What do you think of eBay ecommerce web-hosting?

dsteiner · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 10:12 am Post subject:

Not to beat our chests (ok maybe a little) but eBay just announced this about 10 minutes ago:

http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y05/m06/i23/s11

So it's official.

Dave

Ranger · Joined: 06 Mar 2005 Posts: 156

Yup it's official but will it fly?

I will have to sit back and think about this in full before I jump into another eBay proposition.

I sure would like to see results from this a month or two down the road after it gets opened.

Till then I remain very cautious or is the word pessimistic.

TheRobGallery · Joined: 13 Jun 2005 Posts: 19 Location: So Florida

I agree w/ Ranger. Sit back & watch for awhile!
and DUH.... of course the cost will be reasonable at first. Maybe that's where the "tiers" come in.....room for bumping up your fees as you become more dependant on the services. I see they will be able to track your sales & keep their hand in the pot by imposing sucessful transaction fees. It also bothers me that w/ the reseller mrkt place they are controlling your connections by being the go between you & your supplier. Am I reading this right? On the other hand, I would try it out....who knows? It might prove to be cost effective!? Again, diversify.
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scurcio1 · Joined: 06 Jun 2005 Posts: 7

One of my thoughts about the Prostores is that now, all of those eBay sellers who list new items at or below cost on eBay, will flood the rest of the internet with those ridiculously low prices.
In that case, I would hope to see the manufacturers step in and enforce their MAP pricing.

BURIED TREASURES · Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2005 6:51 am Post subject:

For those of you who are wondering, here is the link to the website. http://www.prostores.com/ They are offering a 30% discount to ebay store owners. You can get one month free if you sign up now and you will not be charged any final value fees until 2006. The store fees seem a bit high for everything but the $29.95 one which is what I would recommend everyone sign up for if they choose to go down this path. Sincerely, John Leckrone John@hopkinsvilleantiques.com
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http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewforum.php?f=32

xppman · Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 327

The answer IMO, is in one's own website.
I think the public is just about feed up with the whole fictitious ID thing,
all gathered at a site like ebay yahoo or any of them.

I also think that ebay recognizes this too.

The more the public turns to trust REAL companies on line, at their websites.
The better position any of us who already have them will be in.

Our sales and traffic have increase dramatically over the last couple of years.
I think as a direct result of the lack of trust and image the entire OAI has been getting.
Especially the #1 giant feeby.

Thank you ebay for pushing more folks to us.

I'm telling you folks. Now is the time to get YOUR business websites up and running.
Not rely on yet another ebay product that is no doubt designed with this REAL and hidden premise
to it's users in mind:

A fool and his money will soon be parted.
(I'm sure is what they are saying behind closed doors).

I can just picture them in a meeting room wringing their hands and laughing out loud
on how they will get the sellers on yet another front.

I say no thanks feebay. LOL

Oh on another note:

Ebay Closes The Gap On Members Communications via E Mail

Well I predicted it was coming and here it is:

eBay sent this message on behalf of an eBay member via My Messages. Responses sent using email will not reach the eBay member. Use the Respond link below to respond to this message.

=========

The above was what was in an email I received from a potential buyer from ebay.

Funny I received on a day earlier that did have the members e mail address in it and was able to respond directly. Maybe it is just the "My Messages" feature and not the "ASQ" one.
But I'm sure if that is the case, that soon ALL messages will be sent where the buyer and seller MUST go through ebay's systems to communicate.

Me thinks ebay is getting very desperate and is going to
even alienate more users with this latest tyrannical move.
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Tim

RedBirdRidge · Joined: 20 Jun 2005 Posts: 4

xppman is right when he stated:
Our sales and traffic have increase dramatically over the last couple of years.
I think as a direct result of the lack of trust and image the entire OAI has been getting.
Especially the #1 giant feeby.

Thank you ebay for pushing more folks to us.

I'm telling you folks. Now is the time to get YOUR business websites up and running.

This is a great idea! Like I've said before, my husband and I are mostly buyers, not sellers, but we never buy New Stuff on eBay that we can find on a seller's website. It just doesn't make sense -- it's a lot more hassle than dealing directly with a merchant.

I wish (Pipe dream, I know) that eBay could return to the days when it was like a huge online garage sale, not a selling venue for people who own their own stores.
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Ann

alanlondon · Joined: 30 Jun 2005 Posts: 5

It is very interesting that this is happening now. We are creating almost exactly the same thing, see this:

http://www.kaqoo.com/help.pl?template=about_us

and this

http://www.kaqoo.com/content.html

Epay opening to open source and providing stores enabling easy listings to epay?

I am sure they have been reading my blog!

Having run a hobby auction for several years I know how difficult it is to get small businesses off the ground, there is no-one with the financial muscle to take on eBay, Yahoo proves that, if Yahoo money cannot buy the marketplace, no-one can. But I believe there are more powerful things than money, that is the will of the people. If people want it to happen, it will. We are providing the framework for the people!

It is a strange thing that all the venture capitalists that I talk to, all say, "an advertising only model does not work", yet they do not see Google which is exactly that, 99% of Googles revenue comes from advertising. Kaqoo will be similar, except we do not need as much cash to keep us going.

A lot of people will use the new epay stores, they will be easy to set up and use, the only problem will be the uncertainty about fees in years to come. Kaqoo negates that impact, there are no ongoing fees, once the software is bought, you are in, period. Kaqoo also provides the opportunity for you to make money from your website as well, easily; it is up to you how you promote your own website and we see no reason why we should interfere.

