Amazon and eBay Off to a Good Start This Season 13 comments
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We just issued a press release detailing our BF (BlackFriday) and CM (CyberMonday) results here and I wanted to share some highlights and add some detail around our marketplace results for eBay (EBAY) Strategies readers.
One caveat is that these results are for our total business which includes a LOT of customer additions over the year which definitely skews things. We'll have same-store-sales out shortly for November and I'll share some interesting stats we see there.
CyberMonday and eBay
eBay USA had a strong CM for us - up 50% y/y. What's really interesting is we're able to separate out the different formats. Auctions are down 8%y/y and fixed-price (includes stores) are up a whopping 139% (together they yield the 50% increase). For ChannelAdvisor's customers, fixed-price is rapidly approaching 2X of auctions.
Another interesting point on eBay - things were actually kind of sluggish on BF, up only 30% y/y, so we are seeing a material acceleration in that short period. This is NOT the case with any other channel, they ramped up to a strong y/y growth on BF and then held it on CM whereas eBay ramped up into CM.
I'd hazard a guess there are a couple of trends at play:
- eBay is really pouring on the marketing right now (coupons, radio, ms-cashback, paid-search, etc).
- We're hearing that offline and some online retailers have such low inventories due to economic concerns that many items you wouldn't think would be hard to find are very hard to find. Wii/xbox/ps3 software, many top selling toys and electronics could be in short supply offline+online as we get deeper into December. If true, that will very much play to eBay's advantage.
- For fun, I keep an eBay search on twitter going during the day on a second monitor and you read many stories about first time users, finding hard to find items, etc. This is a neat way to keep a 'pulse' on what's going on.
ASPs on eBay are down more than other channels. I suspect that's a consumer mix issue vs. some price compression.
CyberMonday and Amazon
No matter how you slice it, Amazon (AMZN) is killing it this holiday season. I don't have any visibility into their media categories (book, music, dvd), but CE, games, home and garden, sports, jewelry, apparel, you name it - it is on fire. I suspect we'll look back in 1-2yrs and realize that 08 is the year Amazon went from a book store to a full-fledged dept store.
Amazon accelerated on BF to a 230% growth rate and has held there through CyberMonday. The inventory shortages I mentioned in the eBay section will definitely benefit Amazon's proMerchants as well. Amazon is very cleverly sending notes to merchants notifying them of sku's that are in demand that they have sold before and proactively urging them to stock the virtual shelves.
Amazon also has a ton of interesting promotions that get a good bit of consumer buzz.
What will be the peak this year?
Usually we see continued growth into the next couple of Mondays (12/8 and 12/15 this year) - that some call GreenMondays - and we'll continue to report what we see. It will be interesting to see where things hit their zenith this year and if my theory on eBay/Amazon benefiting from short inventory levels plays out or not.
Stay tuned and if you have any questions or observations - hit the comments.
Disclosure: Author is long Google and Amazon
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This article has 13 comments:
I have been working local craft fairs and doing a booming business. Three more this week... Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Coupled with online sales, this venue puts money straight into my pocket!
With reference to this article, here's a great commentary on what is going on in comparison to the two giants of Amazon and eBay:
www.myblogutopia.com/
In regards to my above post, go to: Guest Blogger: The BrewsNews! Cyber Monday.
This article gives a successful merchants comparison of how Cyber Monday panned out selling on both venues.
That was then. This is now.
The recession economy suggests that auctions will grow at an increasing if not exponential rate. The auction platform offers strapped individuals a one-of-a-kind opportunity to convert stagnant assets (closets, basements, attics and personal crafts) to cash.
EBAY will see auctions become an increasingly significant factor in its growth ...coming soon to rescue EBAY's flailing attempts to compete with AMZN on fixed priced goods. Recession-proof growth? Perhaps not. Recession-resistant growth? Most certainly.
^__^
..
by reducing their auctions and reducing the price of placing a item on ebay to 0.35 cents
you will see that the last quarter of this year will be a huge disappointment in terms of earnings for e-bay
sometimes you shouldn't play around with a good thing
1) best match is at a point beyond repair
2) not 1 day goes by with a "glitch" occuring
3) advertising continues to drive buyers off site
4) the sell thru rate is the lowest I've seen in years
5) buyers can't use coupons because they don't work
6) eBay is hiding listings that don't have FREE shipping
7) Paypal holds have increased by leaps & bounds
8) mega sellers negative feedback is being removed
9) regular sellers are being suspended due to idiotic dsr's
All the strategies in the world won't make any difference either because if eBay were run properly, no one would need them.
With all the moolah they are willing to toss away to make traffiic and $$$ "look acceptible", hey, the ship will sink faster.
Is this what is known as throwing good money after bad???
