Editor's note: The once extremely brilliant e-commerce giant eBay is slowly fading out of people's vision, which is completely opposite to the limelight of Amazon . What exactly caused this situation? eBay is now in a period of change, what will it do? "RACKED" once published an article that deeply explores the current situation of eBay and its journey of change.
1.
In the summer of 2017, several huge billboards stood beside the highway in San Francisco , with the words: "Fill the car with color." Below, in the subway station in the city, there was a poster with the words "Don't shop like others, because you are different from others." On TV (including during the NBA Finals), there is also an advertising image of a brown box rolling off a warehouse drum conveyor, and the text on the screen reads: "When did shopping get so fast?"
These are eBay's masterpieces, and the auction site promises that you can deliver the second-hand items you have taken to your home as long as you bid to win the bid. For years, it has been placing its reputation on antique collections and bean cake babies. Its era came to an end, and eBay decided to release a statement in recent months: We are an interesting, exciting shopping destination—they raised this in a massive marketing campaign in the summer of 2017—not just selling vintage car mufflers and used silver tea sets, but also selling high-end accessories and a new generation of drones.
"We have to tell our stories differently because people's eyes are no longer the real us," said Suzy Deering, chief marketing officer of eBay on an August afternoon.
Before joining eBay two years ago, Dilling worked for Disney and Verizon. She knows how big brands do marketing, but eBay completely reverses her idea. “They think we’re just a second-hand auction site,” she continued. “They don’t think of all the progress we’ve made, so we have to show them a modern eBay, an eBay that looks and acts differently.” She said it more clearly: “We have everything that many brands want, but we lack the heart and soul.”
At eBay’s San Jose headquarters,
One of the things that many brands want is scale: eBay is huge. It has 171 million users and has 1.1 billion product listings at any time. But it is no longer the only "player". It now faces competition from all over the world, most notably from eBay's biggest competitor, Amazon in the North; Brooklyn's craft giant Etsy; and venture-backed consignment sites such as Real and Poshmark. Deerling might talk about the company's progress, but the fact is that eBay is already far behind.
It is committed to maintaining an online marketplace—no more than a platform for buyers and sellers to interact—this status is hard to prove correct, as it has become less attractive to both users. It has not invested in warehousing and inventory; it has not yet launched a highly competitive logistics plan. It now needs to distinguish and improve itself, and then it must convey this information to the client.
Today, 88% of eBay are "buy now" items, which have nothing to do with eBay's auction function, and 81% of items for sale are brand new. For eBay, new items mean unopened and never used items; however, this statement is not clear, because most items still come from third-party sellers, not eBay itself. In fact, eBay has become a paradise for re-sale transactions, with users selling on-demand goods at exponentially high prices, which further makes people doubt the reputation of eBay.
eBay also believes it has the ability to attract millennials and Gen Z customers who have now basically overlooked the site. “Young clients have no misunderstandings about eBay, they have no misunderstandings,” Dilling said. “We simply don’t think about it.”
The company’s research found that young audiences want unique products and they are “looking for products that are not conducive to integration.”
Editor's note: The once extremely brilliant e-commerce giant eBay is slowly fading out of people's vision, which is completely opposite to the limelight of Amazon . What exactly caused this situation? eBay is now in a period of change, what will it do? "RACKED" once published an article that deeply explores the current situation of eBay and its journey of change.
1.
In the summer of 2017, several huge billboards stood beside the highway in San Francisco , with the words: "Fill the car with color." Below, in the subway station in the city, there was a poster with the words "Don't shop like others, because you are different from others." On TV (including during the NBA Finals), there is also an advertising image of a brown box rolling off a warehouse drum conveyor, and the text on the screen reads: "When did shopping get so fast?"
These are eBay's masterpieces, and the auction site promises that you can deliver the second-hand items you have taken to your home as long as you bid to win the bid. For years, it has been placing its reputation on antique collections and bean cake babies. Its era came to an end, and eBay decided to release a statement in recent months: We are an interesting, exciting shopping destination—they raised this in a massive marketing campaign in the summer of 2017—not just selling vintage car mufflers and used silver tea sets, but also selling high-end accessories and a new generation of drones.
"We have to tell our stories differently because people's eyes are no longer the real us," said Suzy Deering, chief marketing officer of eBay on an August afternoon.
Before joining eBay two years ago, Dilling worked for Disney and Verizon. She knows how big brands do marketing, but eBay completely reverses her idea. “They think we’re just a second-hand auction site,” she continued. “They don’t think of all the progress we’ve made, so we have to show them a modern eBay, an eBay that looks and acts differently.” She said it more clearly: “We have everything that many brands want, but we lack the heart and soul.”
At eBay’s San Jose headquarters,
One of the things that many brands want is scale: eBay is huge. It has 171 million users and has 1.1 billion product listings at any time. But it is no longer the only "player". It now faces competition from all over the world, most notably from eBay's biggest competitor, Amazon in the North; Brooklyn's craft giant Etsy; and venture-backed consignment sites such as Real and Poshmark. Deerling might talk about the company's progress, but the fact is that eBay is already far behind.
It is committed to maintaining an online marketplace—no more than a platform for buyers and sellers to interact—this status is hard to prove correct, as it has become less attractive to both users. It has not invested in warehousing and inventory; it has not yet launched a highly competitive logistics plan. It now needs to distinguish and improve itself, and then it must convey this information to the client.
