Small Traditions LLC/SCANDAL UPDATE

[Lorewalker]

Originally Posted by BobC

The threat isn't necessarily that they take a large chunk of Ebay's business, the threat is that they are successful, which inspires more and more people and groups to think about taking things off Ebay. Ebay already has enough competition, and they aren't wilingly looking for more. They've been moving away from their auction format for quite a few years now. Talk has been they'd like to be more like Amazon for quite a while now with BIN listings seeming to outpace the auctions by 10X - 20X, at least for baseball cards. Will also be interesting to see if PWWC maintains an auction only strategy on their new platform, or also allow consignors to do BINs as well.

Don't forget, if PWCC can sell on their own platform they cut out Ebay fees. They can probably pass some portion of that fee reduction on as savings to their consignors/customers and lure away product from Ebay. And regardless of whether you like them or not, if PWCC can lure away the product, the buyers will follow. That could become a blueprint for other big Ebay sellers in different categories to possibly observe and mimic, a trend Ebay would not care to see start. Pure speculation though, but plausible.

I feel this is oversimplifying what it takes to move to your own platform. I doubt most sellers on eBay would want to take on the responsibility on maintaining what it takes to drive traffic to them while still being able to focus on their primary purpose of being in business. Going to take much more than being inspired. If it didn't then many sellers would have done it long ago. I am not defending eBay as a great venue or well run business but I doubt many sellers would have the ability to sustain their businesses without eBay.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Lorewalker

I feel this is oversimplifying what it takes to move to your own platform. I doubt most sellers on eBay would want to take on the responsibility on maintaining what it takes to drive traffic to them while still being able to focus on their primary purpose of being in business. Going to take much more than being inspired. If it didn't then many sellers would have done it long ago. I am not defending eBay as a great venue or well run business but I doubt many sellers would have the ability to sustain their businesses without eBay.

Oh, I'm not saying it is or would ever be easy, but if someone the size of PWCC could take a stab at it, who's to say they couldn't in the future branch out to other sales areas/categories as well, and slowly take away more and more business from Ebay. Don't we often see posts about how many people dislike Ebay and the latest thing they've done that no one wants or likes? So what if someone like PWCC sets up something that many see as similar to, but cheaper and better than Ebay? I could see them maybe adding more categories of items to be selling over time, and slowly start to take more and more business from Ebay. It is always a possibility, and one I wouldn't be surprised if Ebay took very seriously.