Why Ebay Sellers Should Check Out Amazon’s Marketplace

February 3rd, 2008

I was not one of the top 200 Ebay sellers invited to the Ebay Ecommerce Summit last week where Ebay announced the changes to Fees, Search, and Feedback. I was one of the lower volume Ebay sellers on the sidelines at home waiting to hear the long awaited announcements about fee reductions. As we all know now, the fee changes will probably hurt more Ebay sellers than they help. The changes overall made me ask myself how the new CEO designate of Ebay, Mr. John Donahoe, can make changes to Ebay’s platform that blatantly copy the Amazon platform without feeling a bit unimaginative. Mr. Donahoe has been at Ebay since March 2005. If you would like to check out his salary on Forbes Mag. Is Ebay going to become Amazon Lite?

The new final value fees (FVFs) for Ebay stores are just slightly less than Amazon’s FVFs are now. Not allowing sellers to leave negative feedback for buyers is similar to the Amazon feedback system. The star rating system is similar to the Amazon seller rating system. Amazon already has a relevance based customer search that sounds like the “finding experience” Mr. Donahoe has been working on, and which is scheduled to be rolled out to Ebay this year. My guess is it is time for us all to examine the Amazon sellers marketplace because the new CEO-designate of Ebay seems to want the Ebay buyers experience to be just like the Amazon buyers experience, and will probably continue to imitate Amazon features.

Jennie

Entry Filed under: Amazon, Finance, eBay