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Transcript of the live chat session that took place Thursday, May 20, 1999. These sessions are normally scheduled for 12 noon-1 PM Eastern Time every Thursday. Please note that the US is now on Daylight Savings Time. So in international terms, we are on at GMT -4.
For Guide to eBay for sellers: practical advice from one seller to another, see www.samizdat.com/ebay.html
Since the chat itself happens at a rapid pace, it's often difficult to note interesting facts in particular URLs as they appear on-line. Here's a place to take a more leisurely look. I've rearranged some of the pieces to try to capture the various threads of discussion (which sometimes get lost in the rush of live chat).
Please send email with your follow-on questions and comments, and suggestions for topics we should focus on in future sessions. So long as the volume of email responses is manageable, I'll post the most pertinent ones here for all to see.
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Our online store at Yahoo
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My seller's
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Richard Seltzer -- Welcome Bob and Sue. As you connect please introduce yourselves and let us know your interests. That will help us get off to a quick start. Sue -- from email, I understand that you focus on auctions for Gomez Advisors. Please tell us something about Gomez and your role there.
srothberg -- hi..i am a senior analyst with gomez advisors (a research firm specializing in consumer e-commerce). my area: internet auctions.
Bob Zwick -- Hello everyone - I'm an independent consultant in the Dallas Texas area. Interested in doing business on the Internet and elsewhere.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- The Gomez Web site seems to have a strong focus on info for the consumer. But I get a sense that the company is also deeply involved in providing advice to potential investors. Is that accurate?
srothberg -- Gomez Advisors rates, ranks and analyzes consumer e-commerce services such as banking,brokerage firms,travel, etc. It does NOT provide any advice to investors.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- interesting. But the rating, ranking and analyzing sounds like it's exactly what investors would be looking for. Am I misinterpreting? (Often the consumer and the investor is the same person. People who use the Internet for shopping are probably inclined to invest in companies that they as users see as the leaders).
srothberg -- there are two sides to our company. one is our research division, the other is the consumer side. what you see on our website is a snapshot or as i like to say, the Reader's Digest version of our research.
Bob Fleischer -- I'm with Compaq Services, résumé at http://www.tiac.net/users/rjf/cv.html.
Richard Seltzer -- Welcome, Tracy and "goforit", please introduce yourselves.
tracy5 -- Hello folks, I'm Tracy Marks, an Internet trainer in Arlington, and very active selling my ice skating photos at Ebay. Eager to here what Sue has to say about online auctions.
srothberg -- tracy...i actually took a class from you once.!
tracy5 -- (You took one of my classes, Sue?...how interesting! Now I'll learn from you...)
goforit -- Hi all, I'm a web Creative Director/Designer and I'm just here to learn from your experiences. Auctions are so heavily favored for sellers that I'm untrusting as a buyer.
Tim Dolan -- Oops, sorry for extra CRs. I was adjusting the refresh rate. Tim Dolan here, long-time viewer of the chat, about one year selling junk on Ebay.
Richard Seltzer -- Todd -- Welcome. Please introduce yourself and dive in.
Todd -- I came in late and have been trying to catch up. Also, I'm not up to speed on E-Bay, so I'm spectating today.
Richard Seltzer -- Bob Fleischer -- Sounds like you have some good stuff for auctions. Have you begun yet? If not, I'd advise that you start with stuff that you know won't go for much. Save stuff that might conceivably generate competitive bidding until you have built up feedback and perfected your pitch -- you could end up making considerably more that way.
Bob Fleischer -- Thanks for the tip, Richard -- no I haven't started yet. It's just one of many, many things I want to get to when I have time.
Richard Seltzer -- Bob -- by the way, I plan to collect a whole bunch of Ebay tips I've been jotting down and post them on my site in the next week or two as an article or series of articles.
Richard Seltzer -- Bob -- Yes, shipping should be tricky. Why not check to see who is selling 78-RPM records at Ebay today and send them email asking how they ship?
Ron Rothenberg -- You can get custom mailing containers for 78rpm records.
Richard Seltzer -- Ron -- Where can you get those custom mailing containers? And do you have a rough idea of their cost? (I also have some old records in the basement).