Today, 88% of eBay are "buy now" items, which have nothing to do with eBay's auction function, and 81% of items for sale are brand new. For eBay, new items mean unopened and never used items; however, this statement is not clear, because most items still come from third-party sellers, not eBay itself. In fact, eBay has become a paradise for re-sale transactions, with users selling on-demand goods at exponentially high prices, which further makes people doubt the reputation of eBay.
eBay also believes it has the ability to attract millennials and Gen Z customers who have now basically overlooked the site. “Young clients have no misunderstandings about eBay, they have no misunderstandings,” Dilling said. “We simply don’t think about it.”
The company’s research found that young audiences want unique products and they are “looking for products that are not conducive to integration.”In this way, Deerling believes that eBay can have an impact on Amazon: "People feel that they have become anti-human because Amazon has become a habit, but it's not ourselves. If you like Converse, you come to our website and you can find versions of all colors and graffiti. Go to Amazon or department stores and you won't find these things."
As Jay Hanson, vice president of merchandise sales, said, our goal is to make customers think that eBay is the first shopping site they should visit, no matter what they want to buy. But can this once dominant company take the crown from Amazon? Or compete with startups that offer white glove services, a more accurate and easier to operate shopping experience? This may seem unlikely, but eBay decided to give it a try.
2,
Amazon and eBay have always been closely linked. Software engineer Pierre Omidyar wrote code for AuctionWeb (the first name of eBay) that weekend of Labor Day in 1995. Just two months ago, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon in the garage of Seattle .
At the beginning, Amazon operated like a local bookstore, but it was just online. Customers can browse the website’s products and then buy what they want directly from Amazon. On the other hand, eBay is a user experience with users and will not be disturbed (or helped) by the company. It is a platform for buying and selling everything, from long forgotten quirky things you find in your grandmother’s loft to rare watches and Elvis souvenirs. Adam Cohen, author of Perfect Store: Inside eBay, said Omidia imagined his website as a utopia, “It’s a perfect market where anyone can have the opportunity to engage in business.” The initial popularity of
eBay stems from its novelty, not just merchandise, but also the auction system. An early user told CBS, “Sometimes I see something cool and I have to have it; I don’t need it, but I don’t get anyone to bid higher than me.” Instead of mediating disputes between buyers and sellers, Omidia enabled forums and message boards and could rate users and leave comments. eBay's social forum became one of its business cards.
Amazon's sales have long exceeded eBay. By 1998, Amazon's sales soared to $610 million. eBay's sales during the same period were US$47.4 million (eBay will expand internationally the following year). Despite this, many shoppers still think eBay is a more important e-commerce player because anyone can open a store and start a business, Cohen said. Sellers can even choose to sign up for a professional account and pay a monthly fee in exchange for the ability to list a large number of items. Amazon has been selling products in the past, but eBay provides users with an opportunity to spend and make money. “eBay monopolizes the field because it has a virtuous cycle,” Cohen said. "The buyer will go where the seller goes, and vice versa. It has the advantage of preemptive action."
The company filed for an IPO in 1998 after a sensational year. Omidia changed the name of the website from AuctionWeb to eBay, which hosted nearly 800,000 auctions per day, and transaction volume surged, partly because AOL's partners put eBay on their homepage. By 1999, eBay had revenues of $224.7 million, and Marketwatch called the company "unstoppable".
Amazon continues to invest in expensive and popular items like electronics, earning more than three times the revenue of eBay. In 1999, Time magazine listed Bezos as the cover character of the year and downgraded eBay to the magazine's article. In the same year, the Wall Street Journal criticized eBay as just a middleman between buyers and sellers, believing that this business model is unsustainable and, more importantly, "easy to copy." In November 2000, Amazon Marketplace was launched, a place where third-party sellers list new items or trade second-hand items.
Amazon Marketplace has seen significant growth over the past 17 years.Nearly half of all products sold by Amazon today come from Marketplace, which sells about 2 billion items each year and sells about $132 billion in sales, according to e-commerce consulting firm ChannelAdvisor.
Of course, eBay has also grown. The site currently has over 20 million sellers around the world. It also launched new ways to shop, including the fixed-price buy-on-now feature launched in 2002. But the company has devoted most of its energy to diversified operations through large acquisitions—in 2002, PayPal for $1.5 billion, in 2004, 25% of Craigslist shares for about $15 million, Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, and StubHub for $310 million in 2007. Each acquisition gives eBay a new relevance and cash flow, but it finds that it has allocated a lot of resources and manpower to these businesses, with its flagship website largely unaffected. Devin Wenig, CEO of
eBay, publicly stated that the company is not interested in confronting Amazon. As Amazon continues to rethink what it means to be an online shopping site by launching a variety of services, gadgets, private labels and brick-and-mortar stores, eBay is committed to keeping its path as a digital marketplace, despite record sales in Amazon’s market. Sellers flock to Amazon; according to a Marketplace Plus study, more than 1,000 new sellers join Amazon every day.
Some merchants still think eBay is a better option: Amazon takes more profits and has a variety of barriers to entry for sellers. But Amazon does offer merchants better deals in other ways. With Amazon's performance service launched in 2006, sellers have to pay a certain fee, and Amazon is responsible for the storage and transportation of goods and customer service. Choosing FBA can also allow merchants to access Amazon Prime members. eBay's strategy of not participating in inventory or logistics helps reduce company costs, but also reduces its attractiveness to sellers.
"The FBA program is extremely unique compared to any other market," a Seeking Alpha investor wrote last year. "No other markets (eBay, Walmart , Best Buy , etc.) will fulfill orders on behalf of the seller. That's why these markets are not growing so fast."
In addition, there are a large number of resale startups that have made their debut, all of which have been supported by venture capital, helping the resale market grow to $18 billion. The value proposition of RealReal, launched 6 years ago, is that it needs a more trustworthy eBay. Julie Wainwright, founder of the website, said that sellers in the luxury sector prefer Real compared to eBay because the company holds the seller's hands and strictly certifies the goods to remove any possible fakes.
