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This sorta Belongs on the Half.com board but, like the site, I'm feeling that no one there will see it. And, this could affect the way that Ebay works so ........
Ebay has Announced that half.com will go away, being integrated into Ebay, SEEMLESSLY.
I'm sort of at a Crossroads for my online enterprises - and am trying to figure out whats in store ( no pun intended ) for the future of Ebay/half
Seems like some other sites have sorta pushed half to a point where they have given up -- The Marketplace approach certainly works for Amazon.
I talk with people constantly who visit EBAY regularly but have no idea that half.com even exists. It cant be much more obvious to me, its linked on almost every page.
I've emailed and requested info from half and Ebay about the 2004 Event -- All that they will say is that --It will go away in early 2004 and be integrated into Ebay Seemlessly.
What do you think that means ????
Will we just have to get a store to continue to list and pay a weekly UP to list items ??
Will there be a store fee with a large quantity of listings that just remain open -- will the ebay search bring those items up ??
The Appeal of marketplace type sites is to sell items that take months to find a buyer with no cost until it sells.
In my opinion, only about 1/4th of my inventory listed at half could justify paying per week, plus a store fee to list.
Yet, I sell items regularly at good prices that are just so off the beaten - found path that I am worried about loosing the Venue.
I see new items on Half regularly that fall far below the wholesale price without selling before someone undercuts by 25 Cents and again by 25 Cents etc etc until its at 75 Cents. I buy at half for my retail store and save great dollars often. Most any item on other sites that seems too low is gobbled up, and the price returns to a reasonable level.
I'm Worried that if a weekly UP fee is implemented as with the stores, that Ebay will become more mainstream,( Only being feasable to List Mainsteam Popular items that will sell for nothing in a week ) loosing the possiblitiy of listing that CD that sells MAYBE once a year for 50.00. I have a large quantity of very obscure titles.
Auctioning is not what it used to be -- someone was always looking for everything -- Not so anymore -- I've started Very rare items at 9.99 and only one person was looking this week and scored. Listed another of the same item later and had 10 different bidders. What week do you list a rare item, if you only have 1 ?? I don't like to gamble with rare items.
What Could Ebay do - Other than force you to sign up for the store program to continue ??, that would replace a half.com / amazon Marketplace type selling environment ??
Thanks for Reading -- Any ideas of what it will come to that will be seemless but functional ??
Mike
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You asked some great questions. Wish I had some of the answers. I will be interested in hearing other opinions also. I'll check back in the morning to see what's been added and maybe will have some comments at that time. Must toddle off to bed now though.
Laura B
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MSTUF,
You have voiced many of the concerns I've been mulling over about the Half/eBay thing. I use Half all the time and would stop using it if they started charging a per item fee.
What exactly do they mean by "seamless"? I wish I knew. I wish that silly eBay email that was sent out wasn't so vague. My guess is that, as you suspect, the "store" will become a required item if you wish to list items for free (or for a small fee) in the old Half.com way.
It's very dissapointing. I like Half and have used it to buy and sell for a long time. In fact, many of the books I sell on Half don't move at all on Amazon. So, I need Half to move those types of items.
Let's keep this discussion open. Perhaps someone out there has gotten another email or has happened across a new news article about the subject?
Dark Elf Collectibles - http://www.darkelfcollection.com
RPG Gaming Supplies, Crystal Balls, Jewelry, Chinese Art, Feng Shui, and more!
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G'day Mike,
I don't use half.com. I don't know if it still applies, but the only times I looked in on half.com it had a strictly "no international" policy, so I never went back. I can not offer you any answers to your concerns, but I can see that they are very valid.
One of the points of Ebay, is that it is not a retail market, and that to make good profits on Ebay you need to understand the machinations of the market place. It is still a very fluid and strong auction market, but like any auction (and as you have illustrated above) the market will vary greatly with supply and demand. Half.com falls into the same category of understanding the marketplace to use it viably/profitably and your analysis makes it very clear that you understand how to utilise it to it's maximum benefit.
The ongoing problem of this situation thopugh, lies in Ebay's management, who only recognise that they must produce continually better profit results for an over-valuing stock market. They do not understand the machinations of the markets that they oversee, nor the differences between these two very different market places (Ebay thrives in spite of it's management, not because of it). The transition will not be seemless - I suspect that half.com sellers like yourself, that fully utilise the intracacies of that particular market field, will be left without a venue of that nature, and that it is likely that Ebay stores will be shoved down your gullet, in the naive belief that it offers the same market as the established half.com venue.
I can not offer any solutions, nor do I know the half.com model well enough to suggest what should be done, but I did find your initial post very enlightening and informative. If nothing else, it has been appreciated.
Good Luck, Kevin
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Thanks Everyone for Reading - and Replying --
I was worried that it might be percieved that I was really looking for an answer.
Its nice to see that my Concerns are understood and shared by the first few anyway.
I use 4 different NON auction sites to sell my Music / Books / and Movies and am amazed to see what sells on one and is SO dead on another.
