Remember EBay? Traffic at Auction Site Keeps Falling
According to Ina Steiner from AuctionBytes, eBay experienced a major drop in traffic over the last few months. Based on data from Nielsen, Steiner concludes that eBay's page views in May 2009 dropped 32% compared to May 2008, and compared to May 2005, page views were down by 40%. With a 7% drop from May 2008 to May 2009, the unique visitor numbers show a slightly less dramatic decline, but things are clearly not going too well for eBay right now.
Identity Crisis
As Saul Hansell points out on the New York Times Bits blog, eBay is currently suffering from a major identity crisis. As we reported earlier this year, eBay's attempt to drive users away from auctions and towards fixed-price transactions ('Buy-it-Now') drove a lot of users away from the service, which, after all, used to be all about auctions. As Hansell rightly points out, a lot of this is meant to make users feel more secure about shopping at eBay, but at the same time, the company has also managed to annoy its traditional base of smaller sellers by focusing more on large retailers, while confusing users about what eBay really wants to be (auctions or Amazon competitor?).
Of course, it is also important to note that the current state of the economy also doesn't do eBay any favors. Consumer spending in general is down, and a lot of the items purchased on eBay were often collectibles and other items that were not necessities.
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Not much of a surprise really. The economy isn't great which means people won't buy much. eBay did become a bid of a risk for a while because of so many scams that happen to several people I know. Maybe they should re consider there business plan and what get auctioned.
If I want something used and cheap CraigsList is usually a better option because I can go see it and not pay shipping (if it's not something huge).
This is a good lesson for all businesses to remember. No matter how big you get it is NOT a good idea to treat your users poorly. Even if there are a lot of non-essential items on eBay they would certainly still be "the" place to get bargains on necessary items IF they had stayed faithful to the "little people".
I hope individuals start paying attention and patronizing small business and big companies learn that chasing Corporate dollars at the expense of the multitudes is not always the best way to go. Perhaps eBay and the huge Corporations deserve each other.
Good... I hope this trend continues.
Ebay really should focus on what people think of them for...Auctions. Focus on making the experience of participating in an auction fun and exciting again. I remember the first time I bought things on Ebay the adrenaline rush was so powerful, waiting to see if I got outbid. I hardly ever consider ebay, because I don't feel like there are good deals there since it is all "Buy it Now". If I want to buy retail I will use Amazon. Ebay should be proud to "Own" auctions.
I would expect a down economy to result in more Ebay traffic, not less.
I'm surprised that more people aren't selling more items & that there are more shoppers trying to get the best deals.
This has more to do with alienating smaller sellers, which won't help Ebay when the economy recovers.
Ebay made too many mistakes, from a long-term strategy perspective, and only focused on short-term.
I'm not surprised, i know that ebay will have this kind of problem
I wonder if websites like www.etsy.com are taking eBay's market share?
It has got to be craigslist thats taking away the traffic. I have personally switched over to craigslist from ebay, because its local, and more convenient. Just like Yasser said "I can go see it and not pay shipping."
eBay has been going downhill. They used be the place to get a good deal on things, now it's just an ecommerce retailer with poor categorization, overpriced products and newbie sellers. I still prefer Amazon over eBay. I don't think I'd sell on eBay now either with all the fees they're charging for everything.
The fall in traffic could be a reflection of the bad economy.
On the plus side, buyers can get some incredible deals right now.
The day Michael Jackson died is the last day that I made any sales on Ebay - not that my products have anything to do with Michael Jackson, just a coincidence.
It's not just that I haven't had any buyers, I have also not had any visitors - and that is unheard of for me.
So I guess Ebay is dying a sudden death. Probably because of their intense greed.
Ebay traffic is definetly falling fast. My own store has suffered a huge drop in traffic and sales. I know by the complaints on the ebay forums from shop owners that I'm not alone.
Ebay is a classic example of a monopoly being destroyed by an incompetent management. The ever rising fees, the constant changes the bullying of sellers are all combining to destroy the ebay concept.
Most ebay sellers are just waiting for an alternative and they'll jump ship leaving ebay a floating wreck.
Site traffic is at an all time low while ebay fee's are at an all time high. Ebay is selling out to big box retailers. The fall of the lil man is coming. www.primeonly27.com
Here here, everything about ebay now sucks. The original ebay was great. Now there's high seller fees and one has to scroll forever to find an item that's not from a seller that sells multiple stock items. Ebay's greed makes me sick.
And why is it necessary for Ebay to employ so many people? They probably have to hire them to answer calls from people complaining about their high seller fees and Paypal's high fees. Their mismanagement of everything is a farce.
Ebay is a disaster. I usually sell at least one item a day on my many auctions. About 60 days ago sales suddenly stopped. I have never seen anything like it people everywhere just instantly quit buying. Still I had to pay listing fes so I had no choice but to stop listing. I sold maybe 5 items over a period of 45 days compared to 40-50 items in that same period.
Yea, go eBay! I hope you fall really, really hard. My last sale was in April. Instead of inviting me back. I got a letter telling me I failed as a Powerseller and if I want to re-earn my powerseller priveledges (what priveledges?) I must return. Right, that's not gonna happen. Then, I got another email (8 pages long!) of rule changes. Ridiculous!
I'm giving eBay negative feedback. Judging from what I see, their own Detailed Seller Rating (DSR) should be pretty low and they should kick themselves off their own site.
Ebay... Donny-boy... I'm enjoying eBay's slow destruction very much.
my sales re down by 65~70% in August 09 from the previous month of July and all my items are under $15.00US what the @$%& is going on here its starting to freak me out and I have gone all out with the first page of search results.. I am starting to think some one has their hand deep in my pocket… and it's time to close up shop..
Regards
Not_Very_Smart