What eBay Express Means to Small Sellers

Posted by admin on May 26th, 2006

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or download your FREE eBay gift pack . Thanks for visiting!

A Review of eBay Express

eBay recently added a new feature called eBay Express to help buyers find new items faster. It looks like a neat marketplace for buying new items.

eBay expert Terry Gibbs explores eBay Express, and considers it’s effects on small eBay sellers.

How eBay Express Works for Buyers

From the main eBay Express page you can click on categories like Apparel & Accessories, Books, Computers & Networking, Consumer Electronics, Home & Garden, Jewelry & Watches, Sporting Goods, and others.

I clicked on Jewelry and Watches, and ended up on a page with links to subcategories like Watches, Rings, Necklaces & Pendants, and Bracelets.

Under necklaces, you get a list of styles, materials, stones and prices. It’s all about the products.

EBay Express is great for buyers who know exactly what they want, but what does it mean for sellers?

Before I answer that question, think about this. . .

I found 61,696 Pendants & Lockets listed on eBay Express. Let’s pick a subcategory at random like gold plated - that should fit my budget! There are only 992 gold plated ones listed.

Once on the gold plated only page, you get necklaces in no order I could see. Just gold plated necklaces priced from $1.00 to $3,855.00.

Sure you can orient the results by price or even search for features like birds or cats on the pendants, but there is no way a seller can stand out except by price.

To confirm this, I also looked at iPods on eBay Express, and got the same result as the necklaces mentioned above. The buyer can select an iPod based on price, color and storage capacity.

It’s a buyer’s market. It’s not a seller’s market.

Whoever offers the lowest price gets the sale.

This means the low cost, low margin sellers will own eBay Express. Whether this will be Target, Wal-Mart, Sears, or another company, I don’t know, but it surely won’t be the guy with a wholesale list selling a few items out of his garage.

Something to think about.

Terry Gibbs is a very successful eBay powerseller and author of the acclaimed Auction Revolution.

[Post to Twitter] Tweet This