Back in the good old days (the 1990s), eBay was considered to be the most democratic institution online. The Web auction site leveled the playing field between large multinational corporations and small home-based mom-and-pop companies — everyone had a fair chance to hawk their goods on eBay, and potentially reach the same level of success.
In fact, eBay’s level playing field became so popular that scores of individual sellers soon began earning a full-time living using eBay’s online auction platform. But you know what they say about putting all your eggs in one basket…
Many eBay power sellers are now scrambling to diversify, or are leaving the site altogether because of policy changes that favor large retailers, and put the squeeze on small independent sellers. Over the past year, eBay has changed its pricing structure, the way the site handles search engine results, and it’s feedback system for buyers and sellers.
According to eBay company representatives, the changes are intended to create a more positive online shopping experience for customers, but several of the company’s biggest independent sellers online are furious over what they see as an attack on small retailers, and a clear bias toward large multinational sellers.
eBay’s recent addition of a “diamond power seller” category for merchants with the highest number of items for sale appears to have been created solely for Buy.com, which is now flooding the online auction site with low-priced items, and apparently squeezing out the listings of all but the biggest eBay sellers.
With the outrage over the policy changes growing, many eBay sellers are looking to jump ship and sell elsewhere online. But this is sometimes easier said than done: other online auction sites either do not have a substantial amount of traffic, will not accept embedded images with item descriptions, or lack other features that have made eBay the most popular auction site online.
Besides which, many eBay sellers have thousands of listings on the site at any given time. For a power seller to convert and re-upload 5000 or more auction listings to another site is a difficult and time-consuming task. Smaller eBay sellers working out of their homes would likely lose two to four weeks in sales just by making the switch over.
Companies such as Auctionanything.com have been the natural beneficiaries of eBay’s extreme policy changes over the past two years. Auctionanything provides technology that allows online sellers to “do it themselves,” instead of relying on eBay to handle the auction and sales process. Many former eBay sellers are now establishing their own retail web sites using Auctionanything’s software to re-create an eBay-like experience for customers — without the headaches of actually selling on eBay.
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