"We do all the work!" said Wainwright. “We go to their house to get their stuff and take them back to one of our warehouses for processing, including inspection and certification, photography, copywriting, merchandise sales, pricing, sales and shipping.”
While eBay once known for its forums and message boards, another venture-backed resale startup, Poshmark, is popular for its community-oriented platform. This app is a social shopping destination where shoppers can review lists of items and interact with sellers. Poshmark also offers a limited-time event it calls “party,” in which sellers organize virtual showrooms by theme. About $4 million worth of inventory per day is listed on Poshmark; TechCrunch estimates that the company's revenue in 2017 is expected to reach $100 million, double last year.
has other competitors who are also grabbing market share, including Tradesy and ThredUp, which performs so well (20 million users and a $500 million valuation) that it can open physical stores when other companies close.
In the shadow of competitors of all sizes, eBay has been stagnant. Net income in 2016 was just under $9 billion, an objective figure, but has only risen slightly over the past five years. Analysts blame eBay's flaws on outdated technology and confusing user experience.
"The eBay website hasn't really experienced drastic changes from the beginning, and if anything changes, it's subtle and not glamorous enough," said Sean Maharaj, director of global management consulting firm AArete. "In terms of customer interface and website, it is comparable to some other companies that are launching new digital strategies. It is not friendly and not easy to operate." One of the main promotional points of
eBay - it has 1.1 billion product lists - has also become a weakness for the company. Organizing these items is a difficult task, especially when the website's "Bone" has been around for decades. Greg Portell, a retail partner at a global strategy and management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, understands why eBay positions itself as an all-encompassing market rather than offering edited products.
"If you think of a successful retailer like t.j. Maxx or Marshall, you can justify it," Porter said. “People don’t know they’re very neat and they do it very well. I guess eBay emphasizes this attitude, not the clean, personalized experience you expect from a well-curated store. However, the problem with eBay is that they’re stuck in a hard-to-distinguish between space.”
3,
We’re on the verge of trend change, and it’s a big moment,” said Steve Yankovich, chief product designer of eBay. “We’ve done a lot of work to focus on trends because it’s a trillion dollar business that’s just beginning to penetrate. ”
Jankovic described his job as “somehow attracting customers to buy that product and saying ‘Great, buy it! '”. He said eBay has always had the advantage of “task shopping”—coming on the website to find a very specific item. eBay recognizes its shortcomings in the way it calls “browse, discover and inspire” shopping.
For years, eBay has been catching up. In a constant effort, it has begun organizing inventory by implementing structured data—through the process that listing some items on the website is uniform and consistent, rather than the kind of temporary releases that last few years. A related initiative by
is to stipulate that professional sellers must have a cleaner list of items, which in turn keeps the items out. More visible on search engines and makes the website itself easier to search. eBay now also groups products by product type and brand, for example, with a new, beautifully designed Coach handbag landing page. This winter, eBay CEO Devin Winniger told investors on a conference call that eBay has created 180 million login pages using this new data organization method. It is unclear whether these pages will help eBay attract customers — especially when it comes to the younger crowd its marketing campaign is designed to attract — but Winniger said they help reduce eBay churn.
This improvement is a strange boast for the company; on e-commerce sites, categories and brand login pages have long been standard pages. Jankovic admits that the structured data project is a huge project—after all, the site has 1.1 billion projects and cannot require sellers to rebuild old lists of items. It also cannot thoroughly overhaul its website, because it will undoubtedly confuse its 171 million users, many of whom have been using it for years. However, eBay promises that the website will soon be easier to navigate and personalization will come to an end.
, a personalization feature launched by the end of 2017, called "Related Topics". ”, where the homepage will show a list of other shoppers with similar search history that are concerned by, which is called collaborative filtering. For years, Amazon has been using the “customers who buy this product also buy” module. Another addition is the “interest” page, where eBay will add one or several of the 250 categories to the user’s homepage based on activities (yoga, baking, skiing), passion (dogs, collectible coins, Star Wars) and style (sports and leisure, avant-garde, minimalism). This is a machine learning algorithm called clustering, which companies such as Spotify, Netflix, and Twitter are already using.
In September 2017, eBay launched a heart-shaped button that puts products, brands and sellers on their wish lists. The move brings eBay closer to social networks such as Instagram and Facebook, which have become popular markets themselves, although the wishlist feature has long been available on countless e-commerce sites. Earlier this summer, eBay also added a visual search tool where shoppers can capture photos of what they see in the world, or upload photos they find online to a website, and then find these items or things similar to them on eBay. Pinterest launched a similar tool in 2015.
Earlier this year, eBay announced 3-day free shipping on 20 million items, and price matches with Best Buy, Walmart and Amazon. Amazon has long been “monopolizing” customers’ purchasing rules with fast, free delivery, not to mention its proprietary algorithm that essentially acts as a price manager. The biggest change in
eBay is probably the luxury verification program it is now launching. The program, called eBay Authenticate, is accepting handbags for at least $500 from 12 different brands (Real Real has certified over 100 designers). Sellers using the program — which will eventually expand to jewelry and watches and will include other designers — will be able to ship luxury goods to warehouses. There, a team from a third-party company (not disclosed by eBay) will authenticate the product, take photos, and complete the listing for sellers. Laura Chambers, eBay’s vice president of consumer sales, added that eBay’s new service will include quality shipping packaging, including certification documents; each verified item will also add a special icon to the website’s list.
eBay charges a 20% commission on this service. This tends to be less than Real Real, which can account for up to 50%, although Real Real operates on sliding scale based on the original resale value of the item and the seller's net sales, so it's also likely to account for only 15%. If a product sold through the eBay certification program proves to be counterfeit, eBay will also pay the customer double the fee.
