Before Ebay alienates all the buyers and sellers who like to take part in auctions, rather than BINs it should do the math on some of it's 'new' BIN products to see where it stands in relation to other online sellers. My speciality is books. I have been buying and selling them on Ebay since it started. Yesterday I randomly chose 10 BIN brand new books being sold on Ebay to see how it stacks up against other sellers.
Below I'm listing in order, the best Ebay Australian price (Aus), the best Ebay overseas price (O/S), the best price available (with postage) from other online sellers (BPA), the difference between the best ebay price and the best price from other sellers (DIFF), and the number of online sellers offering the same book at a cheaper price (S). I will walk you through the first example.
Book 1
Aus (Ebay) $78.19 O/S (Ebay) $69.25 Best other Online Price $43.29 Difference -$25.96 No of Sellers Cheaper than Ebay: 11
Book 2
Aus $45.89 O/S $30.20 BPA 26.55 DIFF -$3.65 S: 4
Book 3
Aus $64.59 O/S $48.83 BPA $34.76 DIFF: -$14.07 S: 10
Book 4:
Aus $71.14 O/S $38.13 BPA $38.37 DIFF +0.24 S: 0
Book 5
Aus $152.14 O/S $112.86 BPA $92.88 DIFF -$19.98 S: 2
Book 6
Aus $49.35 O/S $34.63 BPA $30.05 DIFF -$4.58 S: 2
Book 7
Aus $40.79 O/S $32.41 BPA $26.17 DIFF -$6.24 S: 7
Book 8
Aus $54.39 O/S $51.38 BPA $31.39 DIFF -$19.99 S: 14
Book 9
Aus $41.64 O/S $65.79 BPA $33.61 DIFF -$8.03 S: 8
Book 10
Aus $165.74 O/S $87 BPA 85.53 DIFF -$1.47 S: 1
Totals
Aus (Ebay) $763.86 O/S (Ebay) $544.52 BPA $442.60
Observations:
1. You can do this yourself - just go to Booko. In some areas like text books Ebay maybe cheaper however as a buyer I have been seeing the above trend for some time.
2. The reality is that when it comes to selling secondhand items and auctions Ebay is THE HUB. I wish Ebay would remember this. When it comes to new items Ebay is just another player - and not always the cheapest. The bottom line is that online consumers are becoming increasingly savvy. Across the entire range of consumer items there are many online sites devoted to finding the best prices.
3. Regarding books, the inclusion of US and UK sellers on the Ebay Australia is like a massive signpost that says "send your Australian dollars overseas". Forget about the Borders debacle, Australian online sellers are being massively underpriced by overseas sellers. In the current environment I cant see how Ebay's move away from auctions/secondhand items is going to advantage the big Australian sellers or Ebay itself.
4. A lot of people still have bad memories of the Paypal/ACCC episode. Lifting the rates, not allowing sellers to list multiple items, encouraging BINs over auctions is going to lead to further distrust of Ebay, and people moving away from the site entirely as BUYERS (it's getting a lot easier to do this). This is a classic case of biting the hand that feeds you.
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