Industry News, US-North America
eBay changes to help both large and small merchants
eBay has unveiled a series of changes to its core marketplaces business that are designed to help large vendors sell new goods in greater volumes.
The e-commerce giant said sellers that provide the highest level of customer service will earn a new "top-rated seller" status, receive a 20% discount on fees and be elevated in search results.
In a nod to many alienated small sellers, the company will give top-rated status to merchants who have very little negative feedback from buyers, even those who don't rank among the largest sellers on its online marketplace.
The San Jose-based company previously offered discounts and other perks only to the largest merchants.
Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which makes software that helps sellers ply their goods on eBay, said the bulk of the changes will help underpin eBay's ongoing shift away from auction sales toward bulk sales of fixed-price goods.
But by enabling small players to participate in its top-rated seller programme, eBay appears to trying to balance the needs of large and small sellers, many of whom have loudly complained about the company's shift in direction, he said.
"They are lowering the programme in terms of size but raised it in terms of quality. It seems like they are try to throw [small sellers] a bone," said Mr. Wingo.
eBay said it expects to immediately qualify 150,000 eBay Top-Rated Sellers in the US when the programme goes live in October 2009. Any seller with as few as 100 transactions a year and US$3,000 in annual sales volume can qualify based on buyer feedback.
eBay also said it will reveal the criteria it uses to determine which products are the "best match" for any given product search. That will give sellers a better sense of how to boost their rankings within search results.
The company's long list of changes includes doing away with features that sellers have used to dress up their listings, as well as streamlining communications between buyers and sellers, a step designed to ease the burden for volume sellers.
The changes are part of the company's continuing effort to overhaul its core marketplaces unit, which generates more than half of the company's US$8.5 billon in annual revenue. eBay's other key businesses include its PayPal online-payment business and Internet-telephony service Skype.
eBay, which established itself as a quirky online-auction site for used and antique items, has struggled to reinvent itself in the face of intensifying competition from rivals. For example, Amazon.com Inc. has continued to capture a greater share of the e-commerce market with a growing selection of fixed-price items and often free shipping.
In a bid to reverse the trend, eBay CEO John Donahoe told investors earlier this year that eBay will focus on establishing itself in the "secondary market" by serving as a platform for sellers offering fixed-price out-of-season and overstock items in bulk.
Date: 29.07.2009
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