Once again Scot Wingo has a very interesting revelation on his blog. Scot is the President and CEO of ChannelAdvisor, which provides large retailers and manufacturers with the tools and services they need to successfully utilize consumer marketplaces as a sales channel. Recently ChannelAdvisor received substantial funding from eBay; one of the main marketplaces they utilize.
Although InDemand will not please smaller sellers or those sellers whom eBay considers 'not good enough' to benefit, (regardless of what information they have on their dashboards) on the surface it could be a positive move to match retail supply with demand.
Positive:
eBay has been guarding their data for years and only trot carefully selected portions of it out when they think it will give them backing for the policy of the moment. Maybe someone in a position of power has finally realized that sellers can use data to offer stock that buyers are looking for. That is a radical concept which takes the first tiny baby step towards realization that eBay and sellers should not be locked into an eBay fomented adversarial position. Yes, unless eBay is going to Amazonize to the point of stocking and fulfilling orders themselves they do need sellers.
Negative:
- Virtually the same set of well connected high volume sellers of brand new goods will receive all the benefits of this program. *If they can qualify.*
- Everyone else is invisible, sheesh, just pay your fees and shut up!
- From what we know so far, InDemand will be gameable; if it is possible sellers will do it.
- In order to prevent gaming the system eBay may well make it effectively unusable
- eBay appears to be giving items their own set of eBay ID numbers, why? All this type of product already have ISBN numbers and SKUs.
The devil will be in the details
History has shown that eBay is capable of conceiving wonderful ideas. Implementing them in a usable manner is is a challenge that eBay has repeatedly failed.
*If you qualify for this program and sell the types of items that would benefit from it please satisfy my curiosity and leave a note in the comments section. After checking feedback for several excellent sellers who do not qualify, I am wondering if anybody qualifies.
Implementation of yet another elitist eBay program makes me want to turn into a socialist, or a vegetarian anarchist, or something. Maybe just staying an ex-eBay seller will be less stressful.
Y'all come back!
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5 comments:
We'll probably see the qualificatios modified (lowered) as the Data Kidz realize, once again, that their highly crunched requirements are challenged by reality.
Great minds think alike Mike, watch for shocking revelations (to me anyway) later this week. This program is beginning to look about as useful as t*ts on a boar hog.
Dude
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Quote: "Maybe someone in a position of power has finally realized that sellers can use data to offer stock that buyers are looking for."
Given that the latest policies of removing bidder information mean that a seller can no longer research what country the buyers for obscure items are bidding from, I doubt that Ebay gives a stuff about whether Ebay sellers can actually market their goods effectively. At the moment I am of the consideration that if Ebay were to currently launch a sellers campaign it would be "Lower your prices and sell blindly - it's all about our numbers not yours".
Cynically, Kevin
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