Ebay Quickly Reaching the Same Level as Amazon!
eBay, the online clearinghouse we have all come to build sites around is suffering a great identity crisis and according to stats compiled by Nielsen, traffic at the auction site if off by more than 30% year over year!
AuctionBytes reported this morning on all metrics that are relevant to both eBay and Amazon, and even though eBay is quickly working to bring itself even with Amazon, its the wrong direction!
Its Not Just the Economy!
I know someone will come out and say… But… but… the economy is in the crapper, of course they are going to be down! Unfortunately, if it were only the economy, you would see the same trends along all major ecommerce type websites. Looking at the graph above, you can clearly see that Amazon is holding its own quite well.
What is Going Wrong with eBay?
I will preface this by saying that maybe, just maybe, eBay expected the traffic to go down when they abandoned the auction format last year for the ecommerce platform they are trying to transition into. Highly doubtful though…
So what else might be wrong with eBays marketplace?
1 – They have abandoned the people who built ebay!
eBay was once the place “to go” when you wanted to find anything rare or for a bargain basement price on the web! Honestly, why do people even care to go to eBay anymore when they can find the same items at Amazon or any other large ecommerce site?! If you go through the ebay marketplace today… you find the same items listed repeatedly, all for just pennies of a difference.
When they decided to abandon the “Cash in the Trash” people, like even myself and Kim, they lost not only their user base, but also a certain number of buyers who now go elsewhere.
2 – They are Alienating their Affiliates!
On one hand, they are focused on bringing and keeping top level affiliates to the ePN program. Along with that comes a fair percentage of webmasters like any of us, who are scuttled to the side. eBay used to have one of the most popular affiliate programs on the web… just visit the forums today and you can read how alot of them have abandoned the platform for other methods to monetize their traffic.
On one of my own higher traffic sites (+5000 daily pageviews), I watched the peaks and valleys in the reporting from ePN… 2000 clicks one day, 200 the next day, 2300 again the following day… and heard the “pinks” say that everything was fine on their end. Transparency is everything in affiliate marketing and when you see the reported stats constantly fluctuate, yet your traffic stays constant, doubts are raised. In my case – I pulled the ebay listings all together and went 100% with Adsense for my traffic on that particular site.
3 – Long Time Sellers have Thier Own Buyer Lists Now
I can tell you from someone who ran a successful eBay business for several years (+$150k/mo in sales) – we kept every single buyer name and address who bought from us, and marketed to those buyers every time we had a special! In our business, there was alot of phone contact with the buyers… eventually, they called us direct instead of going through the eBay system.
My guess is that we werent alone in doing this and since eBay has moved to an ecommerce shopping place, versus mom & pop selling you a lamp from their garage, the trend of direct selling will only grow more prevalent.
4 – Competition in the Marketplace!
As eBay has gone to ecommerce… more and more auction sites are springing up every month! Lets not even mention Craigslist, (who eBay partially owns) and the fact that there are more options today, than there has ever been in the person to person market.
5 – Paypal or Nothing!
One of the last changes eBay made to its seller policies… requiring EVERY transaction to go through Paypal, was VERY unpopular! As we all know, eBay owns Paypal and they used the ruse of stopping fraud as the main reason for the change…
Many people, myself included, prefer to use different methods of payment than paypal! When we had our eBay store for instance, we got a full percentage point better rate than Paypal card transactions, from our local bank. 1% on 150k adds up quick when you run on tight net profit like we did!
Why Else do You think eBay is Declining?
Previously Published Articles You May Like to Read:
- Amazon Outpacing eBay for Lead in the Online Commerce War!
- Do You Promote Amazon? If So, Clearly Tell Your Visitors!
- Google & Amazon Partner Up On the Blogger Platform!
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I have been doing my part to "Build the Internet" since 1994, when I built my first website! Since then, I have built hundreds of niche websites for myself and many others, focused on design, applications, ecommerce, search optimization and internet marketing.
What do you think this means for niche stores? Is the market flooded? Is there no point creating BANS-only stores anymore?
@ Marilla –
The eBay affiliate market has always been flooded… BUT… GREAT Content will carry your sites through the ups and downs of any economy, or any traffic trends.
With my site mentioned above – removing the ePN links and using adsense created instant revenue on that site, from someone I love to hate, Google.
Make sure you have a compelling content driven site first – if the bottom falls out of eBay, you can just as easily swap a monetization model in just a few keystrokes.
M
@ Mark – that’s a good point. This really does make the case for a WordPress-based site, eh? That way you can chop and change whenever you need to. Cool.
Marilla –
Here is a post from a year ago… wow, how time flies!
http://www.thenichestorebuilder.com/google-burned-my-website-to-the-ground.htm
Hmmm…..I must have missed that post! I’m using your mix of 250 words for no more than 4 phpBay pro listings in my blogs (pages and posts) – where appropriate. If it’s just a website update, there’s no point. I haven’t really been using other monetizing strategies on my blogs apart from a little amazon affiliate stuff for a book review.