Ron Rothenberg -- Check with corrugated box and container mfrs. I use Schrage Box in PA, I don't know that they have that particular product, but I have seen it at other web sites. www.schragebox.com custom boxes are a big time saver.
srothberg -- A serious shopper is someone who isn't interested in the entertainment value an auction offers. He/she wants a good price for a quality item, but is not necessarily interested in all the feautures an auction site offers (message boards, chat, etc.) they want to get in, place a bid and within a day or 2 walk away with a product. No fuss, no muss
Ron Rothenberg -- isn't the entertainment value what most people are overpaying for?
Tim Dolan -- ron - to some extent it is a PT Barnum issue but these people are not dumb they just want something to make their dreary lives happy.
Ron Rothenberg -- Oh, I understand, Tim. I sell fun and the excitement of winning and hope and lots of other intangibles, as well as cameras, hardware and software.
Ron Rothenberg -- Ebay Rule #1 - never forget to congratulate the winner.
srothberg -- Ebay is the biggie, but Auction Universe, Ubid and Onsale are also worth taking a look at. Auction Universe is a person to person site, while the others are business to consumer sites.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- first let's take a look at Auction Universe. Is it set up significantly differently than Ebay and Amazon? What's it's differentiator? How large is it in terms of items for sale and numbers of buyers? Does it have a niche of certain categories of goods? any significant difference in fees?
srothberg -- Like ebay, auction universe is a good site to consider if you are a serious collector or just a bargain hunter. In terms of number of items, the site has about 30,000 or so which obviously pales in comparison to ebay. fees are similar, but they have established themselves more as a collecting hub. their customer service features are excellent including a bid safe program and a rebate program
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- are there particular categories of collectibles that auction universe is good in? Do they provide any extras -- like lookup reference material on the categories of collectibles they deal with? I haven't seen, but would consider it a natural, for an auction site, for instance, to put online copies of credible well-known books about collectibles and their prices.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- I'm basically looking for some reason why anyone would want to go to a person-to-person auction site that has 30,000 items, instead of one that has 2 million items and millions of users. Has Auction Universe come up with a reasonable competitive model? And do you see other niches that are still available for entrepreneurs?
Ron Rothenberg -- Richard - different auction sites have different mixes of users - there are some things that die on ebay, that sell well on amazon and vice versa. It's not the numbers alone, but the makeup of the audience that counts.
Richard Seltzer -- Ron -- Do you have some examples of categories of things that do better outside of Ebay than at Ebay? And do you have any notion why that may be the case? (e.g., ease of finding what you want)
tracy5 -- I heavily favor Ebay because of the number of buyers and sellers there, but wonder when quantity is less important and a smaller auction site might be better. I imagine that it might have to do with what one wishes to buy or sell...perhaps some other auction sites excel in particular niches. Like computer equipment or photo equipment. I also imagine that the smaller auction sites would do best too if they focused on a particular niche, rather than tried to compete with Ebay.
srothberg -- one important thing to consider: you are just one of millions on ebay and quite frankly, your item can get lost in the shuffle. yes, there are more eyeballs there, but depending on what you sell, it may not be the best forum. for example: if you collect automotive advertising and antiques, you might want to consider Mobilia.com. The site has a niche audience--of buyers and sellers specifically interested in this category.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- Before I started selling at Ebay, I would have agreed with you 100%. It looked so immense. I couldn't figure out how to deal with all the categories. Then I discovered that at Ebay categories are just about irrelevant. What matters are the words that you put in your titles, which make it easy for potential buyers to find you regardless of the category. I'd say that the search capability at Ebay is an important key to their success.
srothberg -- richard--yes and no. even putting the right words in the title doesn't guarantee a sale. all these sites offer different things and each has their own sense of community.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- I've found that using the title and search at Ebay are extremely powerful in unexpected way. For instance, I may be selling an old comic book, but many of the bidders for it are people who don't collect comic books at all. Rather they collect Disney stuff or stuff about dogs -- whatever the content of the comic is; and they find my auction by search. If I limited my audience to comic book collectors by selling at a site focused on that audience, I'd probably get far lower prices. (Also, the focus who don't "collect" the category -- who have another reason for being interested -- bid out of all proportion to what one would expect from reference books about collectibles.
