EBay Insighter Oracles Future

Associated content's eBay insight writer is Randy Smythe a former Power Seller for the online auction innovator. His article The Real future of EBay; After Their Recent Agreement With Yahoo and Google continues with the story as a part of a series he has written for Associated Content. Randy Smythe's article is at:
The real Future Of EBay

I first came across eBay when somebody had given me a bundle of new racing-car-team crew t-shirts. They were Beefy-T's ,white extra-large, with a tire company's graphics on them. These are high-quality shirts that sell for $20-25 at the department stores.

This gave me a reason to check-out what was happening on eBay, perhaps I could sell them online. When I got to the site I typed-in men's t-shirts in the search box, and after looking at a few pages came-up with one similar shirt, the price? $5.00.
Wow, I thought the prices were really low! Too low.

If I took the time to get online with eBay trying to sell these shirts online, after considering the time involved and eBay fees and packing costs I was better-off keeping the shirts and wearing them!

Randy Smythe is our insight guy a on the subject of eBay and he says that the auction company is "morphing into a shopping portal site rather than a destination." I take this to mean that eBay is transforming itself into just another online store selling new merchandise.

Where in the past small business people like Randy could start-up their business on their kitchen table and then as the volume grew, move the operation out to the garage; will this be possible in the future as eBay starts competing with it's own members?

If eBay limits the use of it's pages to transactions that result in fees for itself and restricts useage for attracting new customers what's in it for the eBay sellers? Do they have a future with the company? Should they start looking elsewhere for places to operate their businesses online? Reading Randy's article raises all sorts of questions.

Randy was one of eBay's top sellers, $15 million in CD-DVD sales over five years, keeping in mind that eBays fees took 17% of Sales. (You could say that this was a form of "paying rent" for the use of eBay's software and business plan.) In a Bricks and Morter Store the costs would be a lot higher.

If you are thinking about opening a store online with eBay you have to consider that eBay itself will be your biggest competitor, but that is where the customers will go first-click, with a name that they know.

Randy Smythe analyzes what went wrong and why with his business, but there were large-scale changes taking place in the market for music and movies on CD's and DVD's that weren't apparent at the time. The gigantic-volume sellers could track the fall-off in sales as being more than the usual seasonal-dip because they have a larger distributed base of customers and are better able to determine a shift in consumer habits, but even they got caught holding too much inventory and had to discount it to move it; further worsening Randy's situation.

If you purchase a new HDTV and want to get the full viewing experience from your present DVD collection, Philips has an HDMI compatible DVD Player that converts standard DVD's from 480p to a 720p/1080i resolution. Click This Text Link.
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/B000G18DR0/ref=nosim/your_httpgetoveblo-20_id

An important note: Randy Smythe made sure that his customers orders were taken care of before he shut down his business.

Randy mentions Auction Rover, Channel Advisor Pro and Channel Advisor Merchant software that he used that enabled him to run his business. Also there are other online store software and store channels that do not involve eBay at all. So before investing money in any online venture you have to really determine, are they going to work for you? I know myself, that reading the promotional material creates an enthusiastic response, that's the purpose of the adcopy! But, you have to have a better idea of your relationship (Where Art Thou?) to the online retailing market.

Take Denim Jeans, for example, that would be the featured item of your online store. The big thing in Lost Angeles is Designer Denim Vintage Wear; what the rest of the country calls "secondhand clothes." There are stores in all the trendy entertainment districts that sell used clothing. There are even stores that specialize in "music-oriented merchandise" such as that worn by punk rockers in the 1980's. The key to this is the experience of shopping in the stores and the alt-culture sales people. The low-priced merchandise is your competition, and you can't match the ambience of the too-hip store environment.
It is possible, though that you could come-up with something new that would add-value for online buyers to shop at your store rather than at the trendy shops.

Then there is the problem of "How do the prospective customers find your site?" There are Search Engine Optimization software packages available that are supposed to be able to convince the search engines that your site has a high rank. This leads us back to ebay where at least you know the customers will be able to find you and your merchandise.

Randy Smythe's article The real Future of EBay; After Their Recent Agreement With Yahoo and Google is at this link:
www.associatedcontent.com/article/68498/the_real_future_of_ebay_after_their.html

The most up-to-date book on Internet Marketing: Integrating Online and Offline Strategies by Mary Lou Roberts
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/0072827033/ref=nosim/your_httpgetovebl0-20_id can enable you to make informed decisions before you start investing time and money in an online business.

Writing for the Internet is different than writing for print, click this text link: www.writingfortheinet.blogspot.com