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To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (123588)	4/12/2001 6:45:41 PM
From: Alomex	Respond to of 164684

Bezos quote of the day: Bezos contended one of the big myths about e-commerce is that only a few large online companies will remain. He said the company added an auctions category to help it build selection, not to outdo San Jose-based eBay. May 11, 2000, Seattle Times

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (123588)	4/12/2001 7:47:45 PM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 164684

SB, My experience on Ebay is recent. I have only tried using Ebay as an outlet for new jewelry for three weeks. The first thing I noticed was the number of people selling "New jewelry" on Ebay. Few if any are really jewelry retailers with stores. Most work out of their house, have access to one type of product and they list the "stuff" cheap to start. My initial negative reaction were question about my shipping fees. I was charging $9.00 for most items in addition to the final auction amount. The complaint was this was higher compared to the others on Ebay but these people would like to bid on my merchandise because it looked far prettier than the others. I tried to explain that everything I sell must be shipped Registered Insured mail, I box it in a velvet box, in in a packer for easy gift wrapping and finally in a shipping box. That did not seem to fly too well with many. For example, one person told me about them buying jewelry on-line from someone that charged $4.00 for shipping but this person placed the item in a padded envelope and shipped it first class mail. I was told the postage was 55 cents and he was making money on shipping so she would never buy from him again. The shipping is called shipping and handling and she clearly never thought this person's padded envelope cost him anything. It is wierd in that I have never had a "customer" complain prior to buying something. Anyhow, I am playing tiral and error by raising the bidprice and having no shipping fee to having a very low bid price with a higher shipping fee. The sell through is the same with either marketing tactic. The email complaints before people buy exist on either side. My point being is it it is impossible to satisfy all the potential buyers on Ebay. The next most common question is when I list a ring. The question is what size is it? We size our own rings and it can be any size the customer likes which clearly proves to me most other sellers are not really jewelers. My purpose for this experiment is to see if Ebay bidders will buy merchandise listed on-line that are not in auction format. Every listing I have on Ebay (there are 55 at the moment) has three links to my web site. My tracking software shows I receive a lot of page views through the Ebay listings but very few sales from the actual web site. I am concluding that an Ebay bidder is buying off Ebay as a form of entertainment or a hobby. They are not buying from Ebay for a decent selection or even price. It is an entertainment game of let's make a deal. Finally, at least for this point in time when there is no real reason to buy, the only winner is Ebay itself. Ebay wins big. The listing fees sound cheap as do their percentage take but I provided them with $1,000.00 in revenue in one month. There are some people on Ebay that do go there really to buy, understand what shipping and a nice box with a warranty is, etc. It is not the norm, however. I plan to try this experiment during the fall holiday season if I can make time and see if a different type of customer shows up. I do not know if this was of any interest to you but this is confirming that the web shopper will be more price sensitive than service sensitive in my opinion. Convenience is not the driving motive for on-line shopping. That is all I have learned so far LOL. By the way, sell through is good but profit going to my bottom line is not.