"I think some sellers are a little hesitant right now," Chambers said. "They need to have this confidence to sell with us." Chambers added that as competition intensifies, the company's previous non-interference attitude is no longer sustainable. “The certification program is a great example of how we are getting more involved,” she said. “From the perspective of how we want to participate in the transaction now, it represents a shift for us.”
eBay intends to enter the luxury market beyond the certification. Brands such as Adidas, Calvin Klein, Puma, Vera Bradley and Vince Camuto have opened official stores on eBay for years, although these stores are very difficult to find, said Hansen, vice president of sales. Now, eBay is discussing with several high-end fashion companies that they also sell directly on eBay (they are currently denied to name them). The company knows that getting a luxury brand could have a significant impact on its reputation as an online retailer.
There is no doubt that establishing such a partnership will be a shock to Amazon. Although both eBay and Amazon have sold counterfeits in the past, Amazon has not easily attracted luxury companies to sell directly on Amazon fashion. Chambers said the new certification program will show luxury companies that eBay is committed to supporting companies on the website and is committed to authenticity. Meanwhile, eBay has been looking for some kind of hidden avenue. Last year, it announced a partnership with fashion startup Spring, which has established direct partnerships with about 1,500 brands including Gucci, Prada and Saint Laurent.
4,
This is the standard for Silicon Valley giants to pursue each other's innovations, and even openly "tear" each other. Facebook is always behind Snapchat. Apple keeps imitating Samsung and vice versa, Apple and Google have settled lawsuits for patents and poaching employees. (Steve Jobs likes to quote the famous Picasso's quote: "Good artists copy, great artists steal.) The difference is that most of these competitive measures occur in a short period of time, possibly several months or a year. However, eBay has been lagging behind for many years and is only now trying to keep up with the times. Even if it can do this, what happens next?
eBay has gained a foothold in the resale market — according to research firm Fung Global Retail Technology, the industry is growing 20 times faster than the retail industry, and could reach $33 billion by 2021. Industry research also found that younger shoppers are accepting second-hand shopping faster than Generation X or Baby Boomers. Perhaps eBay's energy is best spent leveraging its long-standing reputation and innovation in this field. Competing with Amazon on the "new" end of the retail space is futile, but they can credibly withstand threats from startups like Real and Poshmark. Many people still believe eBay is the best choice for buying antique treasures, so why not grab it? However, the company’s goal is to move in another direction, emphasizing the shiny new products offered by sellers.
"When you start to realize that people only treat you as an auction or second-hand item market, you have to go to the other side and highlight the relevant characteristics," said Chief Marketing Officer Suzy Dilling. "You have to say, 'Hey, we are modern people, by the way, we have so many cool things. We still have power, we still have speeds that are completely unmatched. The difference is that we have to make sure people are shopping in order to take us into consideration. This is the biggest challenge."
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title picture comes from the original
Nearly half of all products sold by Amazon today come from Marketplace, which sells about 2 billion items each year and sells about $132 billion in sales, according to e-commerce consulting firm ChannelAdvisor.Of course, eBay has also grown. The site currently has over 20 million sellers around the world. It also launched new ways to shop, including the fixed-price buy-on-now feature launched in 2002. But the company has devoted most of its energy to diversified operations through large acquisitions—in 2002, PayPal for $1.5 billion, in 2004, 25% of Craigslist shares for about $15 million, Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, and StubHub for $310 million in 2007. Each acquisition gives eBay a new relevance and cash flow, but it finds that it has allocated a lot of resources and manpower to these businesses, with its flagship website largely unaffected. Devin Wenig, CEO of
eBay, publicly stated that the company is not interested in confronting Amazon. As Amazon continues to rethink what it means to be an online shopping site by launching a variety of services, gadgets, private labels and brick-and-mortar stores, eBay is committed to keeping its path as a digital marketplace, despite record sales in Amazon’s market. Sellers flock to Amazon; according to a Marketplace Plus study, more than 1,000 new sellers join Amazon every day.
Some merchants still think eBay is a better option: Amazon takes more profits and has a variety of barriers to entry for sellers. But Amazon does offer merchants better deals in other ways. With Amazon's performance service launched in 2006, sellers have to pay a certain fee, and Amazon is responsible for the storage and transportation of goods and customer service. Choosing FBA can also allow merchants to access Amazon Prime members. eBay's strategy of not participating in inventory or logistics helps reduce company costs, but also reduces its attractiveness to sellers.
"The FBA program is extremely unique compared to any other market," a Seeking Alpha investor wrote last year. "No other markets (eBay, Walmart , Best Buy , etc.) will fulfill orders on behalf of the seller. That's why these markets are not growing so fast."
In addition, there are a large number of resale startups that have made their debut, all of which have been supported by venture capital, helping the resale market grow to $18 billion. The value proposition of RealReal, launched 6 years ago, is that it needs a more trustworthy eBay. Julie Wainwright, founder of the website, said that sellers in the luxury sector prefer Real compared to eBay because the company holds the seller's hands and strictly certifies the goods to remove any possible fakes.
"We do all the work!" said Wainwright. “We go to their house to get their stuff and take them back to one of our warehouses for processing, including inspection and certification, photography, copywriting, merchandise sales, pricing, sales and shipping.”
