eBay

rose-dee · ‎06-19-2015

Well, I suppose it was inevitable. Take a look at what I found today on Pinterest (I'll have to insert it in the post below, as I can't seem to do it on this message).

In a recent eCommerce Bytes article, eBay executives were reported to have said that the company wants to focus on alternate marketing routes (meaning social media, etc., i.e. anything but Google) as a means of boosting exposure. After seeing this Pinterest announcement today, I'd say eBay had better hurry up or Pinterest will beat them to it (and do a better job, since they're already heavily linked with Facebook and other social media sites).

Depending upon how this feature is rolled out, it could be good or bad for eBay sellers. Good, in that it's another venue to take advantage of, but bad in that it will water down the already troubled eBay exposure. (Pinterest is presumably still in Google's good books).

What do you think?

sylviebee · ‎06-20-2015

I used to design and run experiments but this is really simple.

BTW: There is no point in considering items which no one wants even for a penny.

Take an "in-demand" item and create a listing.

Group A.

Then duplicate those listings exactly.

Group B.

Now vary one variable for Group B while making no changes to Group A.

If one group sells better than the other group, then one can conclude that the variable which was manipulated "caused" the difference.

If neither group sells then one should look further for the cause.

Start with price, and just for the sake of this "little hypothetical" experiment let's be extreme and set Group A at fair market value and Group B at 10% market value.

My prediction is that the lower priced items will sell , not only better, but in minutes.

If sales are slow because listings aren't coming up in the search (or whatever one's pet peeve of the moment), then they won't be coming up any search regardless of price.

mjw: no one is suggesting that you actually do this. It's hypothetical.

ricarmic · ‎06-20-2015

I think we tend to think of eBay like us, an entity that can see the "whole" picture.

My previous professional career was in systems management for large companies.

We have to remember that eBay is a large corporation. No "person" is making the decisions, there are probably a large number of project teams working on each of the "ideas" or "problems" or "opportunities" we discuss here. The senior management is taking input from these projects and balancing the reward against the cost and timing to figure out what gets worked on.

Generally the larger the company, the longer the time it takes for them to identify a problem, determine the response/action, prioritize it and implement it. Sometimes by the time that process has occurred, it is already too late!

For outages like the one being discussed in another thread, they will get jumped on more quickly depending on their impact but a similar process will happen, just faster based on the relative impact. As well, the "communications team", the ones writing the blurbs we read likely do not actually know what the actual problem was - "bob spilled his coffee on a network controller, which failed over to another controller that wasn't able to handle the load and slowed all the other controllers down to the point transactions started bouncing because one had an older upgrade version which took the image server intermittantly offline" is hard to put into understandable english and of course wouldn't paint a very good picture of the environment anyway. (In all honesty based on how very very complicated their infrastructure must be, I am very surprised that they are able to keep things as stable as they are - they must be running their system like the banks with dual environments - ie everything is happening identically on two separate systems instantaneously so that if one goes down, nobody notices)

Anyway, back to the main topic, my point really is that we need to hope that the "opportunities" project teams are identifying and properly recognizing the right things to move things forward.....and that the management team is properly prioritizing them too...... I have to believe the ebay staff participating in these boards do feed back stuff into the problems/issues/opportunity "process".... which is probably quite slow.....

Enough procrastinating, I'd better go back to "work"!!!!

momcqueen · ‎06-20-2015

You make a good point about teams.

My background is in media and communications, some of it politics. What I can bring to that conversation is that when stuff is hitting the fan, public response must be immediate and beyond reproach. Any organization that can't handle a crisis and handle it well is doomed to failure.

treasure.hunter.d · ‎06-20-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:

This isn't pinning. I believe that it's being able to directly buy what you have already pinned. There are a thousand third-party 'shopper' websites out there that cull active listings from online stores so that you can 'comparison' shop. I am assuming this is Pinterest's answer to that. My assumption here again is that they would take a cut. Yes? No?