I'm wondering if you can back any of that up with numbers?
On Dec 04 12:59 AM Et tu, Brute! wrote:
> Dinah,
>
> With all the moolah they are willing to toss away to make traffiic
> and $$$ "look acceptible", hey, the ship will sink faster.
>
> Is this what is known as throwing good money after bad???
1) go to medved & look at the sell thru rate - hope you're sitting down.
2) yahoo finance will show you how far the stock has dropped
3) eBay's debt rating was lowered to A- this week
4) alexa will show you the traffic drop
5) visit ebay discussion boards - this will give you great insight
It's unfortunate that eBay still hasn't realized that if they leave the site alone, use basic simple keyword searches, it will take care of itself & make everyone money.
But then again, if eBay did that, Donahoe's one minute old MBAs, his junior techs, psycho babble experts, & marketing "experts" that never sold anything on eBay would be out of a job.
Re: Amazon's Kindle
From CNBC:
"...Ironically, I've spent so much time talking about the growing rivalry between Amazon and eBay [EBAY 13.37 -0.03 (-0.22%) ] over these last few months and it turns out eBay might be your best — and only — bet when it comes to finding an Amazon Kindle new, and available in time for the holidays. And you'll pay the price: There are Kindles available for anywhere from $580 where the auction is ongoing to the buy-it-now price of $650. There's one listed for $999."
...Is that anything like an auction?
AMZN P/E is 32/1. EBAY P/E is 9.5/1
The reports of the demise of online auction have been grossly exaggerated. It only takes a little imagination to understand the potential of *online auction* in a worldwide recession.
...Think about it.
And just for fun, look up:
ebayinkblog.com/2008/1.../
CHOMPS
^__^
..
On Dec 04 04:36 PM dinah balk wrote:
> coyotebait -
>
> 1) go to medved & look at the sell thru rate - hope you're sitting
> down.
> 2) yahoo finance will show you how far the stock has dropped
> 3) eBay's debt rating was lowered to A- this week
> 4) alexa will show you the traffic drop
> 5) visit ebay discussion boards - this will give you great insight
>
>
> It's unfortunate that eBay still hasn't realized that if they leave
> the site alone, use basic simple keyword searches, it will take care
> of itself & make everyone money.
>
> But then again, if eBay did that, Donahoe's one minute old MBAs,
> his junior techs, psycho babble experts, & marketing "experts"
> that never sold anything on eBay would be out of a job.
>
>
Re: Amazon's Kindle
From CNBC:
"...Ironically, I've spent so much time talking about the growing rivalry between Amazon and eBay [EBAY 13.37 -0.03 (-0.22%) ] over these last few months and it turns out eBay might be your best — and only — bet when it comes to finding an Amazon Kindle new, and available in time for the holidays. And you'll pay the price: There are Kindles available for anywhere from $580 where the auction is ongoing to the buy-it-now price of $650. There's one listed for $999."
...Is that anything like an auction?
AMZN P/E is 32/1. EBAY P/E is 9.5/1
The reports of the demise of online auction have been grossly exaggerated. It only takes a little imagination to understand the potential of *online auction* in a worldwide recession.
...Think about it.
And just for fun, look up:
ebayinkblog.com/2008/1...
CHOMPS
^__^
..
On Dec 05 02:45 PM coyotebait wrote:
> Dear dinah,
>
> Re: Amazon's Kindle
>
> From CNBC:
>
> "...Ironically, I've spent so much time talking about the growing
> rivalry between Amazon and eBay [EBAY 13.37 -0.03 (-0.22%) ] over
> these last few months and it turns out eBay might be your best —
> and only — bet when it comes to finding an Amazon Kindle new, and
> available in time for the holidays. And you'll pay the price: There
> are Kindles available for anywhere from $580 where the auction is
> ongoing to the buy-it-now price of $650. There's one listed for $999."
>
>
> ...Is that anything like an auction?
>
> AMZN P/E is 32/1. EBAY P/E is 9.5/1
>
> The reports of the demise of online auction have been grossly exaggerated.
> It only takes a little imagination to understand the potential of
> *online auction* in a worldwide recession.
>
> ...Think about it.
>
> And just for fun, look up:
>
> ebayinkblog.com/2008/1.../
>
>
> CHOMPS
>
> ^__^
>
> ..
>
It's unfortunate that the person who wrote the CNBC article didn't take the time to research eBay before they wrote the article because there is no rivalry between eBay & Amazon EXCEPT in Donahoe's mind.
Amazon is far superior because they know how run a clean site & they sell their own inventory!
coyotebait - very apt, by the way.
The ONLY rivalry is in eBay's mind. I doubt ebay is little more than an obscure blip on Jeff Bezos radar, as founder and CEO of Amazon.