While eBay once known for its forums and message boards, another venture-backed resale startup, Poshmark, is popular for its community-oriented platform. This app is a social shopping destination where shoppers can review lists of items and interact with sellers. Poshmark also offers a limited-time event it calls “party,” in which sellers organize virtual showrooms by theme. About $4 million worth of inventory per day is listed on Poshmark; TechCrunch estimates that the company's revenue in 2017 is expected to reach $100 million, double last year.
has other competitors who are also grabbing market share, including Tradesy and ThredUp, which performs so well (20 million users and a $500 million valuation) that it can open physical stores when other companies close.
In the shadow of competitors of all sizes, eBay has been stagnant. Net income in 2016 was just under $9 billion, an objective figure, but has only risen slightly over the past five years. Analysts blame eBay's flaws on outdated technology and confusing user experience.
Editor's note: The once extremely brilliant e-commerce giant eBay is slowly fading out of people's vision, which is completely opposite to the limelight of Amazon . What exactly caused this situation? eBay is now in a period of change, what will it do? "RACKED" once published an article that deeply explores the current situation of eBay and its journey of change.
1.
In the summer of 2017, several huge billboards stood beside the highway in San Francisco , with the words: "Fill the car with color." Below, in the subway station in the city, there was a poster with the words "Don't shop like others, because you are different from others." On TV (including during the NBA Finals), there is also an advertising image of a brown box rolling off a warehouse drum conveyor, and the text on the screen reads: "When did shopping get so fast?"
These are eBay's masterpieces, and the auction site promises that you can deliver the second-hand items you have taken to your home as long as you bid to win the bid. For years, it has been placing its reputation on antique collections and bean cake babies. Its era came to an end, and eBay decided to release a statement in recent months: We are an interesting, exciting shopping destination—they raised this in a massive marketing campaign in the summer of 2017—not just selling vintage car mufflers and used silver tea sets, but also selling high-end accessories and a new generation of drones.
"We have to tell our stories differently because people's eyes are no longer the real us," said Suzy Deering, chief marketing officer of eBay on an August afternoon.
Before joining eBay two years ago, Dilling worked for Disney and Verizon. She knows how big brands do marketing, but eBay completely reverses her idea. “They think we’re just a second-hand auction site,” she continued. “They don’t think of all the progress we’ve made, so we have to show them a modern eBay, an eBay that looks and acts differently.” She said it more clearly: “We have everything that many brands want, but we lack the heart and soul.”
At eBay’s San Jose headquarters,
One of the things that many brands want is scale: eBay is huge. It has 171 million users and has 1.1 billion product listings at any time. But it is no longer the only "player". It now faces competition from all over the world, most notably from eBay's biggest competitor, Amazon in the North; Brooklyn's craft giant Etsy; and venture-backed consignment sites such as Real and Poshmark. Deerling might talk about the company's progress, but the fact is that eBay is already far behind.
It is committed to maintaining an online marketplace—no more than a platform for buyers and sellers to interact—this status is hard to prove correct, as it has become less attractive to both users. It has not invested in warehousing and inventory; it has not yet launched a highly competitive logistics plan. It now needs to distinguish and improve itself, and then it must convey this information to the client.
Today, 88% of eBay are "buy now" items, which have nothing to do with eBay's auction function, and 81% of items for sale are brand new. For eBay, new items mean unopened and never used items; however, this statement is not clear, because most items still come from third-party sellers, not eBay itself. In fact, eBay has become a paradise for re-sale transactions, with users selling on-demand goods at exponentially high prices, which further makes people doubt the reputation of eBay.
eBay also believes it has the ability to attract millennials and Gen Z customers who have now basically overlooked the site. “Young clients have no misunderstandings about eBay, they have no misunderstandings,” Dilling said. “We simply don’t think about it.”
The company’s research found that young audiences want unique products and they are “looking for products that are not conducive to integration.”In this way, Deerling believes that eBay can have an impact on Amazon: "People feel that they have become anti-human because Amazon has become a habit, but it's not ourselves. If you like Converse, you come to our website and you can find versions of all colors and graffiti. Go to Amazon or department stores and you won't find these things."
As Jay Hanson, vice president of merchandise sales, said, our goal is to make customers think that eBay is the first shopping site they should visit, no matter what they want to buy. But can this once dominant company take the crown from Amazon? Or compete with startups that offer white glove services, a more accurate and easier to operate shopping experience? This may seem unlikely, but eBay decided to give it a try.
2,
Amazon and eBay have always been closely linked. Software engineer Pierre Omidyar wrote code for AuctionWeb (the first name of eBay) that weekend of Labor Day in 1995. Just two months ago, Jeff Bezos launched Amazon in the garage of Seattle .
At the beginning, Amazon operated like a local bookstore, but it was just online. Customers can browse the website’s products and then buy what they want directly from Amazon. On the other hand, eBay is a user experience with users and will not be disturbed (or helped) by the company. It is a platform for buying and selling everything, from long forgotten quirky things you find in your grandmother’s loft to rare watches and Elvis souvenirs. Adam Cohen, author of Perfect Store: Inside eBay, said Omidia imagined his website as a utopia, “It’s a perfect market where anyone can have the opportunity to engage in business.” The initial popularity of
eBay stems from its novelty, not just merchandise, but also the auction system. An early user told CBS, “Sometimes I see something cool and I have to have it; I don’t need it, but I don’t get anyone to bid higher than me.” Instead of mediating disputes between buyers and sellers, Omidia enabled forums and message boards and could rate users and leave comments. eBay's social forum became one of its business cards.
