eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

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AuctionBytes Blog
News and insight focusing on
ecommerce and the online auction industry
by Ina Steiner, Editor of AuctionBytes.com

July 02, 2007

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

By: David Steiner

Mon July 2 2007 15:37:49

A check of Nielsen/NetRatings shows that eBay users are spending less time on the site than in previous years. In 2006, eBay trumpeted in a Seller Central Report on how buyers use eBay that visitors spend more time on eBay than on other sites, and that time spent on the site is increasing year-over-year. It used data from December 2003 to March 2005 to prove its point. A look at more recent data, however, shows the time spent has gone down.

I was looking at the Nielsen/NetRatings report along with other data to see if anecdotal reports had any merit - you can see my musings in today's AuctionBytes Newsflash article here.
http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y07/m07/i02/s00

There's tons of data, I'm interested in hearing what readers have to say, please leave a comment below.

Comments (227) | Leave Comment | Permalink

Readers Comments

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: gb-in-uk

Thu Jul 12 06:22:31 2007

.....yes its a shame, and with a heavy heart I have to admit defeat, i cant win with ebay. Even moving all my listings to ebay.com, which is what ebay uk suggested that we all do (daft eh?), sales are still poor and its getting to be a waste of time. ANother problem with that is that you cant enter the correct shipping costs. As i mentioned in another post, no matter where you live in the world, whatever ebay you list on, it should show up on ALL ebay sites, which is what used to happen! Why change it? Whenever you complain to ebay, they either ignore it, or as in my case, removed my postings!

My sales are now so ridiculously low that i will probably lose my powerseller status (big deal). As I often sell vintage and antique toys, we usually (well up until last xmas anyway), do quite well at christmas time, but we shall see. Its a right b*****r though as every year what we sold on ebay paid for everyones xmas presents, I only hope this will be the case this year.
Lots of people have come up with a few suggestions on this board, to which i am very grateful, and yes ''alan'', your right, ebay had to start somewhere, but for another auction site to really work, it would have to have a MASS EXODUS of ebay sellers flood onto it. Anyone think that could or will happen? I even tinkered with the idea myself, but it would take a long time to get going, and it would need a lot of INVESTMENT from someone, so really I could only see major players like google being the people most able to do it, does anyone think they would, or for that matter, should they do this? I mean google has the power, if it wanted to , to BAN ebay from its listings, ha ha ha, now THAT would make ebay sit up and take note. Boy, i hope they do that. Kick ebay where it hurts eh?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: G Urban

Thu Jul 12 07:17:28 2007

I am an owner of Christmas online stores selling holiday merchandise since 1996 on the web and since 1989. Our volume should exceed $1,000,000 this year. Luckily we have aligned ourselves with Google and since our online stores predate Google we enjoy #1 position on all or most of the Google Search terms for our products.

I used to use eBay to source our products. I no longer buy on eBay. Since we source in high end categories, we find a disturbingly large percentage of items listed on eBay being fake or outright fraud. It is not safe to buy on eBay if you are looking to purchase in item categories priced in hundreds or thousands of dollars. I have spent $60,000 plus last year on equipment for our business, my first choice was to go to eBay but seeing that most of the items in industrial embroidery machines and commercial printers were fake auctions published by scammers on hijacked accounts, turned me off eBay entirely.

As a buyer, I will not waste my time to try to sort the scammers from honest sellers on eBay. It is just not worth the risk. EBay does not realize they are loosing power-buyers in large numbers by permitting rampant scam on their site.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: JoeS

Thu Jul 12 18:18:14 2007

Is Ebay that desperate to have an insider post on here? How can we believe anything from them when they’ve ignored their core customers for so long? My guess it’s damage control and keeps investors from panicking who read these comments.

I do have a B&M store. I still sell a little on Ebay but not near as much as I used to. Sell-through seems to be terrible these days on there. I closed my Ebay store during that debacle (yeah right, I was going to move it all to auction, I’m not a fool) and opened my own site for much cheaper. I’ve made some good sales on there and it gets better the more it gets established. I’ve diversified with other niche sites and another offline selling venue. I plan to use eCrater and I use Craigslist. I got tired of Ebay ignoring their customers and now they are my selling channel of last resort.

I encourage others to have a plan to diversify. There are plenty of cheaper solutions without the headaches. Read and learn from others on how to make them work. It can be done. Don’t forget about the offline solutions. There were mostly offline solutions before the internet got big. Craigslist works very well integrating it with local offline solutions. Don’t forget about the local area internet, they spend money too. It’s actually safer since local customers can see an item before they buy. Don’t let Ebay get you down because they won’t listen. Give them the boot or decrease what you do with them while you implement your plan to diversify.

