bad news coming i think

[plonkacolin]

http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cgi-bin/blog/blog.pl

[imastawka]

Yes, Wenig's an idiot gunna have trouble finding his $15M paycheck from those fvf's

Top 4 items only shown???

Best way to show sellers the door.

It's a big gamble for the company, given Wenig's revelation that the new experience would become the only way to shop on eBay. 

[brerrabbit585]

Big gamble is right. Buyers don't like being dictated to but would prefer to choose what they buy and who they buy from, at least to a certain extent. They'll lose an awful lot in shop fees if people don't get any sales and shut up shop. Perhaps the four items will be picked at random and not from the same sellers every time.

I'd like to know how they'll do it for items in categories where there are rarely two items exactly the same! You really have to wonder where they get some of these ideas from!!

[brerrabbit585]

Oops, just re-read it and they'll base the four on the cheapest, etc. Not sure what they'll do when 2,000 of the 10,000 phones are the exact same price.

[brerrabbit585]

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@imastawkawrote:

Yes, Wenig's an idiot gunna have trouble finding his $15M paycheck from those fvf's

Top 4 items only shown???

Best way to show sellers the door.

It's a big gamble for the company, given Wenig's revelation that the new experience would become the only way to shop on eBay. 

---

If people buy the item cheaper they'll find something else to spend the savings on so ebay will still sell the same amount overall.

[imastawka]

Works for mass produced new stuff maybe.

How's it gunna work for collectables?

[padi*0409]

I've had a lot of sellers in my saved search drop out over the last few years (around 8-10 large volume sellers), if this crazy idea goes through there won't be any sellers left on that search at all. Most of my sellers are in the "collectable" category.

But not only will sellers pull out, buyers will as well. Reading that link numerous sellers that responded are already starting to move to different selling platforms.......................

We all know that eBay has a lot of problems, but this will put the final nail in the coffin for them if it goes ahead. 

[chameleon54]

I know ebay the company appears to have a death wish, but i just cant see this idea flying. Simple logic says there will be virtually no sellers left. Sellers are also buyers. Take them out of the market and the company is history.

The idea simply would not work and I will believe it when I see it. Luckily I have the exit door adjar and plan "B" well and truly in place. If ebay goes belly up, my stock gets packed back into the shipping container to mature until something comes along in the future to replace ebay. Should be a nice little retirement project for me.

[clubesquire]

At face value it sounds absolutely bizarre. Surely it's a simplification quoted out of context. Surely? Or, there's more, that was omitted from the article?

A platform can't survive like that. Numbers tell stories and those numbers add up to a very messy Waterloo. 

And, it's all well and good to highlight only the cheapest, but that's not necessarily what a buyer is looking for. And, it's certainly enabling Chinese sellers above all else. And, strip someone a reasonable profit margin and there's no point to them being here. And, this might just be the intent. Looking after just ten big sellers is easier than looking after one hundred small ones.

Is that the gamble? How is he selling it to shareholders?

But, that's at face value, and I just can't believe what it represents at the moment.

Melina.

[brerrabbit585]

I too have trouble believing it.  It's just too ridiculous.  I'm not sure it'd get past the laws in Australia on free competition anyway.  They probably only get away with best match because of there being alternative ways to sort listings, but under the proposed system there'll be no alternatives.

I don't think the fact that sellers are also buyers would affect them much, but if a lot of sellers pulled out there wouldn't be much choice for buyers and they'd go elsewhere.  It'd be a good time for some bright entrepreneur to start a similar site in opposition and ebay needs to be careful if they do decide to go ahead with this idea.  There are a lot more computer savvy people out there who could probably build a viable site to operate in opposition to ebay.