Ron Rothenberg -- category is important for browsers (the shopper kind, that is)
Richard Seltzer -- Ron -- I suspect that there are subsets of buyers at Ebay and elsewhere. For selling digital cameras etc., categories would seem to be very important. Buyers can just go to that category and browse. For selling collectibles, search is probably far more important.
Ron Rothenberg -- I know I can list certain items under Computers:DIgital Camera nd get different results than under Photographic categories.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- I didn't mean that the right words in the title guarantee a sale. Many factors come into play -- feedback, initial price, photo, description, etc. But at Ebay, I'm presenting my message to a potential audience of millions; and to get some good bidding going, all is need is for 2-3 interested people to find my item. I've been having incredibly good results on a wide range of items.
srothberg -- richard--i hear you and it is hard to argue against the success of ebay. the company does a terrific job.
srothberg -- ron...yes, but there will always be people who have bad experiences
Ron Rothenberg -- No, it is more than that -- people have trouble with ebay's AOL-type arrogance. And there are some areas where they really stink up the joint, too -- I'm selling $20,000-$30,000 / month on ebay -- I'm supposed to have a personal account rep - I can't ever speak to her. Her secretary called me once, to tell me she was going to call soon. That was 3 weeks ago. So much for the Powerseller program. many very upset sellers, if you listen in on the ebay chats. I think that is Amazon's great hope - that sellers are just dying to desert ebay, but they get the best prices there right now, on most things.
Bob Zwick -- Ron - do you think those are growing pains or eBays strategic position to do as little as possible with the masses ?
tracy5 -- My guess is that ebay's been expanding so fast, just as aol did, that it is unable to keep up with demand or customer service....Notice how fast the number items keep moving. When I started two months ago, my item numbers where in the 80 millions. In two months they're already up to about 107 million. It looks like they're adding half a million new items per day.
Ron Rothenberg -- it is not just growing pains, since it has been going on for quite a while, and their arrogance grows. It is hard to get credit for failed auctions, they don't admit to system outages, they have stopped LIVE customer service because they don't wish investors to see the complaints.
Richard Seltzer -- Ron -- I'm probably still too new at Ebay and deal in too low volume to sense any "arrogance." For me this is a brand-new marketplace, laid out so I can easily capitalize on it in my spare time. If you are doing high volume, and getting good money from activity there, that certainly must heighten your sensitivity. and I'm sure there's lots of room for improvement. But I suspect that the vast majority of "merchants" there are just ordinary folks, clearing out their attic/basement.
srothberg -- the vast majority are individuals who are cleaning out their attic, but gomez estimates about 20% of ebay's sellers are people making a business out of it.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- Interesting statistic -- 20%. I'd be curious how many of those 20% are new to making a business out of selling. I suspect that many folks start by clearing out their attic/basement, getting rid of their old collection of this or that, and wind up becoming a regular dealer -- online -- without ever having been a dealer offline. this is one of the ways in which Ebay is changing our economy.
srothberg -- richard- i have cleaned out my attic and i have sold at ebay. some items have done well, others have not. it is a matter of supply, demand and timing. I might try posting different items at various sites just to see what sells where and at what price. I will tell you that if you are buying or selling trading cards (baseball, football, etc), Ebay is not necessarily the best bet. Here, i would go to a Teletrade or some of the other card sites that specialize in this area and where you are dealing with a reputable company.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- At the start you also mentioned Ubid and Onsale. Can you please tell us something about them and the role that they play?
srothberg -- richard--both companies are in business to consumer auctions. as a buyer you are dealing with the company, not an individual. Mainly both firms focus on computers and electronics. Most if not all items are sold in quanitity, so 7 or 8 digital cameras will be sold at one time. There are advantages doing businesses with tese firms. One, you pay by credit card, the prices are competitive and merchandise is name brands.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- while ubid and onsale are business-to-consumer, I believe that they represent many different manufacturers. is that the case? does it make sense for a manufacturer to set up its own auction site? What about the future of auction-style sales of commodities and services that have not been sold that way before? e.g., AltaVista auctioning off ranking in search results lists? perhaps utilities auctioning electricity, gas, oil, etc. in bulk to other businesses?