Most of all, stay positive!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Irma Saffell

Fri Jul 13 00:06:45 2007

I've been selling on Ebay for a long time, officially since Feb-15-98, but I started with Ebay a couple years before Pierre the original creator took his company public on the Stock Market. Once the company went public and he hired Meg Whitman from Disney as the over all company president things have quickly gone down hill ever since because of plain old greed and keeping the stock price rising, buyers were coddled and sellers we're forgotten about and our sales have suffered ever since! There was a great auction program you could buy many years ago and own with no additional cost called Auction Assist, Ebay bought it up and it's now Blackthorn Seller's Assist or something like that? Now I have to pay a monthly fees to Ebay for the auction software usage. Then there was this great thing called PayPal credit card service which allowed us little (people) sellers to have our buyers pay for their collectibles on Ebay with a credit card, guess what? Ebay bought the PayPal company, now I'm paying more money than ever for the usage and Ebay's PayPal service is extremely not seller friendly to put it mildly, just lately my PayPal account has had 2 charge backs wrongly levied against it, the buyers stated the collectibles weren't as described, the requested and got their money back from my PayPal account and kept my merchandise totaling over $1,200, I'm out the money and PayPal just can't seem to fix the situation??? Ebay's broke because their constantly proving they don't give a you know what? S - - - ! other than profits! I and thousands of fellow Ebay sellers are leaving their so called service because of just plain old greed and rotten service.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Petitioner

Fri Jul 13 17:04:17 2007

There are two noteworthy links to look at

DEMAND
eBay users: buyers and sellers demand an alternative to eBay. This resonates so obviously here as well as other places on the internet.
Look at the numbers of signatures on this Petition to Google to start online auctions
http://www.petitiononline.com/ga05/petition.html

SU
PPLY
Google wants to supply such alternative. It appears it will supply it in it's own Google way:

Get ready for a showdown in cyberspace that's going to change how you shop . . . again. The contest pits Google against eBay.

When the dust settles, at least three things will look very different in the world of retail.

* Google will have moved beyond search and morphed into a major intermediary -- efficiently connecting shoppers and sellers in a way that makes it look a lot more like, well, eBay.

* A new search technology that it's refining -- dubbed ''programmable search'' -- will make it easier for consumers to dig into store inventories and find exactly what they are looking for both on and off line, at the best price.

* Ebay and its shareholders will suffer as buyers and sellers migrate away from eBay's platform and set up their own storefronts on the Web.

HTTP://TINYURL.COM/2PJLJK

... hint ... hint ... if you have not setup your own website store and integrated Google Checkout and other Google widgets into it... the time is now!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: anonymous

Sat Jul 14 02:03:51 2007

Ok. So how about some advice as to the best way to start a web site? Anyone have any?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Jolene

Sat Jul 14 11:00:13 2007

Sadly, Ebay has moved against the tide online, rather than with it...Auctions were fadishly successful so now they are waning fast in popularity - just like fads predictably do. Rather than nurture an instant buying environment, Ebay readjusts via a 6% rate increase that is actually about 100-150% for most sellers. The corporate double-speak there cost Ebay a lot in terms of seller satisfaction. No one like to be treated as though they are a fool - don't sell me a poodle and tell me its a pony.

The truth is, its a lot less expensive now to run your own site or use other instant buy communities like Etsy or Ecrater than it is to list on Ebay. The justification of the expense (the mighty traffic provided) has been dwindling down while the price of doing business on Ebay has been increasing. That along with a growing negative reputation make it a no-brainer: If you are serious about online merchandising, its time to move on to the wider web and use Ebay in a much smaller capacity (to keep the $$ paid in line with the service provided).

Well, back to removing my store stock off of Ebay and placing it were it serves my business better. Thanks for the article!

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: PC

Sat Jul 14 14:20:31 2007

I came to the conclusion that the day eBay starts to seriously reduce insertion fees or final value fees would mean that eBay believes there is no use in raising fees anymore because the ride is over. Ebay is now reducing final value fees. They are desperate now, and realize they are going down slowly. Lower fees means they know that sales will not increase. It"s over folks. Time to get a job in the real world.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: hal lutsky

Sat Jul 14 17:01:05 2007

ebay has consistently falied to understand the value of goodwill. every business needs goodwill even though it's an intangible. after ebay put the stores in search many of us went out and spent small fortunes on inventory. then ebay changed it back & we got stuck. at that point, they needed to make a goodwill gesture to all the people they hurt. instead, they did the opposite and more than doubled the store insertion fees. it showed pure contempt for the sellers.

