Ebay: Over 50% of Sellers Questioned Intend to Quit Within 6 Months
Should Ebay Be Concerned?
This is a very interesting report and I thoroughly recommend reading it, particularly if you are a member of eBay management.
Editor Ina Steiner at AuctionBytes managed to obtain 1,225 responses from online sellers over a 10 day period and I am grateful to her for letting me reference her work in this article. Obviously there's no point in me duplicating too much of Ina's report but I would like to make a few observations specifically related to eBay.
1,118 of the 1,225 survey respondents, or 92%, currently place all or part of their inventory on eBay. However, when asked if they intend to be selling on eBay in six months time, only 457 (38%) said they would. The shock in these numbers for me was that the question was specifically about the core listing format and not eBay stores. Well over half of the eBay seller respondents have effectively served notice that they intend to quit the site within six months.
When the same questions were asked specifically regarding storefront usage, only 658 (56%) of the respondents said they currently sell in an eBay Store and, of these, only 243 (21%) said they would be selling there in six months time. This suggests a similar intended exodus in percentage terms by store sellers as those selling via the short duration core listing formats.
Now I realise these are just statements of intent and the reality could well prove different. Regardless of that, even these stated intentions should concern eBay in my opinion.
The stated eBay aim of the 'hide and hike' changes was to turn back the rapid store format growth and encourage more items to be switched to the core auction and buy it now formats. It appears they may have succeeded in culling a significant number of stores but it doesn't look likely the core formats will benefit much, if at all.
It appears to me that sellers using any eBay sales format are equally disaffected. If management continue to remain silent and leave the sellers issues unaddressed, I believe there is now sufficient ill will to cause significant harm to the eBay revenue generated from their top earning sites.
I am seeing eBay's competitors increasingly jockeying for position to benefit from the eBay seller unrest. As I write, I do think eBay management have a small window of opportunity to stem the apparent rising tide of complaints. I think many sellers are probably hanging on, as inventory reduces, in the hope of change to current policies.
The danger in my view is there could be a tipping point fast approaching where a significant number of loyal, up until now, eBay users actually become frustrated enough to go and try competitor sites. If this happens I believe a number of them could be pleasantly surprised by the lower costs, site functionality and customer service they receive elsewhere. If I'm right, what will it cost eBay to tempt any defectors back in future?
AuctionBytes.com have already said they will be doing follow ups to their research to see how intent translates in reality. It should prove interesting. The full AuctionBytes Survey report is here.
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16 Comments
Post a CommentI've been a powerseller for about 8 months. We are packing eBay in soon as we are going solo. In Decemeber 06 it cost over £1000 to sell about 40 items at a time throughout that month, that is just eBay fees for selling, not inc it's crappy sister company PayPal. Couple that with the "cheap image" and it's a none starter. The only thing good about it is the traffic they get, but even that has been reduced. eBay is a sinking ship and they should sack that old witch Meg or whatever.
Hello guys, it seems that you some of you have quit being an ebay seller, and that is what im trying to do right now.
can anybody show me how to quit being an ebay seller please?
Hulamermaid's perspective has always been from that of a shareholder, deeply troubled about the poor decisions on the part of current eBay upper management, its impact on stock performance, and the future of eBay. In the beginning HM did not understand the serious position eBay has put sellers in, causing us to leave. It's apparent HM now has a much greater understanding of this, and what this means to eBay's current and future stock performance. The future is grim.
Any one who has taken the time to read and understand, in context, my long-standing position on the affairs of EBAY, knows that my views have been totally consistent. I support EBAY's proper attempts to fully monetize shareholders' assets, and I do NOT support the efforts of the current failed management to further destroy OUR company in the bungling of that process. That is the view I have always held, and the view I continue to hold; any allegation to the contrary is false and is likely made for the sole purpose of discrediting the responsible shareholders who have long been labeled as dissidents by the evil Meg and Bill gang. hm
Note for those who read this, but not the eBay boards - HulaMermaid has been a major eBay cheerleader on the boards. I cannot take anything that is said from that one seriously anymore... his/her opinion changes like the wind, depending on who is reading...
wow - apparently the post was too long. Oh well! Bottom line is this - the store owners have known eBay was broken at LEAST since July. Now the buyers are noticing it too, and moving along to someplace where they can FIND what they want to buy. Not a surprise. The only surprise in all of this, is if eBay continues to keep the current management staff that thought all of this mess up, and continue to pay them Big Bucks to mess it up. Time to move on to other venues!
I gave up trying to guess what eBay's strategy was, since apparently it revolves only around trying to go int'l for no cost, and to skew the reports in a way the stockholders enjoy.
What so many current eBay sellers still do not realize, is that the other sites are indeed becoming a viable option now. Before, there was no real need to try them, since business was very good at the biggest Garage Sale in the world. It had name recognition, and you could indeed find almost anything.
Wow, has THAT changed! Sure, the name recognition is still there, but FINDING things is another matter. Between the sellers who could not afford to stay there after the fee hikes (which were only to the store owners, no one else), to the search engine problems, to importing Half dot com and the Chinese listings, the USA sellers who were still around were now buried. Oh yes, we also have to deal with rolling server blackouts, apparently some attempt at resource management from the CA office. If yo
Smart investors are now slowly dumping shares. Meg and Bill have robbed us of 50% of our equity during their tenure and have destroyed the reputation of OUR company by refusing to stop the fraudsters. Massive bulk-reporting of frauds by the non-profit site cleanupebay.com continue to be tossed in the trash by "Trust and Safety." Now that the good buyers have split, the incompetent pair are working hard to run-off the sites best sellers. Shareholders will have a new chance to recoup their losses in the $15.00 range as soon as the BOD cancels the Meg and Bill show. Reforms will then be made, and the projections of the Steiner poll will not come to pass.
Ebay does their own surveys from time to time, one of the current ones is filled in by people closing the Ebay stores. The results are never published though, and perhaps we now know the reason why. Their inability to act on such high profile definitive information from their customers does not make sense. Are they incompetent or is there something more sinister going on? If I was a shareholder I would want the answer to both those questions.
Also, thank you Graham for doing this article, I'm off to ebay to post it on the boards!