Ebay Advice: Ditch The Unique, List Commodities

Where does this leave ebay stamp dealers?

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/C/blo...3060360.html

ebay is getting too big and greedy.

Peter

ebay trying to compete with Amazon. A misstep in my opinion (like my opinion is meaningful when it comes to running a multinational mega corporation)

For me ebay is the 21st Century version of a garage sale and always will be. Unique, one of a kind items do sell.....eventually. If I was running a business I would probably sell on Amazon anyway.

Best thing to do is ignore ebay's "advice" and do what works for you and your buyers. ebay was not thinking one bit about the collectables market when they gave that advice.

No point getting offended, because this has nothing to do with stamp collecting, let alone philately.

It does have something to do with selling supplies alongside stamps, if you are so inclined.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Well, let's say ebay's goal is to increase sales by a billion dollars this year. If that's going to happen, it's going to have to come from things like electronics and other commodity-type items, and not collectibles. I think collectibles will always be an important part of ebay, but they know that if they're going to increase sales, it's going to have to come from high-turnover items. I'm not sure what the growth potential is for collectibles in general on ebay as they're already the 800-lb gorilla of the market, for just about every type of item. I think that's probably what's going on here, more than anything.

Which would you want to present to shareholders at the next meeting?

We are striving to become the world's largest garage sale website and we will support a infrastructure which has a high cost per transaction.

Or

We are striving to lower cost per transaction and support costs by encouraging larger, repeatable sales; thereby increasing profitability?
Don

ebay needs to find a way to balance both halves of the business. I know the money is in trying to be Amazon-esque in what they do. But speaking as one at the bottom end of the ebay totem pole and part of that group that drove their business from the beginning...auction sales...it's hard not feel like that end of the business is being thrown under the bus in their drive for sales and profit.

John,
Understood and agreed. (There is one way to feel better about this, become an ebay shareholder. That way, when they make decisions which favor profitability, you can feel a bit better about it.

The unfortunate truth here is that as stamp collectors we are riding the shirt tails of this business model. (Not unlike the way we are riding the shirttails of the coin forum.) It is not simply a coincidence that other attempts at building a stamp-centric auction sites have run into difficulties. Two compelling operational costs in any online auction site are 'cost per transaction' and 'support'. I have seen multiple posts on this very forum where folks have opened cases for stamps for less than a few dollars.

For an auction site the cost per transaction is the same for a 50 cent sale as it is for a $500 dollar sale. But you also have to support handling any transaction problems, including returns and dispute resolutions. (You can push some cost back to sellers/buyers but you still have to build and maintain the infrastructure and personal that supports this overhead.)

I am afraid that we are stuck with being low on the totem pole. We can switch out ebay with some other online venue but the issues would still be the same. No one is going to want to develop, implement and support a significant site which encourages the buying/selling of low value items.
Don

Don,

You mean like Stamps2Go? I find they are a quite viable alternative.

Jack Kelley

https://www.hipstamp.com/ seems to be listening.

They are featuring 1 cent no reserve auctions weekly. They have promotions in conjunction with sellers offering discounts.

While they don't have ebay's volume, they seem to be making serious inroads. I have noticed a number of new sellers on the site.