i am a promoter of antiquarian paper shows. 80% of my income is from dealers. my philosophy has always been that if the dealers are happy, everything's ok so i take care of my dealers. if the dealers are happy, that means they're making money which means the collectors are finding stuff so if the dealers are happy, by default, everyone's happy. ebay's got it backwards trying to take care of the buyers when 100% of their income is from sellers.

they've also gone off on too many tangents with too many acquisitions. they forgot what made them successful.

i've been on ebay 10 years and have seen many changes. it used to feel like a community & we loved ebay. now it feels like an oil company. just another multinational corporation out to screw you.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: PC

Sat Jul 14 17:38:30 2007

Maybe fee hikes are eBay's way of trying to tell us THEY plan on going out of business, and they are gradually giving us the brush-off by weening us away from listing....

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Chairman

Sun Jul 15 15:36:34 2007

I concur I have seen the slide in business go along with the chart. Its been a drastic and messy decline into inactive sales on eBay when just last summer things were still going strong.

Certainly the economy has not helped but eBay has also made it far worse by increasing the pain on sellers as well as cluttering thier own site with broken features and confusing changes in strategy.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: kay

Sun Jul 15 17:30:14 2007

It may be that all of us are looking for someplace else to go... as simple as that...maybe we should go outside of ebay and start our own autions site with people we trust.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: duane

Sun Jul 15 18:30:59 2007

I am interested in that option. But there have been many try and not get anywhere. Why have they all failed?

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Bill

Sun Jul 15 20:23:12 2007

What can I add your all right

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Debbie

Mon Jul 16 02:55:03 2007

I can only echo what others have said, i started selling on ebay in apr 2004 and built myself a very succesful shop - too sucessful, when they increased the visability for SIF in the UK my sales for SIF dropped ! but then they eventually stablised and now they are back to normal - my problem is the increase in fees, yes i did what ebay said i built my shop and i marketed it well, i must still hve the ability to market my shop well as over 70% of my sales are SIF, but the higher FVF fees are killing me, my profit margins are down by about 15%, i cant up my prices as im pricing myself out the market if i do. I'm in limbo, i feel like ebay have done me over, im paying the price for being good at what i do - i didnt want SIF featured in searches but i was made to pay for it anyway, they took it away but im still left the the higher FVF.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: John

Mon Jul 16 04:20:52 2007

eBay's problem is simple. They pay too much attention to what I call the ''e-tards'', bad buyers who fail to read. And Paypal protects them at our expense. eBay needs a comeuppance. We the cadre of professional sellers butter eBay's bread, yet we have very poor representation. Want to make ebay a better place - simple - start listening to the sellers. We are the ones that drive eBay's profits, not the casual buyers.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Larry

Mon Jul 16 14:08:33 2007

ebay's shear size, transparency and need to grow to satisfy investors is now causing a downward spiral in all areas of the operation.

In the beginning, eBay was an auction house, plain and simple. An item was put up at auction, no matter rare or not, a few people were interested and the bidding fun AND ANTICIPATION of winning began. Of course it was no less exciting for the seller waiting to see what the item would sell for, how many bidders were interested and so on.

For eBay to re-invigorate this site-wide excitement, the following must be understood. The core purposes of any purchase is the hunt for the special item and the final purchase. Without a doubt, the hunt is the most exciting part of the process.

Now, this search could be for, let's say, a sofa. A pretty mundane purchase but a purchase nonetheless.

Most people would keep that sofa for many years but now let's say a week later you want another sofa and still wish to hang on to the first sofa purchase. Now you have moved into the realm of a "Collector" and in this case of sofas.

First consideration for eBay - two distinct buyer/seller groups. The general purchase/sell and the collector purchase/sell.

eBay evolved from the auction of Pez dispensers and for years was an online venue for items at auction. Unfortunately eBay lost it's focus of an online auction house of collectibles in trying to sustain quick growth and investor pressure and and became a general merchandise auction house which overwhelmed the collector area. Oh sure, there are keywords to bring you to your area of interest but in many cases, you are still faced with sub-catagories. Which increases the tediousness factor.

Now from a purely business point of view, eBay had to take steps and fast to cope with exploding growth and to attract and keep investors. However what should have been done is to split the two purchase interest groups (general and collector) and then apply changes to enhance the overall experience in each segment.
Just how this would be done is for a future discussion.

In the collector area, eBay should eliminate stores which allow parking and discounting of collectibles at relatively low cost.