srothberg -- Richard--the auctioning of electricity is already happening with a business to business auction model. you are right, both ubid and onsale get their products from a variety of manufacturers. some are refurbished items, overstocks, new units, etc. It makes sense for a manufacturer/distributor to sell to these companies because they are unloading a significant amount of merchandise and getting a higher price than they would get through a liquidator. As for whether the manufacturer should set up an auction internally, i don't think that is the best route. The major auction companies get a higher volume of traffic and have the infrastructure already in place
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- in other words, this is an area where the Internet leads to the creation and prospering of new categories of intermediary, rather than the elimination of the intermediary. That being the case, how would you characterize the value added of the auction site? volume of buyers? community experience (including feedback)? and are these features long-lasting assets? (i.e., do you expect Ebay to still be a giant 10 years from now?)
Richard Seltzer -- I'm curious as to how far the auction model can and should expand. It's hard to imagine categories of goods that couldn't be sold that way -- but there are some (like groceries). What criteria would define products that don't belong in auctions?
srothberg -- richard- the value added for the merchant is --building a database of customers, using the auction space as a testing lab for new products, cross selling other items, etc.
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- Considering the potential of Ebay etc. for test marketing new products, etc., do you know of any major companies that are using it that way? It makes such sense to do it, I'm amazed I'm not seeing the biggies there (or maybe they come in disguise :-)
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- Do you see any natural matchups between business to consumer sites and Ebay style sites? I mean, we've had people in these chat sessions who are looking for sources of products that they can buy at wholesale and then resell at Ebay. Does it make economic sense to buy in volume at Onsale and then resell the same items one at a time at Ebay?
srothberg -- richard--that would be a bad move. people on ebay are pretty hip to pricing, so unless you got a real steal at onsale, it would be tough to resell it and make any money. I bought a laptop on onsale at a good price, but i doubt i could have gotten any more than what i paid at ebay.
tracy5 -- Sue - what auction sites do you associate with particular niches in regard to buying and selling. What are the best sites for x, y and z so to speak?
srothberg -- tracy...we will in the next week or so have some detailed information on gomez.com (under wheeling and dealing) that will not only list all the auction sites but categorize them
Richard Seltzer -- Sue -- Please send me email with the URL when you post that detailed auction info. I'll add a link to the transcript, to help others find it.
srothberg -- richard--ok
Richard Seltzer -- Will that document/list you are preparing include a list of auction sites by category of strength (like Teletrade for baseball cards)?
tracy5 -- Sue - I will be interested in seeing the page Gomez will post on other auction sites and their specialties. Do you happen to know which is the most successful site after Ebay?
srothberg -- Tracy--success is not a measurement we use. I can tell you that as far as ratings go, we give Ebay the top prize, Onsale #2. You can check out the results at http://gomez.com/Wheeling/Auctions/Scorecard/index.cfm?tid=600714&cat=1
tracy5 -- Very interesting page, Sue. I recommend everyone check it out..........(and note the review links)......
srothbergsrothberg-- tim- not sure i understand your question
Ron Rothenberg-- 1. Search, search, search. 2. yes.
Ron Rothenberg -- also, get the URL on the photo of the item you wish to sell - half the time, it is sitting on the distributor's server. That is very sneaky.
Richard Seltzer -- Tim -- You say you are interested in companies offering volume product at a reduced rate. Do you mean companies running dutch auctions? Or do you mean wholesale suppliers of products that you could resell at auction sites? If the latter, keep in mind that that business model probably has a limited life-span; increasingly, manufacturers and wholesalers will sell directly by auction.
tracy5 -- Tim - In regard to consistently making money.....IF you're making items to order, you struggle with the same kind of overhead that any retailer would have to face. I am duplicating my photos but I need to duplicate them in a large quantity in order to get a substantial discount .....but then that means I'm putting out more money than I'm taking in and sitting on a lot of unsold items. If I don't duplicate in quantity, I pay more per item and don't earn enough per hour to make it worthwhile. It's tricky. Right now I'm duplicating in quantities of five, only after I have some indication that an item is saleable. But my situation is different than that of people selling one-time items or wholesale items in quantity. (BTW out of 175 sales now, only one person has not followed through, and no one has sent me a bad check. And I always ship as soon as I receive payment)
Tim Dolan -- richard et all, My dilemma is that each item tends to be unique. So my labor in setup and deliver is the same for all items whether it is 1.00 item selling for 10 or 20.
tracy5 -- Tim, you will probably want to set up a kind of template for your listings, one in which you can easily plug in information about a particular item and a photo without having to do a completely new writeup each time.
