The phrase “old-fashioned internet auctions” seems like an oxymoron, but several pundits have declared traditional auction formats, if not dead, terminally ill.
According to the New York Times, the days of the traditional online auction format on eBay are numbered:
The golden era of the small seller on eBay, hawking gewgaws and knickknacks from the basement or garage, is coming to a noisy and ignominious end.
Consumers appear to be tiring of online auctions, and rivals like Amazon.com are attracting more shoppers with fixed-price listings, while eBay has been struggling for growth.
eBay seemed to confirm this sentiment a week later when they offered a promotion aimed squarely at encouraging the number of fixed-price listings on the “auction” site.
Maybe I’m just old-fashioned (seems like a strange term to associate with the internet) and stuck in the first part of this decade, but I still have a strong preference for buying and selling on eBay using the auction format.
Selling with the Auction Format is Still Fun
I’ll admit that I don’t sell on eBay full-time, so I my indulgence in the traditional auction format is a liberty that many full-time sellers can’t afford, but I still like my listings to have a absurdly low starting price with no-reserve.
Sure, some of my auctions will close for less than they should, but I’m still surprised by how often a listing will close for more than it should. That’s because there’s an emotional component to buying at the auction format that you just can’t duplicate when you are selling at a fixed price or on Amazon.
This keeps selling on eBay fun for me. And you don’t hear a whole lot of sellers talking about fun anymore. Maybe there’s a connection between the level of satisfaction and the listing format.
Buying on eBay is About Bargains
eBay is pushing the fixed price format because they want to be more like Amazon and “are concerned about the buying experience.” Message to eBay: I buy on eBay because I’m looking for a bargain. That’s the buying experience I’m looking for on eBay. The bargains are the lightly-used stuff that has been sitting in some person’s closet that they are listed in the traditional auction format.
Even when a listing has a buy-it-now price of only 5% more than the current auction-style bid price, I’ll take my chances placing a bid, thank you very much.
I’m looking for a bargain, and maybe hoping to have a little fun while I’m doing it. A lot of bloggers mocked eBay’s marketing slogan’s (Windorphins and Don’t just shop, win), but I think it really captured the true buying experience that I most enjoy on eBay.
Apparently I’m not the only person with a whimsical fondness for the glory days of eBay buying a selling. Here’s a few great comments from SlashDot’s post about the NYT’s article quoted above:
One feature alone would instantly pull me from eBay to whatever competitor there is: search and filter by “used item” vs. “new item” and also “individual seller” vs. “large retail outlet”.
When I go to online auctions, I’m looking for a deal on something used. I’m tired of living in a society where paying full priced new is the only option: it means individuals who’d be happy with a used widget have to spend more and our landfills fill up with still-useful widgets.
When I search eBay now for (tools/computers/whatever), I get 90% listings from large businesses selling new, usually crappy knock-off, items. I don’t want a cheap Chinese $20 wood router that barely functions. I want a used porter-cable router from some hobbyist who is downsizing his garage or upgrading to a newer tool. But the floods of cheap Chinese crap are all I can find on eBay!
I completely understand that businesses need to make money, and the buydotcom route may be one way to do that. However, eBay is WIDELY opening a door for another company to undercut them in the small seller market, and those of us who collect, buy, and sell anything used on a small scale and aren’t interested in just shopping online for new stuff that we can get down the street at Wal-mart or wherever.
How far eBay has strayed from it’s original purpose of being the “garage sale of the Internet” to now just essentially being an outlet mall. Perhaps it’s just an inevitable result of gaining too much popularity; regardless something tells me there’s money to be made in picking up the slack.
There’s your entrepreneurial idea for the day kids. I’m sure garagesale.com is already taken (and isn’t a Web 2.0 name anyway), but just go read a Klingon dictionary and I’m sure you’ll find a good alternative. Your tagline is “What eBay used to be”, at least until you pop up on their lawyers’ radar. Market it as specializing in collectibles, unique trinkets and such, and in your literature equate eBay with Wal-Mart.
I like the idea of a viable online auction site whose marketing mantra is “What eBay used to be.”
Randy Smythe argues that the company best poised to capitalize on the old-fashioned internet auction market is eBay itself. In a recent post, Randy suggested that eBay spin itself into three different entities:
The gist of the idea is this:
- eBay Stores have been the red-headed step child of eBay because they aren’t as profitable as other segments of the business, yet there are over 500,000 stores/shops worldwide. eBay should set them free –empower eBay store owners and get out of the way.
- Auctions: I contend that Auctions are dying because of Fixed price being in the same marketplace, many of you disagree. Auctions need scarcity and uniqueness of product to thrive and the concept of auctions is 100′s of years old — It just isn’t a high growth business any longer. eBay should set them free — empower auction sellers and get out of the way.
- Fixed-Price: A fixed price retail environment is the growth engine for ecommerce and eBay needs to maximize this business, but they can’t do it on the same platform as Auctions and they can’t do it without spending money. eBay Express was a good idea that was poorly executed from a business and marketing standpoint. It always need to be a separate platform with separate inventory and a huge, well thought out advertising campaign without one mention of the name eBay.
eBay has precious few months, if not weeks to turn this ship around or it will be a painful experience for all involved (employees, investors, sellers and buyers).
That’s great advice eBay, are you listening?
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