Ebay & Business - a personal experience: Part II
Some Ebay History
In the winter of 2008 eBay's CEO John Donahue began implementing the rule changes that he saw as necessary for eBay to beome a safer secure place for Buyers to buy on eBay. Not necessarily a safer place for Sellers to sell but a safer place for Buyers to buy. Also, Donahue was envisioning a different sort of eBay. He was seeing eBay as the place where the world would come to shop for anything, old and new and especially new. He was seeing ebay as a marketplace similar to Amazon's. Even though on Amazon not every buyer was qualified to become an Amazon seller and antiques and collectibles outside of books were not sold on Amazon. Nor does Amazon have auctions.
Ebay had begun its life as a place where you could go to bid on items that were mostly collectible, old, antique, used. Over time the percentage of new items offered grew until they eclipsed old items in quantity of listings. This change in percentage is something that I have not verified by doing a count of the listings but I am guessing is true from my impressions of current offerings. Now you can buy on ebay through an immediate sale called a "But It Now" as well as in an auction.
In the beginnings of ebay most sellers were individuals who sold to supplement income that they earned principally elsewhere. As the years went by, more and more sellers began making a living by selling only on ebay. Small businesses were established that sold only on ebay. Then bigger established businesses got involved too. Bigger and bigger and bigger businesses entered the ebay marketplace. Businesses that had previously sold through their own websites or brick and mortar establishments began selling on ebay.
Under Donahue's regime some of those big businesses with access to massive quantities of inventory now are able to list without paying listing fees so that it is financially feasible for them to list and relist hundreds of thousands of items that would otherwise be cost prohibitive. For smaller sellers who didn't have those kinds of deals, sellers such as ourselves, it costs too much money to run large numbers of listings unless you have an item that you expect will sell consistently and that you can restock easily and at a price where you can make a profit that will pay you for your time, effort, materials, and other costs of selling.
When you sell antiques and collectibles, you have a few customers who collect items in various categories and when each item is sold, you don't go out and order a thousand. The value of your inventory is partly due to the difficulty of finding it. Your methods of doing business when you are an antiques and collectibles dealers are different from businesses such as a Buy.com which buy and sell the same things over and over and over again to a vast sea of customers who are looking for the lowest price and can find that item from a number of businesses. Antiques and collectibles dealers sell hard to find items at prices ranging from low to very high to a relatively small number of customers who hope not to be able to see that same item at a lower price in quantity anywhere else. If they did see that item at a lower price in quantity some place else, it is likely that they would desire it a whole lot less!
In the late winter of 2008 as a seller of collectibles and antiques on ebay we, along with many other sellers in the same antiques and collectibles boat, had significant challenges when making decisions on how to sell on ebay and make a profit. Every month we had to decide how many items we could afford to list in auction style listings so that we would make money without losing our profit to listing fees. What helped lower the cost of listing fees were ebay's special promotional listing days where they would lower the fees for twenty-four hours. On those days, if we learned of the promotion in time, we would spend the entire day listing as fast as we could. In the winter of 2008 we had never heard of buy.com and the free listing deal that they had received from ebay. We learned about that a few months later after other new rules went into effect.
To be continued in Part III where the new rules go into effect.
Ginny's Links:
Virginia Caputo Photography
Ginny & Jim's eBay Store: Imajgin Antiques Photography Books
The Lancaster County Art Association
The LCAA's Squidoo Page
In the winter of 2008 eBay's CEO John Donahue began implementing the rule changes that he saw as necessary for eBay to beome a safer secure place for Buyers to buy on eBay. Not necessarily a safer place for Sellers to sell but a safer place for Buyers to buy. Also, Donahue was envisioning a different sort of eBay. He was seeing eBay as the place where the world would come to shop for anything, old and new and especially new. He was seeing ebay as a marketplace similar to Amazon's. Even though on Amazon not every buyer was qualified to become an Amazon seller and antiques and collectibles outside of books were not sold on Amazon. Nor does Amazon have auctions.
Ebay had begun its life as a place where you could go to bid on items that were mostly collectible, old, antique, used. Over time the percentage of new items offered grew until they eclipsed old items in quantity of listings. This change in percentage is something that I have not verified by doing a count of the listings but I am guessing is true from my impressions of current offerings. Now you can buy on ebay through an immediate sale called a "But It Now" as well as in an auction.
In the beginnings of ebay most sellers were individuals who sold to supplement income that they earned principally elsewhere. As the years went by, more and more sellers began making a living by selling only on ebay. Small businesses were established that sold only on ebay. Then bigger established businesses got involved too. Bigger and bigger and bigger businesses entered the ebay marketplace. Businesses that had previously sold through their own websites or brick and mortar establishments began selling on ebay.
Under Donahue's regime some of those big businesses with access to massive quantities of inventory now are able to list without paying listing fees so that it is financially feasible for them to list and relist hundreds of thousands of items that would otherwise be cost prohibitive. For smaller sellers who didn't have those kinds of deals, sellers such as ourselves, it costs too much money to run large numbers of listings unless you have an item that you expect will sell consistently and that you can restock easily and at a price where you can make a profit that will pay you for your time, effort, materials, and other costs of selling.
When you sell antiques and collectibles, you have a few customers who collect items in various categories and when each item is sold, you don't go out and order a thousand. The value of your inventory is partly due to the difficulty of finding it. Your methods of doing business when you are an antiques and collectibles dealers are different from businesses such as a Buy.com which buy and sell the same things over and over and over again to a vast sea of customers who are looking for the lowest price and can find that item from a number of businesses. Antiques and collectibles dealers sell hard to find items at prices ranging from low to very high to a relatively small number of customers who hope not to be able to see that same item at a lower price in quantity anywhere else. If they did see that item at a lower price in quantity some place else, it is likely that they would desire it a whole lot less!
In the late winter of 2008 as a seller of collectibles and antiques on ebay we, along with many other sellers in the same antiques and collectibles boat, had significant challenges when making decisions on how to sell on ebay and make a profit. Every month we had to decide how many items we could afford to list in auction style listings so that we would make money without losing our profit to listing fees. What helped lower the cost of listing fees were ebay's special promotional listing days where they would lower the fees for twenty-four hours. On those days, if we learned of the promotion in time, we would spend the entire day listing as fast as we could. In the winter of 2008 we had never heard of buy.com and the free listing deal that they had received from ebay. We learned about that a few months later after other new rules went into effect.
To be continued in Part III where the new rules go into effect.
Ginny's Links:
Virginia Caputo Photography
Ginny & Jim's eBay Store: Imajgin Antiques Photography Books
The Lancaster County Art Association
The LCAA's Squidoo Page
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