Amazon's sales have long exceeded eBay. By 1998, Amazon's sales soared to $610 million. eBay's sales during the same period were US$47.4 million (eBay will expand internationally the following year). Despite this, many shoppers still think eBay is a more important e-commerce player because anyone can open a store and start a business, Cohen said. Sellers can even choose to sign up for a professional account and pay a monthly fee in exchange for the ability to list a large number of items. Amazon has been selling products in the past, but eBay provides users with an opportunity to spend and make money. “eBay monopolizes the field because it has a virtuous cycle,” Cohen said. "The buyer will go where the seller goes, and vice versa. It has the advantage of preemptive action."
The company filed for an IPO in 1998 after a sensational year. Omidia changed the name of the website from AuctionWeb to eBay, which hosted nearly 800,000 auctions per day, and transaction volume surged, partly because AOL's partners put eBay on their homepage. By 1999, eBay had revenues of $224.7 million, and Marketwatch called the company "unstoppable".
Amazon continues to invest in expensive and popular items like electronics, earning more than three times the revenue of eBay. In 1999, Time magazine listed Bezos as the cover character of the year and downgraded eBay to the magazine's article. In the same year, the Wall Street Journal criticized eBay as just a middleman between buyers and sellers, believing that this business model is unsustainable and, more importantly, "easy to copy." In November 2000, Amazon Marketplace was launched, a place where third-party sellers list new items or trade second-hand items.
Amazon Marketplace has seen significant growth over the past 17 years.Nearly half of all products sold by Amazon today come from Marketplace, which sells about 2 billion items each year and sells about $132 billion in sales, according to e-commerce consulting firm ChannelAdvisor.
Of course, eBay has also grown. The site currently has over 20 million sellers around the world. It also launched new ways to shop, including the fixed-price buy-on-now feature launched in 2002. But the company has devoted most of its energy to diversified operations through large acquisitions—in 2002, PayPal for $1.5 billion, in 2004, 25% of Craigslist shares for about $15 million, Skype for $2.6 billion in 2005, and StubHub for $310 million in 2007. Each acquisition gives eBay a new relevance and cash flow, but it finds that it has allocated a lot of resources and manpower to these businesses, with its flagship website largely unaffected. Devin Wenig, CEO of
eBay, publicly stated that the company is not interested in confronting Amazon. As Amazon continues to rethink what it means to be an online shopping site by launching a variety of services, gadgets, private labels and brick-and-mortar stores, eBay is committed to keeping its path as a digital marketplace, despite record sales in Amazon’s market. Sellers flock to Amazon; according to a Marketplace Plus study, more than 1,000 new sellers join Amazon every day.
Some merchants still think eBay is a better option: Amazon takes more profits and has a variety of barriers to entry for sellers. But Amazon does offer merchants better deals in other ways. With Amazon's performance service launched in 2006, sellers have to pay a certain fee, and Amazon is responsible for the storage and transportation of goods and customer service. Choosing FBA can also allow merchants to access Amazon Prime members. eBay's strategy of not participating in inventory or logistics helps reduce company costs, but also reduces its attractiveness to sellers.
"The FBA program is extremely unique compared to any other market," a Seeking Alpha investor wrote last year. "No other markets (eBay, Walmart , Best Buy , etc.) will fulfill orders on behalf of the seller. That's why these markets are not growing so fast."
In addition, there are a large number of resale startups that have made their debut, all of which have been supported by venture capital, helping the resale market grow to $18 billion. The value proposition of RealReal, launched 6 years ago, is that it needs a more trustworthy eBay. Julie Wainwright, founder of the website, said that sellers in the luxury sector prefer Real compared to eBay because the company holds the seller's hands and strictly certifies the goods to remove any possible fakes.
"We do all the work!" said Wainwright. “We go to their house to get their stuff and take them back to one of our warehouses for processing, including inspection and certification, photography, copywriting, merchandise sales, pricing, sales and shipping.”
While eBay once known for its forums and message boards, another venture-backed resale startup, Poshmark, is popular for its community-oriented platform. This app is a social shopping destination where shoppers can review lists of items and interact with sellers. Poshmark also offers a limited-time event it calls “party,” in which sellers organize virtual showrooms by theme. About $4 million worth of inventory per day is listed on Poshmark; TechCrunch estimates that the company's revenue in 2017 is expected to reach $100 million, double last year.
has other competitors who are also grabbing market share, including Tradesy and ThredUp, which performs so well (20 million users and a $500 million valuation) that it can open physical stores when other companies close.
In the shadow of competitors of all sizes, eBay has been stagnant. Net income in 2016 was just under $9 billion, an objective figure, but has only risen slightly over the past five years. Analysts blame eBay's flaws on outdated technology and confusing user experience.
"The eBay website hasn't really experienced drastic changes from the beginning, and if anything changes, it's subtle and not glamorous enough," said Sean Maharaj, director of global management consulting firm AArete. "In terms of customer interface and website, it is comparable to some other companies that are launching new digital strategies. It is not friendly and not easy to operate." One of the main promotional points of
eBay - it has 1.1 billion product lists - has also become a weakness for the company. Organizing these items is a difficult task, especially when the website's "Bone" has been around for decades. Greg Portell, a retail partner at a global strategy and management consulting firm A.T. Kearney, understands why eBay positions itself as an all-encompassing market rather than offering edited products.
"If you think of a successful retailer like t.j. Maxx or Marshall, you can justify it," Porter said. “People don’t know they’re very neat and they do it very well. I guess eBay emphasizes this attitude, not the clean, personalized experience you expect from a well-curated store. However, the problem with eBay is that they’re stuck in a hard-to-distinguish between space.”
3,
We’re on the verge of trend change, and it’s a big moment,” said Steve Yankovich, chief product designer of eBay. “We’ve done a lot of work to focus on trends because it’s a trillion dollar business that’s just beginning to penetrate. ”
Jankovic described his job as “somehow attracting customers to buy that product and saying ‘Great, buy it! '”. He said eBay has always had the advantage of “task shopping”—coming on the website to find a very specific item. eBay recognizes its shortcomings in the way it calls “browse, discover and inspire” shopping.
For years, eBay has been catching up. In a constant effort, it has begun organizing inventory by implementing structured data—through the process that listing some items on the website is uniform and consistent, rather than the kind of temporary releases that last few years. A related initiative by
is to stipulate that professional sellers must have a cleaner list of items, which in turn keeps the items out. More visible on search engines and makes the website itself easier to search. eBay now also groups products by product type and brand, for example, with a new, beautifully designed Coach handbag landing page. This winter, eBay CEO Devin Winniger told investors on a conference call that eBay has created 180 million login pages using this new data organization method. It is unclear whether these pages will help eBay attract customers — especially when it comes to the younger crowd its marketing campaign is designed to attract — but Winniger said they help reduce eBay churn.
This improvement is a strange boast for the company; on e-commerce sites, categories and brand login pages have long been standard pages. Jankovic admits that the structured data project is a huge project—after all, the site has 1.1 billion projects and cannot require sellers to rebuild old lists of items. It also cannot thoroughly overhaul its website, because it will undoubtedly confuse its 171 million users, many of whom have been using it for years. However, eBay promises that the website will soon be easier to navigate and personalization will come to an end.
, a personalization feature launched by the end of 2017, called "Related Topics". ”, where the homepage will show a list of other shoppers with similar search history that are concerned by, which is called collaborative filtering. For years, Amazon has been using the “customers who buy this product also buy” module. Another addition is the “interest” page, where eBay will add one or several of the 250 categories to the user’s homepage based on activities (yoga, baking, skiing), passion (dogs, collectible coins, Star Wars) and style (sports and leisure, avant-garde, minimalism). This is a machine learning algorithm called clustering, which companies such as Spotify, Netflix, and Twitter are already using.
In September 2017, eBay launched a heart-shaped button that puts products, brands and sellers on their wish lists. The move brings eBay closer to social networks such as Instagram and Facebook, which have become popular markets themselves, although the wishlist feature has long been available on countless e-commerce sites. Earlier this summer, eBay also added a visual search tool where shoppers can capture photos of what they see in the world, or upload photos they find online to a website, and then find these items or things similar to them on eBay. Pinterest launched a similar tool in 2015.
Earlier this year, eBay announced 3-day free shipping on 20 million items, and price matches with Best Buy, Walmart and Amazon. Amazon has long been “monopolizing” customers’ purchasing rules with fast, free delivery, not to mention its proprietary algorithm that essentially acts as a price manager. The biggest change in
eBay is probably the luxury verification program it is now launching. The program, called eBay Authenticate, is accepting handbags for at least $500 from 12 different brands (Real Real has certified over 100 designers). Sellers using the program — which will eventually expand to jewelry and watches and will include other designers — will be able to ship luxury goods to warehouses. There, a team from a third-party company (not disclosed by eBay) will authenticate the product, take photos, and complete the listing for sellers. Laura Chambers, eBay’s vice president of consumer sales, added that eBay’s new service will include quality shipping packaging, including certification documents; each verified item will also add a special icon to the website’s list.
eBay charges a 20% commission on this service. This tends to be less than Real Real, which can account for up to 50%, although Real Real operates on sliding scale based on the original resale value of the item and the seller's net sales, so it's also likely to account for only 15%. If a product sold through the eBay certification program proves to be counterfeit, eBay will also pay the customer double the fee.
"I think some sellers are a little hesitant right now," Chambers said. "They need to have this confidence to sell with us." Chambers added that as competition intensifies, the company's previous non-interference attitude is no longer sustainable. “The certification program is a great example of how we are getting more involved,” she said. “From the perspective of how we want to participate in the transaction now, it represents a shift for us.”
eBay intends to enter the luxury market beyond the certification. Brands such as Adidas, Calvin Klein, Puma, Vera Bradley and Vince Camuto have opened official stores on eBay for years, although these stores are very difficult to find, said Hansen, vice president of sales. Now, eBay is discussing with several high-end fashion companies that they also sell directly on eBay (they are currently denied to name them). The company knows that getting a luxury brand could have a significant impact on its reputation as an online retailer.
There is no doubt that establishing such a partnership will be a shock to Amazon. Although both eBay and Amazon have sold counterfeits in the past, Amazon has not easily attracted luxury companies to sell directly on Amazon fashion. Chambers said the new certification program will show luxury companies that eBay is committed to supporting companies on the website and is committed to authenticity. Meanwhile, eBay has been looking for some kind of hidden avenue. Last year, it announced a partnership with fashion startup Spring, which has established direct partnerships with about 1,500 brands including Gucci, Prada and Saint Laurent.
4,
This is the standard for Silicon Valley giants to pursue each other's innovations, and even openly "tear" each other. Facebook is always behind Snapchat. Apple keeps imitating Samsung and vice versa, Apple and Google have settled lawsuits for patents and poaching employees. (Steve Jobs likes to quote the famous Picasso's quote: "Good artists copy, great artists steal.) The difference is that most of these competitive measures occur in a short period of time, possibly several months or a year. However, eBay has been lagging behind for many years and is only now trying to keep up with the times. Even if it can do this, what happens next?
eBay has gained a foothold in the resale market — according to research firm Fung Global Retail Technology, the industry is growing 20 times faster than the retail industry, and could reach $33 billion by 2021. Industry research also found that younger shoppers are accepting second-hand shopping faster than Generation X or Baby Boomers. Perhaps eBay's energy is best spent leveraging its long-standing reputation and innovation in this field. Competing with Amazon on the "new" end of the retail space is futile, but they can credibly withstand threats from startups like Real and Poshmark. Many people still believe eBay is the best choice for buying antique treasures, so why not grab it? However, the company’s goal is to move in another direction, emphasizing the shiny new products offered by sellers.
