Is Ebay trying to Become an Amazon Clone?
We all know that Ebay is changing, personally I just carry on going about my selling business and take them in my stride as I offer a good service and the items that I choose to sell offer me the opportunity to absorb their fees. They take me for my fees and I capitalise on their traffic volumes it really is a fair exchange as I see it.
The question is…what do they see their business strategy and direction as now?
Ebay have reduced listing fees and thrown in ‘extras’ such as gallery for ‘free’ and redefined their search algorithms to focus on sellers DSR’s in an action that gives the seller more exposure the happier their customers are. The more exposure that a listing gets the higher the likelihood is that the final selling price will be higher and as such the greater the FVF that Ebay will collect, thus offsetting the lower insertion fees. There are even rumours that Ebay will be moving towards free listings for all, does this not simply sound like the Amazon business model??
Look at Amazon, they offer a free to list policy to their sellers however the marketplace is a hell of a lot more structured and controlled and they then take a larger proportion of the final price in fees. If the customer isn’t happy then it is up to the seller to make them happy or they no longer sell on the Amazon marketplace.
No one can really argue that it really is a good business model but can Ebay really go from its seller focused approach (you can make your fortune on here type of marketing) to a buyer focused approach (a really use able and confidence building marketplace) without turning upon the very sellers (read legit) that have made it what it is today.
Thoughts?






































































May 13th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Bit off topic here. On the ebay ads at right side of your blog, do you think the campaign id is set right? I am not an expert buy I think the campaign id has to be numbers.
Health and Beauty’s last blog post..Economical Home Facial Tips!
[Reply]
Mike reply on May 13, 2008 5:03 pm:
They were correct but have since been removed as adding no value to my blog :o)
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May 15th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Hi, just wanted to say that its a great post. Keep up the good work!
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