That is correct..."Buyable Pins" means that you can purchase the item without ever leaving Pinterest. The gateway between Shopify and Pinterest is just handling the payment end of things so that can be all taken care of without the buyer leaving Pinterest. So basically, you have an item in your Shopify store, you then "Pin" it to Pinterest and someone sees it, click "Buy" or whatever the button says and Bob's your uncle, they purchase without ever leaving Pinterest. It cuts out a couple of steps that are involved now thus making it easier for the buyer I guess.

Cheers,

thD

rose-dee · ‎06-22-2015

@treasure.hunter.d wrote:
"Buyable Pins" means that you can purchase the item without ever leaving Pinterest. The gateway between Shopify and Pinterest is just handling the payment end of things so that can be all taken care of without the buyer leaving Pinterest. So basically, you have an item in your Shopify store, you then "Pin" it to Pinterest and someone sees it, click "Buy" or whatever the button says and Bob's your uncle, they purchase without ever leaving Pinterest. It cuts out a couple of steps that are involved now thus making it easier for the buyer I guess.

Yes, I thought this is how they must be organizing it. Perhaps it's already in place in the U.S. but not in Canada, which is why I saw the "coming soon" announcement I posted above?

They've seen an opportunity and grabbed it. I presume Pinterest will somehow be getting a cut of the action -- perhaps a percentage for every sale made via Pinterest? Otherwise I can't see why they'd clutter up their site with millions of goods for sale.

Once this fully takes off, I can imagine Pinterest will no longer just be a place to share interesting things, but will get bombarded by every Tom, Dick and Harry who has something to sell, whether unique and interesting or not.

sylviebee · ‎06-22-2015

There are so many potential problems with this ............ really nothing to worry about.

pjcdn2005 · ‎06-22-2015

Once this fully takes off, I can imagine Pinterest will no longer just be a place to share interesting things, but will get bombarded by every Tom, Dick and Harry who has something to sell, whether unique and interesting or not.

It's unlikely that every Tom, Dick or Harry is going to set up a Shopify store and pay a minimum of $29/month in order to sell on Pinterest.

rose-dee · ‎06-22-2015

@sylviebee wrote:
There are so many potential problems with this ............ really nothing to worry about.

I don't see any potential problems, other than the usual non-payers (which every online selling venue has to deal with).

What I do see is that Pinterest, knowing it already had a dedicated worldwide user base, recognized an opportunity to enable them to cash in on a relationship with Shopify. It's a very clever business move, in my opinion.

Which does beg the question: where was eBay? I would have thought this kind of business deal would be right up their alley.

momcqueen · ‎06-22-2015

rose-dee wrote:

......Which does beg the question: where was eBay? I would have thought this kind of business deal would be right up their alley.

They created ebay's Collections instead. Cue the confetti.

rose-dee · ‎06-22-2015

@pjcdn2005 wrote:

It's unlikely that every Tom, Dick or Harry is going to set up a Shopify store and pay a minimum of $29/month in order to sell on Pinterest.

Maybe not everyone, but all those Toms, Dicks and Harrys who already have a Shopify store, or who are considering it, will now have even more reason to justify the monthly fee -- it's called exposure,and I think Pinterest is going to give eBay (and Etsy for that matter) a run for its money in the vintage, unique, OOAK, designer, collectible and art/artisan areas.

pjcdn2005 · ‎06-22-2015

@mjwl2006 wrote:
@rose-dee wrote:

......Which does beg the question: where was eBay? I would have thought this kind of business deal would be right up their alley.

They created ebay's Collections instead. Cue the confetti.

At one time if you clicked on an item in pinterest that was sold on ebay it would take you to ebay so that you can purchase the item. Is that not possible anymore? That doesn't seem all that different from what Shopify is doing although making an purchase would involve some extra steps.

sylviebee · ‎06-22-2015

If you pin an eBay item and someone clicks on it, it takes you to the proper eBay category but not the item itself.