The feature "Watch This Item" should be eliminated. "Why?" you say. Well, if you can't watch the item, then you will have to make a bid or remmeber to go back at a later time(and how many will do this?) to check.

Sellers hate to wait until the end of the auction for most of the action, if any, to occur. This would also eliminate the "Bottom Feeders", those who want to acquire everything for next to nothing.

If you are serious, one would have to place a bid, however small, to ensure at least a chance of winning, then move on to other things.

This process is of particular importance in teaching any bidder to bid the maximum you have allowed for that item. There are no regrets or wall-punching when you have bid your maximum and lost especially when it could be only as little as .50¢. Arrrg!

Lastly (for lack of discussion time, as there are far more things to do), allow auction time extensions to prevent sniping.

eBay's so-called transparency has also hurt the collector area by allowing time for considerable research on a particular item up at auction.

At any live auction, large or small, there is only a small amount of time for pre-viewing, usually about 1½ hours before the auction (of course, with larger specialized aucions, advance information is forwarded via electronic or paper to registered collectors).

eBay is simply not much "Fun" anymore. Many sellers of collectibles feel, for the time and cost, it's just not worth it. This collector area will be lost to eBay and it will evolve into simply a mass-merchandise low budget online auction site. Even now many manufacturers have this opinion of eBay!

eBay would do well to re-evaluate their business model. One important aspect is the collecting area. As the population
ages, and even the younger generation for that matter, collecting is seen as a great pastime and in many cases, investment.

L.Lemieux

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: JoeS

Mon Jul 16 15:06:40 2007

To Anon and all who asked about setting up your own site,

Everyone’s situation is different so it’s good to investigate the alternatives. One of the best places to investigate your alternatives is www.powersellersunite.com . There are plenty of testimonials of what works for some sellers. I’ve personally researched what others were saying quite a bit on there. You can also ask questions on their forum. As I pointed out in a post earlier is that I am diversified in several places including offline. I do believe fixed-price formats are going to be more of the future of e-commerce because of the convenience factor.

I’m currently building a niche site on eCrater. I love the simplicity of selling on there and no fees for now. They are growing tremendously over the last year. They definitely have applied the K.I.S.S. principle to their site. This has been lost on Ebay. My only knock on eCrater is their search and not being able to search for stores but I’m sure it will get more advanced as it gets more popular. I have friends who already have their eCrater stores up and running and claim to get quite a bit of traffic coming in from Google. I believe when Google renamed Froogle to Google Product Search that will help all sites that feed to Google.

When I first started my website I started advertising it on the local level. The reach was anywhere from a 300 to 400 mile radius. I sold items right away and continue to do so. This has helped in getting the website established on a national level and the national sales continue to progress. I also have other support websites for my main site to help draw traffic to it. It all also helps drive traffic to my B&M store. Craigslist is also good for your local market although you can’t advertise your website on there but you can still draw in local customers.

As I said earlier, don’t forget the local area customers because they spend money too. One other thing about the local markets is it may be possibly a safer environment to conduct trade. Whether you operate your online business from your home, a storage unit, or a B&M store, a buyer can always drive a short distance to conduct business if they choose so. They can look over the item before they decide to buy. Even if they purchase the product without looking and a small dispute arises, they don’t have far to drive to get it resolved. Since Ebay bungled trust & safety so bad on their site buyers are going to be much more cautious with online purchase in the future. A local area internet offers a little more trust and safety for the buyer. I’ve actually started seeing more people at trade shows, flea markets, etc.

While I like the local area internet market I’m not saying to give up on the national market. Good testimonials on your website can help national buyers decide whether it’s safe to purchase from you. This is just some things that have worked for me. What works for me may not work for others but I do invite sellers to check out www.powersellersunite.com for alternatives that may work for you. Like I said earlier, don’t let Ebay get you down because there are alternatives.

Research is the key and good luck.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: Martin

Mon Jul 16 18:19:54 2007

This pretty much mirrors my own business also. It was building nicely until the eBay stores fiasco last year. I've managed to get my sales up a bit recently but I am paying far more in eBay and paypal fees. It is a real struggle.

eBay Users Spending Less Time on Site

by: cara

Wed Jul 18 01:50:02 2007

Just received a survey from eBay -- a 'loyalty and satisfaction' survey. Interesting timing, eh?

And a new eBay 2-day promotion has appeared in my inbox, so we have that along with the promotional reduction in FVFs going on. Hmmmm. Summer is always slow, but I don't recall these types of promotions ever before.

Have appreciated the many solid posts to this thread. Am wondering if we'll see some kind of follow-up article, perhaps summarizing the basic points raised by so many here? It would certainly round things out.

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