Question
Just looking over some history of ebay and I find it interesting....On sept 12, 1995 there were 18 non computer items listed at ebay, on Sept 19 that had tripled to 33 items listed. By the end of 1995, 10,000 bids had been recieved on a couple thousand items. Pierre saw a profit of $250 in February of 1996, $1000 in March, $2500 in April 1996, May - $5000 and by June 1996 was making a profit of $10,000. In 1997 there were 341 registered users, In 1998 there were 2181 registered users, in 99 there were 10,000 and in 2000 there were 22,500. Fees were 5% FVF for items selling below $25. 2.5% for items above $25.00. No insertion fees at first. No fees at all for first 6 months. 1995...ebay is JUST ten years old....
That leads to my question...I see smaller auction sites now that have as many items listed, as many registered users and more stable sites then ebay had its first couple of years. Of course the internet is different now, the users are different, the climate is different. But least we forget...ebay did start small.
Can it be repeated??
Answer
no, ebay has lived its life as a fad
fads rarely repeat themselves with as much excitement as the first time around
now ebay is a tool, to be used to better your business plan, but no longer the "be all that ends all" it was in the beginning.
Now we need a different concept
something with a twist
something with some spark
someone is going to have to really use their imagination to come up with it.....if it is different and fun, it will catch on. But what..... is the question?
Answer
Possible? Sure.
Probale? I doubt it's going to happen anytime soon with a general auction site.
Niche sites might have a much better chance.
Answer
In 1997 there were 341 registered users, In 1998 there were 2181 registered users, in 99 there were 10,000 and in 2000 there were 22,500.
Sorry Sir Lurker, I don't know who is supplying those figures, but they are seriously flawed.
From the Second Quarter Ebay Financial Results on this page this is the registration number from mid year 1999:
The number of registered users increased more than 1.7 million to 5.6 million at June 30, 1999, an increase of 46 percent from the more than 3.8 million registered users at March 31, 1999 and an increase of 556 percent from June 30, 1998.
Just a tad more than 10,000.
The same growth for this type of business will never be replicated. Farces like WagglePop make it much harder for any upstart to become a viable alternative for Ebay, and the investment to pull it off will now need to be huge. Pierre was in the right place at the right time, and he got a few aspects intuitively right.
Kind Regards, Kevin
Answer
Ok thanks...I won't quibble about the figuires--all those listed above were done from a brief search on google for the "history of ebay" and were quoted from two sources...one an excerpt from the book about ebay's history and another from some kind of business report....my point was that ebay started small just like sites do now and I was wondering to myself if it could be repeated.....
As I was thinking of this..I was thinking of missed opportunaties...I can remember talking to other high school nerds in the mid 80's about computers and the world wide web(I think that is what we refered to it as..not the internet at the time)...and I can remember thinking how cool it would be and how so many people I talked to(friends, relatives, neighbors, co-workers) could not understand the concept or even why they would be interested in such a thing or even in getting a personal pc......I even enrolled as a computer science major in 1985...but changed after a tough time in BASIC class...Now thinking back I wonder if I made a mistake..lol.....and then I remembered how I had heard of ebay but never took a look at it myself until 1999...but I failed to capitalize on either the www or the ebay ideas...just wondering if I should have seen the future as it were..lol....anyways..all this talk about small sites starting up got me thinking about the past and therefore led to my topic I started....
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Ebay History
The Perfect Store Excerpt
My limited "sources"...
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Farces like WagglePop make it much harder for any upstart to become a viable alternative for eBay, and the investment to pull it off will now need to be huge.
I agree with this, just based on viewing the reactions of the some of the poppers when looking into other venues to replace their "dream". They seem to have little or no patience for anything that isn't exactly right with loads of buyers, even those sites which are in their infancy. It's likely that if they list at these other sites they will not stay long.
Answer
I feel we are at a fork in the road.
One path will lead to the Walmartization of the Internet with only a few main sites like ebaY and Azon swallowing up all access because people are too lazy to do decent searches.
The other will be the perfection of the mega-search engine itself which will permit the full maturation of the concept of the independent vendor.
However it will take some major innovations, as the Froogle model is extremely flawed since its results are so easily manipulated, and people are not stupid.
Perhaps like the ADDALL model where there are sort criteria, but designed to be more aesthetically pleasing.
But ebay will persist as long as vendors have fire sale pricing there, to ensure the damn thing SELLS without getting zapped for another listing fee, while having higher pricing on other or their own sites.
CHEAP is the driving force behind ebay, and every time they raise their rates, the more desperate sellers become as they go into loss leader mode to avoid high bills at the end of the month.
And look what ebay did to listing fees for 99c and under......
Answer
As gabs said, eBay was so popular because nothing quite like it has ever or had ever existed before. Regional live auctions are a completely different animal. It was as if one could magically distill every antique shop, retail store, garage sale, and flea market down into a fantastic place where all of the things you thought were rare could be found.
It had a fairytale appeal. Everyone I knew was buying action figures, glassware, books--things they had been looking for for years. From its inception until about 1999/2000, that was the basic eBay climate.
When eBay began aggressively marketing to new SELLERS, the market became glutted. Now we could all find that same action figure, glass bowl, or book--but with 30 different options, or 100, or 200, all from different sellers. As the economy went down, the magic of eBay became something taken for granted. Can't find that last trading card for your set? Check eBay! it will be there.
The heyday is long gone. The novelty of the idea light fires of interest in everyone--as with almost anything that is totally new and useful. It will never be quite the same as it was.
Can someone else do eBay, then? After realizing the grand picture--of the economy, society, and trends of the time? Not exactly.
I believe what CAN happen are solid, profitable niche sites that cater to specific groups, types of items, etc.
I believe that venues with different spin (like iOffer, etc.) can survive and thrive by offering retailers another format through which to reach customers.
Looking for the la la land of 1997, 1998, 1999 will be a long search. Auctions are more ordinary now. Venues will need to integrate better with retailers who are using their own storefront, in order to be truly successful.
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the on-line auction market is too crowded right now, especially with all these new start-up's. you can't expect the same phenomenal growth that ebay experienced to happen again.
take a look at microsoft for instance... when pc's came along it created a whole new market of users. in other words, it created an unfulfilled demand, and a whole lot of it. when ms became the major supplier for that demand, its growth catapulted.
similarly, ebay helped fulfill a dire need that nobody else was filling at the time. when a new start-up, even a niche site comes along, you can't expect growth if it isn't meeting a significant demand that isn't already met. innovation is what helps realize totally new demand, that we didn't even realize existed before.
how much innovation are we really seeing in new sites, tho? wagglepop seemed to think it would survive on community, but the whole community horse has been beaten dead a hundred times... we know it was crucial to ebay's growth in the early days, but what about now? why would i need to go to wp to connect with other people when i've got here for free, for instance? is wp really going to be able to provide something better?
Or other so called 'features' like variations on the buying process (fixed price, auction models, alternate currencies, storefronts, you name it...). There's already been tons of research on how you can conduct market transactions. One of the most efficient thru out history has been the Vickrey auction model that eBay uses... for certain cases, fixed prices can be more efficient (for certain types of people and situations). But beyond that, there's not much reason to deviate from these two. It's going to take a lot more than a brainstorming session between some executives and a snazzy name from marketing to actually "improve" on eBay's core service, auctions. Many startups think this will differentiate them and bring users. But at the end of the day, I don't see any of these features making a significant contribution to my bottom line as a seller.
Besides, eBay has such a stranglehold on the market now, it would be very hard to displace them even if you DID have a great idea... so much for "free-market competition"... just my 2cents anyway.
Jason