Tim Dolan -- tracy, good idea - I do have a template but I need to pare it down. Also I spend too much time "analyzing" the market price. I still struggle with doing a ".99" start or my cost-plus price.
tracy5 -- Tim, unless you're absolutely convinced the item price will go up as a result of bids (as usually happens for Ron, I believe, with his digital cameras), I don't recommend listing your bottom price any lower than you're able to tolerate selling the item for. Perhaps the base level cost of your time or item cost......Also watch the listing fees and stay under them in regard to pricing -- list an item for $9.99 rather than $10 to avoid another 25 cents listing fee etc. I tend to start on the high side and if the item doesn't sell, I drop the starting price when I relist it.
Ron Rothenberg -- tracy - i think every once in a while you need to 'give away' an item at a low price -- that creates hope that others will get a similar bargain, and helps get people bidding.
Tim Dolan -- Not to be mean - but I hope to market towards the "un-informed" consumer with discretionary(sp) dollars. This person will spend $10 on a $1.00 as a gag.
Ron Rothenberg -- Tim, that is a V E R Y large market. There's one born every minute.
srothberg -- that is good to know. i didn't know there was a book!
tracy5 -- Addendum - Just noticed the Ebay book has a web site with a free online auction ezine...... http://www.auctionzine.com/
srothberg -- who is the author?
Ron Rothenberg -- Tim, analysis of every item on ebay wouldn't help - the standard deviation is much too large to be meaningful. But I can tell you: digital cameras sell for much more on ebay, digital scanners sell for much more on amazon. There is now an auction site for residential real estate - homebid.com
Tim Dolan -- Ron - you are right - the final prices can be all over the range. For some of my items - I feel they are "impluse" items and I may only get one hit. Therefore I want the final price to be appropriate.
Ron Rothenberg -- Tim, that getting your "credit card taken" was a ruse that the marketing people at Netscape used to sell V1.1 - there's no truth to it.
Ron Rothenberg -- we live in a society where we give our credit cards to waiters and gas station attendants, who take them into other rooms and do strange things to them, yet some people are still convinced there is danger in emailing them.
Ron Rothenberg -- They would rather call you on a cordless phone and broadcast their number all over the neighborhood than email you their cc number. More and more people are realizing this and emailing their CC numbers.
Tim Dolan -- I know about the "waiter" issue but listen to the media and listen to your aunt sally. What are their attitudes?
Ron Rothenberg -- Tim, they are learning -- six months ago, only 10% would email credit cards, today over 50%. Netscape started that dumb rumor, and it has really bitten e-commerce hard, but it's getting better. There is very little credit card fraud over the internet, compared to other media.
srothberg -- richard--i will try to join next week.
Richard Seltzer -- All -- it's just about time to wrapup. do you agree that we should continue this topic next week? Sue -- if by chance it turns out that you can't make it, is there someone else at Gomez who is knowledgeable in this area who could fill in for you?
srothberg -- richard--i am the auction diva here, so i am afraid not. i will try to attend.
Richard Seltzer -- All -- as usual, I'll post the edited transcript of this session. Please check www.samizdat.com/#chat (Sorry I was so late with last week's. It's there now.) Also, please send me email with your followup questions, pointers, and comments so I can post them with the transcript. seltzer@samizdat.com
Tim Dolan -- This was fun, read you all next week.
Richard Seltzer -- Before you sign off, please post here your email and URL so we can keep in touch (don't count on the software to have captured it.) Thanks to all. Please join us again next week. And please spread the word.
tracy5 -- Tracy Marks, tracy@marks.net. Username torreyphilemon at ebay: http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/torreyphilemon/
srothberg -- Goodbye all.
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