Top Five Online Auction (or Ecommerce) Stories of 2003

dsteiner

We're going to be doing a recap of 2003 in our next newsletter. What do you think the top 5 stories of the past year were in this industry? What do you think the biggest story will be in 2004? Looking forward to hearing your opinions.

HoldenRex · Joined: 30 Mar 2003 Posts: 546

Personally, I would have to consider the development of Froogle to be one of the top stories. I don't have a fixed price site myself, but this past year I have begun to use it to make purchases - either for items I couldn't find on eBay, or when I could find a better deal on Froogle. Either way, I no longer look at just eBay when making a purchase.

Along similar lines, I would consider the continuing migration of sellers from eBay to their own websites (or other established fixed-price venues) to be another significant development. I haven't done so myself, but clearly a lot of successful sellers are using eBay less as a selling tool and more as a marketing tool to drive business to their own sites.

Emergence of B&M eBay consignment franchises - I'm rather apprehensive about these - so many people I've purchased merchandise from at yard sales have said, "yeah, I would have put that on eBay except for all the time it takes..." As an eBay seller, do I really want the few remaining yard sale bargains to be lost to a service which makes the eBay option easy for a price? On the other hand, I've mulled over the possibility of getting in on the ground floor of such an operation. Either way, I think this is one of the major stories of the year.

Sellathon - I've always been fascinated with marketing research and fine-tuning approaches to marketing, and Sellathon finally gives me that ability (having lost it since eBay banished the Java script which made HumanClick functional on their site). I've just signed up for the free trial and I've already learned (as others in the book forum have discovered) that just adding the word "book" will get my auctions more looks, and if selling a "how to ~~~~" book, then add "how to" to the auction title even if not actually in the title of the book, because people do search on those words (and I'm sure I'll discover many more such tricks as I continue to use it).

eBay Subtitles! The most overlooked story of the year, IMHO. As sellers, we've known that many of our auctions' page views come from searches on item titles. And we've all agonized over the very limited 45 characters that we have to gain the attention of those searching on item titles. Indeed, it seems that even the most casual of sellers has finally realized that "LQQK" isn't going to snare any additional bidders. So instead of agonizing over the options of picking two of the three: book title, author, or subject matter, we can now agonize over whether or not it will be worth the additional half-dollar to gain those extra key words. But at least we now have that option - as with eBay's other add-ons, sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't, depending on the item in question.

Ok, those are my five pics of biggest e-commerce stories of the year. But as long as we're on the topic of e-commerce stories, I'd like to extend a big "thank you" to the AuctionBytes staff for continuing to bring us timely and informative articles and opinions on all sorts of online commerce topics, as well as providing these wonderful forums to exchange ideas. Auctionbytes rocks and/or rolls.

john

happy1 · Joined: 19 Dec 2003 Posts: 13

in my opinion- these were 2 of the biggest stories in 2003

Battle for Eyeballs Drives Google Traffic to eBay
By Ina & David Steiner
AuctionBytes.com
October 24, 2003

The Glitch that Stole Christmas? eBay Merchants Frustrated During Prime Selling Season
By Ina & David Steiner
AuctionBytes.com
December 07, 2003

thanks!

mbright1 · Posted: Wed Dec 31, 2003 7:13 pm Post subject:

To me, the list would have to include eBay's losing battles on patent infringment issues. Take your pick which one... they got a judgement of 35 mil against them for one of them. And the one with AT&T is still ongoing - a 2004 contender perhaps.

On the fraud scene, the guy who lived within a short drive from eBay's customer service center in Utah, who bilked buyers for $250,000 selling bogus laptops, over several months comes to mind.

Within eBay site operations itself, I'd have to say that the continued expansion in sales volume certainly can't be ignored.

On a personal note however, commoditization of product offerings, erosion of the collectibles market, and a decline in sell through continues.

And I've seen where many sellers are forgoing auction sales except as a means of marketing and cash flow management.

Touche'

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Tizaworld · Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 19 Location: Oregon

There are many great stories, but I think more attention should be paid to new auction start ups that are having great success. We have contacted this forum more than once about our new start-up www.sterlingbidz.com and have not seen one bleep of information about it. If the market place is going to grow outside ebay, we need to give notice to those who are breaking away with success. I have seen stories on sites that get as many bids in a month as we do in a day. We outperform most of the new guys and get no recognition?

poetswares · Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2004 6:39 pm Post subject:

the ebay paypal merger
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Susie

jcrawford · Joined: 15 Dec 2001 Posts: 185 Location: Omaha

Happy New Year everyone,

I think the emergence of the eBay drop-off stores and trading assistants is the most intriguing story of the year. I think the concept of opening a "bricks-and-mortar" store to promote your online selling efforts is an interesting twist. I have been reading for years how small sellers have abandonded their booths and stores to sell online.

From the perspective of the "stay at home entrepreneur", I know several bored, young mothers who would like the idea of shopping for bargains as a side job. No selling, no mailing, just shopping! These drop off stores could turn into a fun and easy income for them.

