eBay wants booksellers back at Half.com
eBay will expand exposure of its Half.com site, and wants booksellers frustrated with new fee hikes at eBay Stores to list more inventory on Half.
"Starting in August, we're going to bring back the Half.com merchandising that we used to have, and we're looking at other ways to promote Half.com listings on both eBay.com and eBay Express," eBay president Bill Cobb said on a recent conference call.
Two years ago, eBay said it would shut down Half.com, and asked sellers to move their listings to eBay Stores. At the last minute, eBay decided to keep Half.com open, but the site hasn't been aggressively marketed since then, and sales there have tanked.
In July eBay shocked Store sellers with huge fee hikes. Many booksellers have said they can't afford the higher fees.
Cobb said eBay managers recently decided to limit the visibility of Store listings in regular auction search results. From now on, if a regular eBay search returns 30 or fewer "core" auction listings, an equal number of Store results will be shown. "So I do encourage sellers in the media categories to consider using or expanding your use of Half.com," Cobb said.
Before July, eBay had been showing many Store listings at the bottom of its regular auction search results, which had boosted sales for booksellers with Stores. Apparently Cobb is suggesting that Half.com listings will take over that position at the bottom of auction search results.
There had been speculation -- including a prediction on this blog -- that eBay would kill off Half.com after its Express platform was launched this spring. Instead, it seems eBay booksellers are having the worst of all worlds this summer -- huge Store fee hikes making them unaffordable for general book stock, low sell-through on book auctions, and not much to show from Express.
I'm wondering if eBay will get Half.com back into gear to salvage at least some of the August back-to-school rush. Not much time left.
posted by Steve Weber at 7/31/2006
6 Comments:
What is up with the big guys lately? So many changes in such a short period of time. I know they have discovered Used Books sell, but have the figured out "how" to sell them??? Seems not!
>What is up with the big guys lately?
Managers have to justify their jobs by constantly making changes whether needed or not.
I would love to be a fly on the wall during eBay's strategy sessions.
The fee hike did not shock me as much as the downgraded promotion of eBay stores. And now promoting half.com instead?
I don't understand their thinking. I am sure economics has a big part in it, as eBay store fees have been ridiculously low for a long time.
Are they trying to get all used booksellers to move to half.com and save eBay Express mainly for new items?
I wonder.
Can we put a .01 surcharge on each eBay transaction and use the proceeds to put Bill Cobb into a rubber room where he won't be able to screw around with the booksellers any more?
After being beaten on the head this summer with fee increases,lower visibility for stores,I'm hoping Ebay puts a link from the auction site to either list in the stores or Half.com.
Ebay know where their profits come from, the true auction sellers, not the stores, this is where most of their profits are generated. Getting rid of the stores is where they seem to be headed.
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