internet. We especially want to thank all of this year's eBay Live advertisers for making our coverage possible!
I'll also be covering the Internet Retailer conference the week prior to eBay Live, also held in Chicago. Internet Retailer is becoming an exceptionally important event as sellers ramp up their multi-channel selling efforts (http://www.internetretailer.com/IRCE2008). If you see me at either of these two conferences, be sure and say hello!
Meanwhile, executives at online-auction giant eBay said recently they are moving the site toward a "retail-like" experience. What eBay meant by "going retail" became a little clearer last week: eBay Italy told sellers that beginning next month, it will let high-volume Store owners list 30-day BIN items that show up in core search for one cent per listing (European currency is in euros and cents). Sellers who pay a large monthly subscription fee will receive near-free listings, but higher commissions. (See details in Wednesday's AuctionBytes Newsflash article http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/cab/abn/y08/m04/i30/s02.) It seems likely eBay will roll out the new Stores model to other sites besides Italy, perhaps in time for the 2008 holiday shopping season.
In fact, it appears they are already testing this model in the US with one Anchor Store. Randy Smythe broke the news on his blog on Friday that eBay has a special deal with Buy.com. Buy.com is listing 3-day fixed-price items that show up in search results on the core eBay platform.
eBay would not disclose details, but Randy quoted an eBay spokesperson saying, "As part of the deal, Buy.com is limited to a single listing per SKU and their merchandise will compete with the merchandise of all sellers for search exposure. It remains incumbent upon every eBay seller to maintain great service, as defined by DSR scores, to surface at the top of search results." (http://rksmythe.blogspot.com/2008/05/ebay-partners-with-buycom-for-new-in.html)
It's ironic that eBay's high-volume sellers who have been pushing for the end of the level playing field will finally get what they wanted - but will face competition from even larger sellers such as Buy.com. (Be careful what you wish for!)
These moves have broad ramifications for the buyer experience and for sellers fighting for exposure in eBay's new Best Match search engine. In a talk given by eBay's Lorrie Norrington at a summit last month, she basically told sellers to shape up or ship out, an acknowledgement there would be casualties (http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y08/m04/i24/s02).
Thanks for reading, and please remember new postal rates go into effect on May 12th in the US.
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.
