eBay won the auction battle, but did it lose the war?
Veteran booksellers remember the days when Amazon threatened to topple eBay by launching its own auction platform.
Greg Linden, one of the early Amazon employees who developed the auction system, has written a retrospective of Amazon's ill-fated auction venture. He blames the failure on arrogance:
At the time, Internet pundits blamed the failure on Amazon's neglect of building a "community" of small mom-and-pop sellers. And ever since, the conventional wisdom has been that Amazon's foray into third-party selling was a catastrophe. Meanwhile, its Marketplace program has developed into one of its few cash cows.
Seven years later, eBay's growth has stalled. To rejuvenate itself, the company is taking a page from Amazon's book. eBay's Express fixed-price platform is clearly designed to steal some of the book and music buyers who have migrated to Amazon Marketplace. These folks just want to buy stuff, not sit around waiting for an auction to end.
How successful Express will be depends not only on its marketing campaign, but whether eBay can erase the perception that it's only about auctions.
If you're interested in Amazon's early history, check out Greg's fascinating series of "Early Amazon" articles.
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Greg Linden, one of the early Amazon employees who developed the auction system, has written a retrospective of Amazon's ill-fated auction venture. He blames the failure on arrogance:
Amazon Auctions was designed to be a frontal assault on eBay, reproducing everything they had in one fell swoop. Amazon thought its tens of millions of customers would immediately adapt to auctions and small businesses would flock to our site. It was an aggressive move that was foolishly arrogant.
At the time, Internet pundits blamed the failure on Amazon's neglect of building a "community" of small mom-and-pop sellers. And ever since, the conventional wisdom has been that Amazon's foray into third-party selling was a catastrophe. Meanwhile, its Marketplace program has developed into one of its few cash cows.
Seven years later, eBay's growth has stalled. To rejuvenate itself, the company is taking a page from Amazon's book. eBay's Express fixed-price platform is clearly designed to steal some of the book and music buyers who have migrated to Amazon Marketplace. These folks just want to buy stuff, not sit around waiting for an auction to end.
How successful Express will be depends not only on its marketing campaign, but whether eBay can erase the perception that it's only about auctions.
If you're interested in Amazon's early history, check out Greg's fascinating series of "Early Amazon" articles.
Subscribe by e-mail
posted by Steve Weber at 5/05/2006
2 Comments:
Hi, Steve. A quick correction, I was just one of the people who helped develop the auction system. I do not want to overstate my role.
Thanks, Greg, I've modified my post.
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