I just signed up for the Blog Success 1 week trial to see if that has some top tips too – I’m about to move my husband’s website (http://michaelwex.com) over to a blog with separate hosting on BabyCroc. I may learn something for all my blogs!
I have seen this around the web for a reay and a half.. I hope this ebay trend does not continue and they change their business model and I have to find a new money maker….
@ Marilla –
The 250/4 method works great for me still in most markets! The reason I linked over to it was to just drive home the point about having your own content and sprinkling in the listings.
If the money or affiliate program dries up with the existing method of monetization, you can quickly and easily swap to another… since you still have the most important thing, the content! :-)
@ Otis –
I hope they make a change before its too late… if more and more people migrate away, they may find themselves happier elsewhere.
Looks like my stats. Dwindling down each month. :( I have all my eggs in one basket – oops – I just tripped and I am trying to catch them all before they break.
I was an eBay PowerSeller for years, but now I won’t go near them. Once you’ve had paypal freeze 5 figures in your account for 6 months, and tried to get an actual response out of them or even an explanation, you quickly learn who you’re really dealing with, and why so many powersellers jumped ship. Just do a search for paypal, there are plenty of horror stories.
Unfortunately I was one of those people who said “Oh it will never happen to me I’m not doing anything wrong”. Well it turns out you can be in the right, follow TOS to the letter, and they’ll still take and hold your money.
It’s so much easier to host your own store and work with a real merchant bank.
However for BANS, I still let my stores run for pocket change every month – and I’ve found the same, regardless of noindex / nofollow, robots G robots spider the pages anyhow. Doesn’t anyone else see this as being WRONG? I guess G IS the internet now (?)
@ David –
Same thing happened to us… we got tired of being held to a different set of rules than buyers when it came to funds.
As far as G being “The” internet, you are 100% right! In any other form of business, our Govt would have stepped in long ago due to their control over the marketplace.
With the recent news about their new browser based Chrome OS, its about to get real bad.
@ Sean – I am roughly 40% entrenched in ePN, but nonetheless, its a fair amount of income tied into one avenue. The other 60% is spread across several networks, making ePN the prevalent force that it is.
@David,
“I guess G IS the internet now (?)”
Anybody that isn’t internet or computer savvy will tell u that G is the internet. Funny as heck to hear that, but people that live off of it as an income are befuddled by the fact that people think like that. I remember asking some relatives how they get internet service and they said they goto G.
@Mark,
This past week as a test I replaced a CJ ad placement with an Amazon widget to one of my sites. It has converted really good. I moved the adsense to the very bottom of the page. Results have been great. eBay earnings are the same, Adsense is the same, but now I am getting a little from Amazon. Don’t like the short cookie duration, but looks like people like to shop there – got sales 3 of the past 5 days.
@ Sean –
Not surprisingly – the majority of the general web public have shifted from AOL > Google, when they think of the internet. Its funny you say that about your relatives… many of mine are the same way!
In one of the markets I am in with several same-niche sites, I have switched from ePN as a primary monetization to AdSense. The market itself is very unique and eBay is really one of the only places to buy the products.
The downside is that the sales process usually requires phone contact to make sure the orders are correct… this means alot of sales scavenging to outside the ePN system.
A steady month used to earn about $750-$1000/mo with ePN only. Now that I have removed half of the ePN ads and replaced them with adsense… monthly earnings have more than doubled overall, and ePN has only dropped by about 25% on a monthly basis.
Experiment… experiment… for sure!
M
@Sean
I won’t take your remarks as negative – I hope they were not meant to be. I actually do make a living from the internet, and while my comment about G did have a dose of sarcasm, you really do have to examine and question G’s growth and expansion into nearly every internet aspect as well as the political arenas.
As Mark said, the other G would have stepped in long ago in any other marketplace.
@David,
Totally agree with you. Hope I wasn’t negative. I as well make my living online.
Hi Mark
I honestly think eBay have been experiencing an identity crisis for a long time. They had high traffic and high sales but they starting messing with things, not necessarily to their advantage as we can see from traffic trends.
I personally think they need to sort themselves out, they are an auction site, not an e-commerce site and should conduct themselves as such.
Ben
@ Ben –
I couldn’t agree more!! They have lost touch with their roots…
Mark
I believe you have wittily expressed what happens to be the general perspective on issue, however, most importantly you have highlighted unhappy aspects & its insightful consequences aptly. I have been one of them myself. So I understand. We moved on, as much uncomfortable it might be for all of us.
Anyways
Adios
[...] Ebay Quickly Reaching the Same Level as Amazon! [...]
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