Other sites who want to go for it will have to clean up their act to maintain the kind of safety that buyers now expect thanks to eBay’s aggressive security measures. Whatever else I may think about them, they have done an amazing job in cleaning up the site from undesirable, illegal, fake etc items. And even with all that there’s still a lot of bad stuff going on. On the iOffer site, right there on the home page is a “Tiffany” sterling silver necklace advertised for $19.95. Yeah right.

And the site just looks junky. I wouldn’t put my $5,000 Fantastic Four #1 comic book on there, nope, no way no how. So these other sites may be up and comers but they’ve got a lot of uppin’ and comin’ to do yet. They’re not even in the same league, much less the ballpark. But we’ll see what happens. This is just my perspective as an ebay seller.

From an affiliate standpoint, the problem becomes one of them copying Amazon too much and diluting their uniqueness and attraction. If they’re all selling the same new stuff, then it will become a price battle and the cheapest widget wins.

I’m wondering about opportunities in building relationships with CJ and Pepperjam and other big shops like them instead of with one big seller like eBay or Amazon.

LOL I wish.. its actually owned by Amazon already.

@ Christine –

You are #4 I have seen today. I am shocked by the ePN termination letters and patiently awaiting one of my own.

@ Jeff-

I completely understand what you are saying. For those with the unique items, it wont matter… I do however think the market will level out with a willing competitor for the auctionc crowd.

Mark

I can see the market pressures for moving to a more store-type experience but I agree it should be interesting to see what the auction crowd will have to say about it.

My first foray into ecommerce was selling on ebay and 95% of what I sold was at auction. However, and this is important, sellers selling rare and unusual commodities will be unaffected. They will still be the only game in town and will be able to use whatever format works best for them.

All in all, I think that anything that allows us ebay affiliates to send our traffic someplace they are more likely to buy right then can only be good for us.

Jeff

EBay Just Wants to Sell: Moving Away From Auctions

Today, eBay announced a number of changes to its fee structure, which will emphasize fixed-price sales over eBay’s traditional auctions. Fixed-price sales have been growing at a faster rate than auctions for eBay, so emphasizing this business model makes a lot of sense for eBay. To do so, the company has reduced the price to list an item for a fixed price by over 70% to 35 cents and sellers can now list multiple quantities of the same item for the same price. The new price structure will take effect on September 16th and is clearly timed in order to increase business for the upcoming holiday season. eBay will also make similar changes to its sites in England and Germany. Of course, the last time eBay made changes to its pricing structure earlier this year, it drew the ire of its most valuable sellers, who quickly initiated a boycott. Now, eBay is moving to simplify the pricing structure that upset its customers so much earlier this year. Final Value Fees While the listing fees have been reduced substantially, the overall fees for a listing still includes what eBay calls a ‘final value fee,’ which is determined by the sales price of the item to be sold. These fees have been simplified, but also increased. Overall, however, this change in eBay’s pricing structure could result in substantially lower cost for a lot of eBay’s sellers. Consumers Don’t Want Auctions As Laurie J. Flynn in the New York Times points out, these changes are also driven by a change in consumer behavior online. There is simply less interest in the auction model these days, which, even though it might be very exciting, just isn’t as convenient as just heading over to Amazon and buying a product right away. And Amazon is exactly the company that eBay should fear the most. For consumers buying anything on Amazon is easier (and often cheaper) than going to eBay – and it isn’t loaded with the same potential for fraud. Amazon is also constantly making it easier for sellers to list their items in its database.

BTW – ‘ecomazon.com’ – nice name. Pity it’s taken :-)

Is it yours, Mark?

This shift could prove beneficial for eBay affiliates it various ways. I’m definitely interested in how this pans out over the next little while.

Thanks for the update Mark.