Forum Replies Created
-
AuthorPosts
-
01/23/2019 at 10:46 am in reply to: eBay minority Shareholder posts a strategy letter – interesting read #55681
An interesting read, and , for me, a lot of unanswered questions. Spinning off StubHub and the Classifieds can make quick money for investors, but of the three “parts” of ebay, they are the two showing the fastest growth…which means their profits probably help the Marketplace at this point. Is it really a good idea to strip that away? (From what I’ve read, much of Amazon’s profit really comes from its Cloud Service business, not the retail business…strip out the profitably Cloud business, and do you help or hurt the “core” business there? Same sort of thing…)
While I understand the money making potential of stripping them out of ebay, the letter doesn’t actually provide any evidence that ebay management is distracted by those two parts of the business. In fact, the letter acknowledges that most of the Classifieds sites are run as stand alone businesses, so I suspect as long as they are growing, upper level ebay management doesn’t spend much time on them. If they aren’t really distracting from the core marketplace business, then this looks like a simple money grab….split off the two higher growth parts, make money on them, and, without them, ebay’s dollar value declines, which makes it an attractive take over target. Although not mentioned in the letter, news reports suggest the firm has implied Google or WalMart might be possible buyers. I’m not sure how likely either one of those is, although WalMart seems more likely than Google to me. For small sellers like us, with mostly used stuff, that could be a blessing or a curse, just depending on what WalMart does with ebay.
The letter is also VERY short on specifics when it comes to what ebay should do to rev up the Marketplace. The usual corporate raider answer seems to be present though: lay-offs, cost cutting measures, etc. The main proposal seems to be: “eBay’s platform provides a truly unique forum for innovation which can and should be leveraged to expand the universe of what is transacted on its Marketplace.”
Uh-huh. And just what the H-E-double toothpicks does that MEAN? “expand the universe of what is transacted on its Marketplace” The letter doesn’t provide any examples. Pretty much any retail goods can be sold on the Marketplace as is, so they must mean something else, but what?
Still, I’m not at all surprised by this. When Devin took over, after the PayPal split, I told my better half: He’s got a window of opportunity to really show some serious growth, but investor patience won’t last forever. Well, investor patience has done run out. ebay reports its Q4 results next week…..even if its pretty good, it isn’t likely to be great…and great is what ebay needs to assuage investors like these guys.
Part of the problem is, Devin painted “Product Pages” as the key to a turnaround, and so far, the Product Pages are a mess. If you follow ebay, you know that ebay hasn’t been talking about them much lately, now its all about Payments and the potential of seller advertising (such as promoted Listings). Those two things made a huge difference for etsy, and they might do the same for ebay. But just the fact that ebay seems focused on them now and Product Pages seem to be left struggling….it appears Management
All I can say is, it’s going to be an interesting year. I plan to stay focused on ebay, while eventually test driving Mercari and some others.
Mark,
I don’t really buy bags, but eBay has its own Authentication program. You might want to look into it.
01/16/2019 at 10:32 am in reply to: Sellers hit with government shutdown? How are your sales? #55245Another article with a negative prognosis for the economy. https://www.businessinsider.com/government-shutdown-trump-democrats-standoff-damaging-us-economy-2019-1
I’m with Steve, I’m not in panic mode, but I do think a combination of people not getting paid AND the potential for a serious reduction in consumer confidence could hurt us all. Not to mention the additional competition as furloughed employees start selling off stuff to make ends meet. I think a lot of people weren’t paying much attention to the stock market volatility or any other economic indicators during the Holidays, but the longer this impasse continues, the more I think people will begin to grasp that the economy is shaky, and that many of the economic wounds are largely self-inflicted by a dysfunctional government. I’m afraid 2019 might be a pretty rocky year. My plans haven’t changed…yet. Mostly comes down to: List More, and hope for the best.
BigSally, Aw, I LOVE a happy ending! Congrats on the cash register!
I do our shipping, and we do buy some larger items, but there are limits, due to storage space and my disinclination to pack really large items. But I agree with Jay: some large items are bargains precisely because no one wants to store/ship them. And sometimes, the bargain is just too good to pass up.
Andrew,
You can either listen to the podcast or read the transcript. The podcast is the replacement for the defunct ebay Radio show.
Sounds like you’re going to crush it (as the kids say) this time around. Not to dampen your enthusiasm, but one note of caution: This has been discussed on these forums: Increasing listings is great, but be careful about projecting your income in a strictly linear fashion: That is, If I make x at 1000 listings, I’ll make 2x at 2000 listings. it rarely works that way. there are too many variables (ASPs, sales velocity, etc.) I think the key, and I have to get much better at this myself, is to keep tracking your numbers regularly. And don’t let the inevitable fluctuations bring you down.
Thanks for the tip…might order some stuff!
Andrew, I agree, a lot of people would like to see that intermediate store, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.Here’s the back and forth from ebay exec Kubpens, on Jan 1st:
Okay. Question number nine is from Bearded. Hi Bob. What plans are in the works for eBay stores in 2019? Specifically, can we expect to see any of the following changes: A tier between premium and anchor? A set number of store listings with no division between fixed price and auction? The ability to generate a coupon code and promotions manager that we can use to target specific customers?
“Bearded, I love your seller Id and I’m probably should have called you to name our store tiers because I don’t think we were as creative as you are. We get premium anchor, enterprise, starter, basic, you know, it’s like anyway, corporate speak. But look, I actually think we made a ton of change in 2018. We expanded stores for the first time in over a decade. We have a new entry level store and a new enterprise level store and so we feel like that mix is actually a mix that’s gonna carry us forward for a while. But your suggestions are really good. Could we sort of break the line between fixed price and auction?
I think it’s a good question and we’ll go evaluate that. I think we want to continue to evaluate the services that we’re providing as a part of those stores tiers and make sure that people feel like they have the right option for their business. The right number of free listings, sort of the right pricing that goes with that. The right other things that come with a different store tiers and so we’ll actually have in early in 2019 some things that will add as features and capabilities to those different store tiers. And so look for that coming up. But I think just in general we like the tiers that we have. We think there’s good stratification built into that and we’ll continue to evaluate sort of pricing and services and we’ll look at your point around fixed price an auction. I think it’s a good suggestion.”
So, I’m thinking, no new tiers this year, but maybe some changes to the fee structures of the existing tiers. And maybe, at some point, for example,instead of premium being 1000 free FP and 500 free Auction in select categories (many sellers never use the auctions), they’ll make it 1500 free listings of any type. Or something like that. But in any event, I just don’t see new tiers coming. It would be quite an about-face if it happens.
I’m not sure, but I think I’ve seen quite a few people warning others to stay away from Webinterpret….don’t sign up for it till you know more.
As far as Featured store goes—-looks like it’s a Premium store, but under another name. eBay exec Bob Kubpens took questions on New Years Day, and I got the distinct impression there are no new tiers coming our way. Maybe some changes to the various features for each tier, but no additional tiers.
Not a duck. A pelican. Seymore D. Fair: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymore_D._Fair
01/03/2019 at 10:01 pm in reply to: What Sells On eBay: Empty tequila bottle, Turntable, Hat case, Cow Head Bell, Album holder, Magazine rack. #54484EAPG Early American Pattern Glass
We need to invite the treadmill guy to come here LOL—- improvise, adapt, overcome!
No stats to back it up, but I agree…I think eBay is probably losing clothing (and, more importantly, clothing buyers) to Poshmark. I have clothing to list, not tons of it, but I might try cross-posting to Posh after the First of the year.
-
AuthorPosts