I love Pierres idea, epay is great, but I love Google more............

xppman · Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 327

I'm telling all of you. Get a WEBSITE.

We are in the last days of the first phase of the e commerce cycle.

It's isn't going away OK?

The OAI may be floundering, but realize, OAI is less than or close to 25% of e commerce.
Also realize that BIG companies like ebay DID account for my guess, is 29% of the 25.

Those days are DONE. This is what all my market analysis shows, and I don't care what any commissioned based company tells you. Go ahead and listen to them and you will be spending / losing $$ to list there. They all may be "claiming the eyeballs are there" but they
are full of well,,, sh@!t.

I'm telling you all. The fad is OVER. Move forward NOW on your own, and be less dependant on aggregated sites with fictitious ID's as sellers. Move toward your own website.

I'm NOT going tell it like it is again. (well yes I will)..

Bottom Line:
The buying PUBLIC ImO, is done with it too, and want to trade with YOU. Not your ID.

Get out there and DO It...
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Tim

Tradguy · Joined: 15 Sep 2002 Posts: 519 Location: Florida

I actually think that Ebay is shooting themselves in the foot with this move.

On the one hand, they are trying to grab a portion of the "webstore" marketplace. But while they are doing this, they are essentially motivating sellers to use an inventory-based storefront instead of a piece-meal auction format.

While the short term effect will be to move over some of those sellers who've been afraid to make such a move, the longer term effect will be to grow the webstore concept.

Ultimately, sellers will see that there is a world of options already out there if they want a webstore - many far more established and polished than anything that Ebay will offer - and it will be cheaper.

What I'm suggesting is that Ebay has the muscle to grow that market segment, but can they keep it? Ebay has yet to prove they can be successful with storefronts - ebay stores has not been much of a success, especially when compared to Yahoo stores which bring in significant income for Yahoo and it's sellers.

How will Ebay get buyers to use their stores? They won't "dilute" their auction listings with store listings - we already know that.

Will they buy generic web ads for? Also not very effective (they have to be highly targeted to work).

Will they get froogled and googled and yahooed? Sure...but we can do that outselves - for free too.

So the question remains - what exactly is ebay offering that can't be accomplished for $5-$15/month (with no commissions on sales)? Is it merely to offer an "easy" solution for non-technical sellers (realize that there are dozens of pre-fab online store services already available now - for less money)? How will the buying experience be enhanced?

The whole thing really makes one wonder about Ebay's strategic plans, none of which seems to include their primary business - US auctions - which they seem ready and willing to allow to whither away while they grow an extremely problematic Asian market, while simultaneously putting their foot into an extremely competitive webstore market they hardly understand.

These are red-flags, imho, and the financial markets know it. Brokers do not believe Ebay will dominate the asian markets, or even the Euro markets (they just bought both a Norwiegen and German auction site). Both the announcements of their asian strategy, and recent purchases have resulted in a re-test of the April lows. The recent stores announcement barely was noticed.

I don't see anything in Ebay's immediate future that will bolster their slowing growth - but a I see a lot of expenditures in non-USA auction related business that will be paid for by USA auctions.

katiyana · Joined: 22 Jun 2005 Posts: 9 Location: Nebraska

I would not give up my own website to get an eBay owned option.

I agree this is another attempt to pull back some of the revenue they're losing to off-eBay transactions - following the # of eBay store owners who have set up shop elsewhere with their own website, its really not a surprising move at all.

Their Business level at $30 a month doesn't even have inventory functionality for goodness sakes.

My website is going to be 3 years old this year, I'm so glad I got started on it when I did.
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xppman · Joined: 15 Mar 2005 Posts: 327

I'm so glad that so many are starting to see the BIG picture here.
It's been going on for a while like this folks. (2 three years back these plans were in place and being developed and slowly implimented). Think of it as a puzzle on the dinning room table but you have no picture to refer to when placing the pieces. It could take a long time to get that puzzle finished and once many of the pieces are in place. The picture becomes very clear.

I somehow feel vindicated when I read more and more people are starting to recognize what the heck this puzzle on the table actually is.
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Tim

thentavius · Joined: 15 Jul 2005 Posts: 9

As others have said, eBay has a track record of building interest, then raising prices (or building interest, then switching services or otherwise altering services). This is point #2 for me, in regards to avoiding an ecommerce store with them.

The main reason I would stay away from the eBay ecommerce stores would be the Suspension factor.

eBay already suspends sellers at the drop of a hat, thereby jeapordizing the seller's entire income from eBay (and potentially a seller's entire business income--especially if the seller relies on eBay as their sole venue). As we all know, when sellers get suspended, they can sometimes be embroiled in a confused, tangled web of protocols that can take forever to unravel. Even suspension for a few hours can harm a business--not to mention what can happen to the unfortunate seller who gets closed off for weeks at a time.

I don't know how eBay is planning to address the issue of a suspended seller who also operates an ecommerce store. Would the seller's ecommerce store also be suspended? Would it be frozen? If so, imagine the terrible possibilities if a seller were to be suspended for any reason, justifable or ludicrous.

Relying on eBay for one's ecommerce site, therefore, sounds like risky business to me.
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sun818 · Joined: 24 Aug 2003 Posts: 597

A reasonable concern. Ask eBay customer service.

Joint Runner · Joined: 03 Oct 2004 Posts: 7 Location: Canada