downwithebay

Some Positives, But Problems Persist at eBay

While ebay management and the typically analyst dont view loss of sellers leaving ebay as a major variable to ebay steady declines....I beg to differ with you. Like many ebay sellers, buyers are leaving ebay too. Below is some data that came out today of just one lesser known buy/sell platform where ebay shoppers and sellers are moving to in large numbers.

Etsy released December 2008 sales numbers that show just how much traction the online marketplace for homemade and vintage goods has gained in the past year. The value of goods sold on the site was $12.9 million - a 20 percent increase over the previous month, and a 153 percent increase from December 2007. Etsy merchants sold 815,327 items in December 2008, a 13.4 percent increase from November and a 140 percent increase year over year.

Additional statistics for December 2008 include: 1,098,644 new items were listed (down from 1,143,942 items in November); 164,789 new members joined the Etsy community, including 19,481 new sellers; and 410,365,372 page views were recorded on the site, essentially the same number as November.

Ioffer.com's sales and growth stats are just as impressive, and many other smaller sites like bonanzle, ecrater, atomicmall and ebids are experiencing massive growth registering as many as a 1000s new sellers daily many of who are attracting many of their ebay customers to follow.

It amazes me that Analyst devote so much time crunching numbers, yet spend so little time LISTENING to Ebay's ONCE most loyal customer as to the REAL reasons for many of Ebay's shortcomings like GMV, user stats etc....

In Ebay's quest to concentrate solely on catering to a very small percentage of it's userbase while completely screwing over the masses....The sellers Donahoe refers to as "NOISE" are not only taking their business elsewhere, but taking their customers with them to.

Now that the holidays are over....investors can expect another large exodus of ebay sellers of all businesses sizes establishing storefronts on the net and conacting their entire ebay customer base about their new online storefront location.

Ebay's greed and lack of respect for it most avid/loyal user base with be the downfall of Ebay marketplace in 2009.