I look forward to the coming year where hopefully more and more people will be turning on their computers for buying and selling. It can only help us all.
_________________
Jim Crawford
"ingenious creativity"
www.CrawfordDirect.com
www.OmahaFineDining.com

poetswares · Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2004 11:54 am Post subject:

thecountryowl · Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2004 9:07 am Post subject: get it right

shaughnyb · Joined: 07 Jan 2004 Posts: 2 Location: Sunnyvale, CA

Here are my ideas on what may happen in the online auction industry during 2004.

1. With the FedEx acquisition of Kinko's, both "full service" and "self service" auction drop off support will be available at Kinko's retail locations.

2. Yahoo will expand its PayDirect service to compete with PayPal.

3. eBay will eliminate Stores listing fees in an attempt to reclaim Half.com inventory that is not transitioned to eBay.

4. Related to #3 above, Amazon MarketPlace will expand and provide "Half.com-like" features not available on eBay.
_________________
Barb Shaughnessy

Ina · Joined: 02 Aug 2001 Posts: 452 Location: Massachusetts, USA

I think FedEx owning Kinkos may be akin to UPS owning Mail Boxes Etc. pack-n-ship stores, in that it gives these delivery powerhouses a retail outlet.

UPS is already integrated into eBay. I wonder if the UPS stores will offer eBay drop-off services, possibly in partnership with eBay?

It's also interesting to note that UPS has agreements with some Staples stores. My local Staples has an area sublet to UPS where I can drop off packages.

Anyway, having a retail location to accept consignments is the easy part! The listing and selling are the hard parts.

Ina
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Ina Steiner, AuctionBytes.com

DirectMarketingMBA · Joined: 21 May 2003 Posts: 10 Location: Phoenix, AZ

My quick picks would be:

General buying trends including impact that the war in Iraq has had on sales.

Introduction and evolution of eBay stores.

Announcement by eBay of requirement for login to view completed auctions with noises indicating a paid model for market data based on closed auction information. I see paid market data emerging as a trend for 2004.

Passage of the DoNotCall and CanSPAM privacy legislation. Watch for the fallout in 2004.

Increasing mainstream adoption of online shopping, in part fueled by aggressive, targeted advertising, including the "Do it eBay" campaigns.

Widespread adoption of SEO technologies and PayPerClick models, including Google AdWords and Keywords by eBay.

Increased availability of tools enabling small businesses to develop private sites, including the evolution of the .net platform.

This one just happened on 1/8, but I liked the PayPal terms change prohibiting seizure of funds in bank accounts to satisfy outstanding PayPal issues. This addresses the major concern PP detractors have expressed over the years.

Happy selling in 2004!

Best regards,

Susan
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Susan F. Heywood
DirectMarketingMBA.com
Stretched earlobes? Try LobeWonder (R)!

Tizaworld · Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 19 Location: Oregon

www.sterlingbidz.com response to: thecountryowl

Dear Sir,

The information required of sellers is under the link entitled "selling". We cannot allow unverified people to list items. Your email did not suggest to us to make the fees public, it was rather rude and stated you were going to go elsewhere. We cannot verify a person who does not wish to be verified. We do this for the protection of our customers. When items sell on our site, we want to insure the customers get their product. The bidders are the most important part of the site. We will protect them to the best of our ability. We want to make sure sellers will offer a legitimate product. While it may appear that you can list items without verification, when an unverified seller hits the “post” button, he / she will get an error message.
You were also taken off the list for potential sellers, based on your rude email. How you behave with us is how you will deal with the public, we cannot and will not have people abuse our bidders. I do not consider this unprofessional conduct. It is the exact opposite. It is true that most sellers are invited, but some do initiate contact with us. If they are professional and have a history of online sales in quality products, we normally let them in.

Regarding the listing fees: we charge them to keep the site from becoming junk filled. The prices items command on the site are higher than ebay in most instances and your product is not lost among the millions. Also, from what I can see of bidville.com (free listing for everyone) very few items are selling. While they have huge numbers of items, few have bids. I believe if you were to compare our site to them you would see less items on our site, but more bids in an hour than they get in one day.
We spend a lot of money weeding out bogus bidders and fake registrations. At least part of this cost has to be passed onto our certified sellers who benefit from this the most.

If you wish to discuss this further, please go to the site www.sterlingbidz.com and click on the contact link. We do not often visit the forums.

Regards,

Mark Hutto
Tizaworld, Inc.
PS We have been in the auction business for years. There is not one site that has kept free listing fees (that is worth listing on). Why start a site pretending it is free when that is just a tool to lock you in?

thecountryowl · Posted: Sat Jan 24, 2004 6:39 pm Post subject: Re: get it right yourself

Tizaworld · Joined: 01 Dec 2003 Posts: 19 Location: Oregon

Dear Sir,

Even though you said you would keep it in the forum, here is your most recent email in response to ours informing you that we have posted a reply to your message: