Can eBay Win Back Sellers and Buyers?

Hi everybody

I just received an e-mail from WebProNews and among the several articles it brought, there was one that rose my attention. Here is an excerpt about an article written by Chris Crum and I think is worth to be read.

The title of the article is: Can eBay Win Back Sellers with a Shift in Focus?

As you already may know eBay lost sellers and buyers in about 15% last year and this is a big number considering it´s 69 millions of registered users in 27 countries around the world.

According to Christ: "The company had been going for more of the fixed-price Amazon approach. That didn't seem to be doing it for customers. According to a study from Compete, eBay’s traffic decreased 5.2% last month – compared to the previous year – while Amazon’s traffic rose 18.7% in the same period and Craigslist traffic rose 40% compared to the previous year".

"Other interesting findings from Compete's study include:- The percentage of eBay’s visitors who shopped at Amazon jumped from 41% in February 2008 to 53% last month- Over the same period, Amazon visitors’ cross-shopping of eBay has remained unchanged at 58%, suggesting eBay’s fixed-price strategy failed to attract significant numbers of new shoppers- In February, 11% of eBay’s visitors, or 7.8 million customers, made a Buy-it-Now purchase (up 20% from the previous year). However, gains in fixed-priced activity have been eclipsed by declines in eBay’s traditional auction business - In total, 1.5 million fewer shoppers placed a bid on eBay last month than did in February 2008"

In another article from BBC News eBay shows optimistic and they said "eBay, is going from strength to strength" it is estimated that eBay still owns the 85% share of the online auction market and the value of the company is now worth more than Gap and the Sears department store empire combined.

More info...