"When you start to realize that people only treat you as an auction or second-hand item market, you have to go to the other side and highlight the relevant characteristics," said Chief Marketing Officer Suzy Dilling. "You have to say, 'Hey, we are modern people, by the way, we have so many cool things. We still have power, we still have speeds that are completely unmatched. The difference is that we have to make sure people are shopping in order to take us into consideration. This is the biggest challenge."
translator: chiming, produced by 36Kr compiler. Editor: Hao Pengcheng
Translation address: http://36kr.com/p/5130886.html
This article is authorized by @ Hao Pengcheng and is published on Everyone is a product manager. Reproduction is prohibited without the author's permission.
title picture comes from the original
In September 2017, eBay launched a heart-shaped button that puts products, brands and sellers on their wish lists. The move brings eBay closer to social networks such as Instagram and Facebook, which have become popular markets themselves, although the wishlist feature has long been available on countless e-commerce sites. Earlier this summer, eBay also added a visual search tool where shoppers can capture photos of what they see in the world, or upload photos they find online to a website, and then find these items or things similar to them on eBay. Pinterest launched a similar tool in 2015.
Earlier this year, eBay announced 3-day free shipping on 20 million items, and price matches with Best Buy, Walmart and Amazon. Amazon has long been “monopolizing” customers’ purchasing rules with fast, free delivery, not to mention its proprietary algorithm that essentially acts as a price manager. The biggest change in
eBay is probably the luxury verification program it is now launching. The program, called eBay Authenticate, is accepting handbags for at least $500 from 12 different brands (Real Real has certified over 100 designers). Sellers using the program — which will eventually expand to jewelry and watches and will include other designers — will be able to ship luxury goods to warehouses. There, a team from a third-party company (not disclosed by eBay) will authenticate the product, take photos, and complete the listing for sellers. Laura Chambers, eBay’s vice president of consumer sales, added that eBay’s new service will include quality shipping packaging, including certification documents; each verified item will also add a special icon to the website’s list.
eBay charges a 20% commission on this service. This tends to be less than Real Real, which can account for up to 50%, although Real Real operates on sliding scale based on the original resale value of the item and the seller's net sales, so it's also likely to account for only 15%. If a product sold through the eBay certification program proves to be counterfeit, eBay will also pay the customer double the fee.
"I think some sellers are a little hesitant right now," Chambers said. "They need to have this confidence to sell with us." Chambers added that as competition intensifies, the company's previous non-interference attitude is no longer sustainable. “The certification program is a great example of how we are getting more involved,” she said. “From the perspective of how we want to participate in the transaction now, it represents a shift for us.”
eBay intends to enter the luxury market beyond the certification. Brands such as Adidas, Calvin Klein, Puma, Vera Bradley and Vince Camuto have opened official stores on eBay for years, although these stores are very difficult to find, said Hansen, vice president of sales. Now, eBay is discussing with several high-end fashion companies that they also sell directly on eBay (they are currently denied to name them). The company knows that getting a luxury brand could have a significant impact on its reputation as an online retailer.
There is no doubt that establishing such a partnership will be a shock to Amazon. Although both eBay and Amazon have sold counterfeits in the past, Amazon has not easily attracted luxury companies to sell directly on Amazon fashion. Chambers said the new certification program will show luxury companies that eBay is committed to supporting companies on the website and is committed to authenticity. Meanwhile, eBay has been looking for some kind of hidden avenue. Last year, it announced a partnership with fashion startup Spring, which has established direct partnerships with about 1,500 brands including Gucci, Prada and Saint Laurent.
4,
This is the standard for Silicon Valley giants to pursue each other's innovations, and even openly "tear" each other. Facebook is always behind Snapchat. Apple keeps imitating Samsung and vice versa, Apple and Google have settled lawsuits for patents and poaching employees. (Steve Jobs likes to quote the famous Picasso's quote: "Good artists copy, great artists steal.) The difference is that most of these competitive measures occur in a short period of time, possibly several months or a year. However, eBay has been lagging behind for many years and is only now trying to keep up with the times. Even if it can do this, what happens next?
eBay has gained a foothold in the resale market — according to research firm Fung Global Retail Technology, the industry is growing 20 times faster than the retail industry, and could reach $33 billion by 2021. Industry research also found that younger shoppers are accepting second-hand shopping faster than Generation X or Baby Boomers. Perhaps eBay's energy is best spent leveraging its long-standing reputation and innovation in this field. Competing with Amazon on the "new" end of the retail space is futile, but they can credibly withstand threats from startups like Real and Poshmark. Many people still believe eBay is the best choice for buying antique treasures, so why not grab it? However, the company’s goal is to move in another direction, emphasizing the shiny new products offered by sellers.
"When you start to realize that people only treat you as an auction or second-hand item market, you have to go to the other side and highlight the relevant characteristics," said Chief Marketing Officer Suzy Dilling. "You have to say, 'Hey, we are modern people, by the way, we have so many cool things. We still have power, we still have speeds that are completely unmatched. The difference is that we have to make sure people are shopping in order to take us into consideration. This is the biggest challenge."
translator: chiming, produced by 36Kr compiler. Editor: Hao Pengcheng
Translation address: http://36kr.com/p/5130886.html
This article is authorized by @ Hao Pengcheng and is published on Everyone is a product manager. Reproduction is prohibited without the author's permission.
title picture comes from the original
