Why Hasnt There Been a Dominant Competitor To Ebay?

[two3aight1]

Originally Posted by taerese

Aspkin would be ebay biggest competitor if it create its own auction site, give all members of this forum free stock (equity) to join and send or provide at least 50 contacts of pple who bought items from them on ebay, for email marketing.

Trust me, it will quickly go viral and can be an overnight success if everyone promote it at least once a week

to be honest i have thought the same thing! Think about it, we have what, hundrends maybe even thousands of ebay sellers here on this forum who ALL HATE EBAY...ALL WISH THERE WAS A SOLUTION lol

then u have aspkin.....greenbeen....and everyone else who knows all there is,was,and ever will be about all things ebay....lol seriously what would it take?

Millions of dollars sure but if everyone here dropped off ebay and went somewhere else from one day to the next that might at least spark some interest in a few rich investors...

im just saying all the big sites today started in some dorm room by a few kids with a dream...got a few investors interested and what do we have 10yrs later? Facebook, twitter, ect all these sites worth billions.....call me crazy but i think its possible...a longshot but possible. Dam near at least worth a try lol

I see people talking about aspkin in all 4 corners of the net...its worth talking about IMO

[jeffweico]

Many, MANY people have tried to create an eBay alternative, but to no avail. eBay had the advantage of being the first online auction site that would let ANY USER list items for auction. There were other auctions at the time, but they were being run by one company selling their items.

Over the years, Yahoo, Amazon, MSN, Lycos, Excite, Auctions.com and countless smaller operators have tried to create alternatives, but all have failed. To date, the most successful ones have been Etsy, iOffer and Bonanza and even THOSE sites have a fraction of the traffic that eBay does. For years, there were rumors that Google was going to offer auctions, but they have since publicly stated that they will NOT be entering the online auction business.

In order for anyone to pose a serious threat to eBay, they would need many millions of dollars to promote the site, not to mention they would have to offer a compelling reason for buyers and sellers to switch to their site.

Many popular websites allow some sellers to sell in their marketplaces, such as Sears and Newegg. But they vet their sellers pretty carefully, you cannot just log in and start selling whatever you want to.

[Kajunrook]

Dudes, Amazon went after EBAY and bombed. Amazon Auctions. They spent 100s of millions of dollars trying to make it work. If Jeff Bezos couldnt make it happen NO ONE ELSE has a snowball chance in Hell to make it work.

[Dmshark25]

To compete it would need to work almost instantly, which I don't even think would be possible for Any Business to be an instant success and not go through any growing pains

And that is why it would be so hard to compete with an already established Market place

A lot of sellers make there entire living online and it's their main income, so I wouldn't bother with a new Market place and waste time growing their business when it would mean me and my family would need to suffer so that we could make someone else rich

When eBay started any Marketplace at that time was new, so if you wanted to get into making money online you had no choice to go through a period where the business is growing

But now that it's established it will be just too hard to get sellers to sacrifice there time for nothing when they could put that time towards the already established Ebay

Maybe a Marketplace that the sellers all had a share of the entire business besides their own

Possibly something like that may work if a huge company like Google Started something , where the sellers are the owners of the site as well, but for me to sacrifice my time for someone else for no reason just makes no sense

[sdot10]

I was just saying this the other day, it makes no sense why there hasnt. The increasing fees the inability to make money, the limitations and hoops. I think if there was an alternative people would flock to it in no time. I think too much the alternatives are trying to hard to be like ebay as opposed to being better than ebay. I think there is too much emphasis on the buyer and not enough on the sellers. Buyers can say whatever they want and ebay/paypal just sides with them but the sellers are what makes the site. If people are selling people will come to the site because there is product. A site that focused on the sellers would be a HUGE hit.

[muzzie]

IT would take tens of millions of dollars to create an EB competitor. And noone knows if it would be profitable. Moreover, it would face the same problems that made the EB so evil - tons of frauds, scams, phakes, copyright claims, lawsuits and so on. A new payment system should be created as well, to support it, and it will be instantly hit by money laundering, CC frauds and so one. So, creation of a "virgin" EB clone is very tricky mission, for really big guys.

[rainmaker]

You need millions of investments to start a competitor for eBay.

[pokerpro]

None of the people with the kind of money it would take, know how badly eBay is disliked by their sellers........the right person could drop eBay in 30 days.......

[jeffweico]

Originally Posted by sdot10

I was just saying this the other day, it makes no sense why there hasnt. The increasing fees the inability to make money, the limitations and hoops. I think if there was an alternative people would flock to it in no time. I think too much the alternatives are trying to hard to be like ebay as opposed to being better than ebay. I think there is too much emphasis on the buyer and not enough on the sellers. Buyers can say whatever they want and ebay/paypal just sides with them but the sellers are what makes the site. If people are selling people will come to the site because there is product. A site that focused on the sellers would be a HUGE hit.

There is NO such thing as an inability to make money on eBay. There MAY be an inability for YOU to make money selling CERTAIN ITEMS. It all depends on what you are selling and how good you are at sourcing wholesale products.

eBay is STILL one of the best opportunities out there for the average person. Without trying to sound like a shill for eBay, here are some of the advantages:

• You can reach a wide market
• Startup costs are very low
• Your risk is limited since there is no lease to sign, nothing to build or remodel, etc.
• You can set your own hours
• There are MILLIONS of potential items you can sell

Where most people get discouraged is they want to sell things they know about: Electronics, DVD's, housewares, cooking gadgets, etc. But those categories are EXTREMELY COMPETITIVE and it would be very difficult for a newcomer to compete.

The key to being successful on eBay is RESEARCH, RESEARCH and MORE RESEARCH! You have to find a niche - one where there are a decent amount of sales but with limited competition. Get a few of those products going and bingo, you are in business!

Another thing that discourages people is they want to list one or two products, that can be found on the front page of Google when searching for "wholesale supplier" and when they don't find it in less than 60 minutes, they get discouraged.

Making money on eBay is not easy, but it is also not rocket science. It takes time and also a little bit of money. Too many people want to work 3 hours a day and make $100,000 per year. But that is not realistic. You have to be willing to invest time and money to make money.