E-Commerce Growing Pains

Washington Post columnist Leslie Walker was online Thursday, June 30, at 1:30 p.m. ET to discuss the dream of striking it rich on eBay, the Internet's most heavily trafficked shopping site.

She spent three days last week attending eBay's annual user convention, where 11,600 people descended on the auctioneer's home town of San Jose to celebrate the 10th anniversary of eBay. Most attendees were small merchants trying to earn a living selling everything from Barbie dolls to used Hummers on eBay.

Walker talked to more than 30 high-volume eBay merchants about why they increasingly are testing other Web retail locations besides eBay. Many of these "power sellers" shared details about how their online sales operations are doing.

A transcript of today's discussion is below:
Read her Thursday column about the lifestyle and career ambitions of eBay sellers, and her weekend piece about the heated competition eBay is facing from other Web retailers.

Read Leslie's .com archive .

____________________

Leslie Walker: Hi everyone. We are getting ready to start. Please send us your thoughts, comments, hopes, frustrations and insights into eBay!

_______________________

Chicago: I have been selling children's clothes on eBay for three years and the recent fee hike really killed me. When is eBay going to learn not to bite the hand that fees?

Leslie Walker: Boy, that was a refrain I heard A LOT at the eBay convention. I knew the fee hikes galvanized many eBay sellers into looking at alternate sales outlets, but I had no idea how many.

More than half the dealers I interviewed told me they had reacted to the fee hikes by starting their own Web site, or by boosting their marketing for their own Web sites, or by trying rival sites like Overstock, Yahoo and Amazon

_______________________

Washington, D.C. : What are the most popular eBay rival auction sites right now?

Leslie Walker: None of eBay's rivals has anywhere near the number of buyers and sellers eBay has, but everyone is watching to see if the fee hikes eBay imposed will help its competitors gain traction.

Amazon.com's marketplace probably had the biggest buzz at the eBay convention, with sellers of newer and commodity merchandise (books, CDs and DVDs) flocking to list stuff there.

Amazon has a different model. Unlike eBay, where buyers and sellers have to complete transactions on their own, Amazon takes payment from buyers, shaves off a commission and forwards the money to the seller. Some high-volume dealers like the fact they don't pay up-front listing fees on Amazon, meaning less risk to them compared to eBay, where they have to pay even when stuff doesn't sell. The trade-off is Amazon's commission tends to run higher than eBay's.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Leslie: I stopped using eBay a few years ago because I really didn't like their search functionality. Has it improved at all since 2002?

Leslie Walker: Yes, it's greatly improved, with a lot more bells and whistles. You can run filters now by price, category and all kinds of variables. You can use "wild card" asterisks ** like you can on Google. Ebay CEO Meg Whitman told the convention there are actually as many searches being run on eBay as on Google in the United States, or were in recent quarter.

_______________________

San Francisco, CA: Ebay seems like a glorified garage sale. Was its conventino as goofy as eBAY?

Leslie Walker: There was some silliness at the convention, for sure, like when eBay flashed up some ridiculous items currently for sale and asked the audience to guess if each had sold and for how much. You had to laugh at the "mind reading machine" that supposedly sold for $710.

But for the most part, eBay appears to be growing up. The last two eBay user conventions I attended were much tackier than this one. Many more businesses displayed products to help eBay sellers on the exhibit floor this year. In years past, you had to navigate past distracting ferris wheels and treasure hunt extravaganzas to find substance at the convention.

_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: Why is eBay so unwilling to disclose how many gold and platinum level sellers they have?

Leslie Walker: This is a good question. I think eBay should disclose more about its seller profile than it does. It obviously knows a lot more than it's telling.

That said, it should be noted the "powerseller" program is purely voluntary. A lot more eBay sellers are eligible than actually sign up.

_______________________

Bakersfield, CA: Regarding fee hikes by eBay. It seems that many sellers pasted the fee hikes on to the consumer just like in any business. All the fee hikes did was drive sellers and bidders from the eBay site, if recent sales are an indication of what's to come on eBay, we are in trouble unless they do something! I say if you are going to raise the fees then adverstise to bring the bidders back with all the money that is being collected in fee hikes.