eCommerce Frank Ross on 01 Feb 2008 08:01 pm
eBay Gravitating Toward Standard eCommerce
There’s been a lot of hoopla about the huge eBay announcements this week. It wasn’t just a fee increase this time; rather it was a multi-legged beast. The eBay forums are ablaze with angry sellers and talks of rebellious eBay boycotts. There are 3 primary issues which seem to be contentious.
1 - Fee Structure Changing. This time around, the fee change is on the back end. They reduced the listing fees, but raised the FV fees.
2 - FeedBack changes. Sellers will only be able to leave positive feedback about buyers; buyers will still have all the feedback options.
3 - Search Results Changes. The default search results will change from “ending soonest” to “best match”. Best Match is based on a variety of seller performance criteria.
When you really look at these 3 things in combination, you can see that eBay is merely moving toward a more normalized eCommerce model. Here is why I say that:
1 - Fee Structure Changing. Most online selling portals charge heavier fees on the sale itself. Amazon and UBid are both examples of that. While there are costs to list, they are minimal compared to the chunk that comes out from the final sale (Amazon’s is 8 to 15 percent depending on the category).
2 - FeedBack changes. eBay is (or rather was) just about the only place where sellers could leave meaningful feedback for the buyers. It was an oddity in that regard. In most eCommerce arrangements, the buyer has the voice and the seller can only respond via follow up comments or something similar.
3 - Search Results Changes. The real world of online search does not operate on “ending soonest”. It rewards websites that are stable, provide good reliable service/product/content and have a good standing among other sites. Each is a proprietary model where only their engineers know all the details. This eBay change merely reflects that model.
So eBay’s massive shift this year is merely following a cycle of moving toward standard eCommerce. They toyed with that when they introduced the eBay stores, but this is a much more core, fundamental shift.
Tags: eBay, eBay Fees, eBay FeedBack, eBay Best Match