I do believe that DONE CORRECTLY, Ebay could become the marketplace we need.
I hope this discussion will be read and added to by others in the coming days to see what thoughts are out there -- I was concious to try not to start this off as a complaining thread about Ebay. I hope we can all just share Ideas of what would work for us and news about what we hear.
KEVIN -- Thanks for Pointing out that Half is Only Available to the US and now Canada.
that points out to me that the problems of Establishing postage rates by the fixed postage method Half and Amazon use now and Currency exchanges world wide for all items would be monumental.
That would be an advantage of the SHOPS style selling -- I sold a 10 VHS Video Set the other day on Half and found that the postage across the USA -- (Oregon to Virginia) ate any hope of breaking even because the buyer chose Priority. At amazon I can choose which items I will offer Priority on or Not. Thats a nice feature.
I believe the key to making the shop work at ebay for me would be not having a weekly / monthly resubmission fee per each item. Just making it one cost to list X amount of items.
How much would a Shop and 1000 listings that appear in search that dont expire be worth per month ??
Should the Shop items appear in search ?? or be page linked to "See items matching your search offered by shops".
Amazon is $40.00 with 40000 store listings and Free auction submissions. Granted, their Auctions are so Hidden that they are of little value and many customers at amazon don't even know tht the Z shops exist
MIKE
Does anyone else here sell at Half by Excel Upload file ??
[This message was edited by MSTUF on MON August 18, 2003 at 03:27 AM.]
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Mike,
What a great informative thread!
I do not sale on half.com but I do have a friend who was. She is now in the process of opening her own website as she too see's the handwriting on the wall. http://community.here.com/infopop/em.../icon_wink.gif
That might be an option you may want to think about as well.
Good luck!!
Janet * Lanetzliving.com
My Website, up and running and I already sold stuff!! woo hoo!....
Me Page
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its available to Canada, since WHEN http://community.here.com/infopop/em...s/icon_eek.gif
is half really worthwhile???
I wanted into it soooo bad when it first started, I had over 5,000 books at that time, now I only have a few hundred, but they are really good ones.
Mostly coffee table books, military, a few royalty, some first editions, etc...
books suck on ebay, I have great respect for those who have carved and kept their niche on ebay. ...they really gotta know what they are doing, big time.
Explain half to me please.
As far as intergrating it, wasn't there a thread at the "other side" a long time ago about this very subject.
_____________________
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G'day Gabs,
An Associated Press article from March 6 this year:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>EBay Plans to Shut Down Half.com Fixed-Price Subsidiary in
Late 2004
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- EBay Inc. said Thursday it would shut down Half.com, its fixed-price subsidiary for used books, CDs, videos and other common household items, in late 2004.
Half.com founder Josh Kopelman also said he would leave the company's office in Plymouth Meeting, Pa., effective April 15.
The San Jose, Calif.-based online auction company purchased
Half.com in a June 2000 stock swap. The acquisition of Half.com, which at the time listed about 1 million items and had about 250,000 registered users, significantly increased eBay's operating expenses for several quarters.
Founded in October 1999, Half.com sold previously owned products
such as books, DVDs and board games for at least half the retail
price. Sellers typed in a number corresponding to a bar code on
most products, automatically providing them with the official list price.
The company gained fame in May 2000, when it persuaded politicians in tiny Halfway, Ore., to change the town's name to Half.com. Despite complaints from many residents who considered it a silly marketing gimmick, the city erected a sign that said, "Welcome to Half.com Oregon, America's first dot-com city."
Half.com's 65 employees in suburban Philadelphia may relocate to other eBay offices by the end of next year, or they will be eligible for severance packages, eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove said. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
At that stage they were planning for late 2004, they seem to have revised that to early 2004.
Wouldn't the powers that be in Half.Com, Oregon feel like total geese!
Cheers, Kevin
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Half never really appealed to me. I don't like the set-up, and even more, the last time I looked, you had to have 5000 items to be honored w/a bulk uploader.
Hang on, I want to take a month out of my life to list the 2600 items I have in inventory individually rather than the five minutes it would take if they let me bulk upload. http://community.here.com/infopop/em...n_rolleyes.gif
As to name recognition, I think Amazon has that pretty wrapped up for a good long time. Online books = Amazon to most shoppers. Now serious book collectors are a different subset.
Charging for a shop - I doubt I'd pay eBay for a shop like I do Amazon. While there may be some people out there who sell more on half than Azon, I don't know them (but I don't know a lot of people). Mostly what I hear is, "half is free to list, the commission is cheaper than Amazon, and if you can bulk upload you might as well - even though it's only a few sales a month."
In other words, it's no-risk, so it doesn't matter that it doesn't produce much.
Peace,
Sadie
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as well - an attempt to clear out my library to make room for more *smile*
The best thing I like about it is listing it and parking it for free until it sells. If that pricing format changes, I'll shut them down rather than merge them into my eBay store format...
Gabs - its been a little while since the opened it up to Canadian users, but I don't remember when they made that change.
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