If you pin an item from elsewhere it takes you right to the item and if the item was sold it takes you to the seller's store.

There is no point to adding a third party to the mix to take a cut.

My items get pinned and re-pinned every day and sometimes several times a day.

I doubt it helps sales.

There are too many problems with the concept to worry about it.

For example: Most of the items pinned have sold or no longer exist in their original location. The pins seem to be forever until taken down by the "pinner."

People just like to collect pretty pictures.

momcqueen · ‎06-22-2015

pjcdn2005 wrote:
..... At one time if you clicked on an item in pinterest that was sold on ebay it would take you to ebay so that you can purchase the item. Is that not possible anymore? That doesn't seem all that different from what Shopify is doing although making an purchase would involve some extra steps.

I'm under the impression that you can still do that. The pin icon is at the top right-hand of every listing along with Facebook, twitter and email. Ebay probably saw the writing on the wall with Buyable Pins and decided to not share a cut of the pie with pinterest, hoping that people would stop 'pinning' on pinterest and start 'collecting' on ebay. ebay uk does a lovely job selling their homepage with a pinterest kind of vibe. But it's assuming you go to ebay first for inspiration. Maybe they do in the UK.

Oh wait, sylviebee explained it in detail while I was writing my original reply. Makes sense.

pjcdn2005 · ‎06-22-2015

Thank you for the explanation. I rarely go on pinterest but the last time I was there I'm sure that I could move around without having to open an account. It looks like that has changed now. I also used to see a lot of google results for pinterest pictures but I haven't noticed that happening in quite a while.

treasure.hunter.d · ‎06-22-2015

@rose-dee wrote:
Maybe not everyone, but all those Toms, Dicks and Harrys who already have a Shopify store, or who are considering it, will now have even more reason to justify the monthly fee -- it's called exposure,and I think Pinterest is going to give eBay (and Etsy for that matter) a run for its money in the vintage, unique, OOAK, designer, collectible and art/artisan areas.

Agreed.

I'm certain that the way forward, for me anyway, is my own site but I am stuck at how to finance the advertsing. Any sort of effective campaign whatsoever is going to run at least $250/month. The good news is that for $250/month, if you can swing that affordably, there are a couple hosts with crack SEO teams that will manage your ad campaigns for you. It's a little frightening though taking that first leap to see how fast that $250/month ad campaign will start returning profitable traffic.

thD

sylviebee · ‎06-22-2015

I have to revise my post about how Pinterest works.

It seems they're making changes to it very quickly and it no longer goes directly to my other items either.

I guess they're getting ready to charge for something that was free until now.

Probably the end of pinterest and not the beginning of anything special.

pjcdn2005 · ‎06-22-2015

Interesting and that's too bad. I don't know though if it will be the end of pinterest because I don't think that most people go there to buy things anyway.

rose-dee · ‎06-24-2015

@sylviebee wrote:
"If you pin an eBay item and someone clicks on it, it takes you to the proper eBay category but not the item itself.
If you pin an item from elsewhere it takes you right to the item and if the item was sold it takes you to the seller's store."

This hasn't been what I've seen, and I've been using Pinterest as a marketing tool for quite some time. The way it works in my experience is this: In eBay, I click on the "Pinterest" icon on one of my eBay listings. This posts the item on Pinterest, which displays (below the picture) the words: "Found on eBay" (with a tiny eBay logo). When someone clicks on that link ("Found on eBay") under the photo on Pinterest, they're taken directly to my eBay listing.

Interestingly, I've noticed that Pinterest even keeps track of when an item is sold out by showing "Out of Stock" under the photo on Pinterest. However, if you click on the photo in Pinterest, you're still taken directly to the eBay listing, where you're shown other items available from the same seller.

I've never had a pinned eBay listing take me back to a category page or any page other than the eBay listing itself, but it may be possible that if the eBay listing is pinned through another site and then pinned to Pinterest, this could be the case.

"There is no point to adding a third party to the mix to take a cut."

Actually I think it's a fairly brilliant business move of Pinterest to link up with Shopify. No doubt both companies will make money from the scheme. The reason it will work is because Pinterest already has a dedicated base -- they have millions of users worldwide who already have Boards full of things that get shared all over the place.

I think 'mjwl' was right in saying that eBay made a feeble attempt to emulate this with their "Collections" idea. The problem with that was that it looks like a copy-cat concept. Also, eBay sellers would probably soon realize that by adding any item(s) but their own to a Collection, they'd be providing free advertising to other sellers. Thirdly, in my opinion, eBay's "Collections" feature is just not that easy to get to or to set up.

"My items get pinned and re-pinned every day and sometimes several times a day."

I'm wondering how you know that your eBay items have been pinned? Is there a counter somewhere on eBay? I haven't been able to find it, but if there is, this would be very useful data to have.

"I doubt it helps sales."

I'd have to disagree. I think anything that can create more exposure and direct traffic to a seller's items can only be helpful in the long run. And I can see this recorded on Omniture -- there is regular traffic (albeit rather small) from Pinterest, but then I'm really just getting started with using Pinterest for that purpose.

"There are too many problems with the concept to worry about it.
For example: Most of the items pinned have sold or no longer exist in their original location. The pins seem to be forever until taken down by the "pinner."

It seems a workable and clever concept to me. Think of it from Pinterest's viewpoint: you've got all these bums in seats, as they say in the theatrical world, who paid nothing to attend -- why not make a profit from the already captive audience?

Keep in mind that the pins we currently see on Pinterest are not being directly offered for sale through Pinterest itself, so Pinterest has had no control over the original item. However, once Shopify sellers post pins as "buyable", I imagine Pinterest will have a way of retiring those pins once they've been purchased or are no longer available, mainly because they'll have some control over the process via their partnership with Shopify.

"People just like to collect pretty pictures."

And I think that's what Pinterest is counting on. It will be interesting to see how much sharing happens once the first "buyable" pins go online. My guess is that people will continue to want to collect pretty pictures, even if they are things for sale. Perhaps Pinterest/Shopify will have to place some restrictions on picture quality for buyable pins to keep them pretty enough, just as eBay has done.

rose-dee · ‎06-24-2015

pjcdn2005 wrote:

"I don't know though if it will be the end of pinterest because I don't think that most people go there to buy things anyway."

I think you're right -- at least up until now. Once "buyable" pins show up, it will change the tenor of the site. It will no longer be a unique place for people to share things (anything in the world) they find attractive or of interest, but will begin to look like just another commercial selling platform.

From that perspective, it may put off many of the traditional users. I'm not sure I'm personally very happy about the idea of direct selling from the Pinterest site, as much as I can admire their chutzpah from a business point of view. However, since commercializing of the internet is the trend, and Pinterest seems to have their little logo-links all over the internet, they'll doubtless keep attracting new users/customers.

It will be interesting to see if Pinterest keeps the "buyable" pins in a separate area of the site, or mixes them up with everything else. I still think they have the potential to give eBay a bit of a sick headache with this concept if they do things right. Which may, as I originally mentioned, mean another place that will help to dilute or divert the available eBay buyer traffic.

sylviebee · ‎06-24-2015

Rose:

1. The way I described that pinterest works for me was the way it worked yesterday. Tomorrow will likely be different and I know it was different a month ago.

2. Adding a third party to the mix will make them some easy fast money.. Kudos to them. Who can blame them for wanting to cash in on that? Not me. In fact, it was inevitable.

3. I know my pinterest items have been pinned and re-pinned because I get an email notifying me when it happens.

4. Exposure it not necessarily a good thing. There is a real problem with "over-exposure" for many of my items. Over-exposure has a very real negative aspect to it.

5. Most importantly: You are worrying about something that may never be a problem for you. Sellers are facing bigger challenges than pinterest will ever present.