This runs LONG -- so delete or save for another day.
-koose.
====
** Imitators have tried to bring down eBay, but it will maintain its
dominance for years to come. When speaking of Google "chipping away," I was
referring specifically to its efforts to replicate Paypal using its own
software, not as a competing auction site. As it stands, the WSJ reports
that on a per transaction basis, Google's planned on-line payment system
will not compete effectively with Paypal.
** However, it does offer choice. It will be years before eBay will be
brought down. As much as we talk about the logic of niche sellers, the
greater body of online buyers still embrace the general store mentality of
commerce, diverging into specialty areas only when pricing is more
competitive, e.g., pet supplies, apparel, electronics and all manner of
goods and services, even, as in the case of Amazon.com for the first time --
groceries.
** For example, for the most part, I no longer purchase DVDs from
Amazon.com. The specialty online retailer, http://deepdiscountdvd.com beats
nearly every competitor -- every time, with few exceptions. Its stock is
not deep compared to Amazon.com's, however.
-------------
** Movieposterbid fulfills the eBay "alternative" -- but in fairness, the
jury is out on whether a buyer can get a cheaper price -- competing against
knowledgeable collectors -- vs. at eBay, where a buyer can go up against
millions of novices not recognizing a steal that's staring 'em in the face.
We already know MovieposterBid has a great advantage in condition
descriptions, dealer integrity and in lower fees for sellers. But buyers
don't care about fees unless THEY themselves have to pay 'em. They only
care when they turn into part-time sellers of a stray poster.
** The concept of online retailers (and auction sites) specializing in niche
goods and services represents a natural decentralization of commerce from
the hands of a few to the hands of many -- an attempt to dilute the
mega-store or mega-auction mentality -- taking a tiny slice of market share
from eBay. But for eBay, these are just paper cuts over many years. To the
extent economies of scale will allow, Deep Discount DVD.com remains my
retailer of choice to beat Amazon -- and it's where I'll always go to
purchase most of my DVDs. I won't go to eBay or anywhere else unless it's a
title so esoteric or out of print that it requires purchasing from specialty
retailers.
-------------
** I don't think there are very many areas of disagreement between JR and
mysefl. Movieposterbid serves a niche, but smart buyers will always
"comparison shop," as they would a car, esp. when it just takes a few clicks
to enter what you want in any retailer's search engine. To this extent, the
consumer should win on price (but may not win when it comes to reliability
or condition) -- while sellers are faced with continually smaller margins.
** Personally, unless one has access to a steady pipeline of desirable,
marketable and always in demand material (the Feiertags of the world) -- I
do not know how some of you dealers put bread on your tables. It seems
"most" of you (not all) -- must find it impossible to make a living without
supplementary income. Some of you people have it nailed. But unless a new
blood of collectors replenishes those who die off, how can one think in
terms of "forever" or even "at least in my lifetime?" We've discussed
previously why silent material or paper with only certain stars on certain
titles will move after many decades have passed. So you have to keep
reinventing yourself.
-------------
** Think back about the Hershenson model. Back in 1998, I wrote a
near-book-length non-fiction article about him in MCW, covering every manner
of controvery surrounding this man, who was believe it or not, far more
polarizing 10 years ago than he is today. He was nearing the end of his
auction house years at Christie's that came complete with preview showrooms.
He bet everything on the Internet. He did not sell his own material except
books with high quality poster images. He sold the inventories of others,
minimizing risk -- in exchange, he would market like hell and offer buyers
mountains of material with decent condition descriptions, no premiums and
outrageously low starting bids. He is "brand" in our little hobby. His
"overhead" is not in inventory -- it's in his warehouse, buildings,
employees, salaries and packing systems. We tend to forget what a risk this
seemed 10 years ago. It doesn't seem like that now, but it was.
-------------
** Now let me switch gears. Sue Heim is a beloved figure on these boards.
Here is a woman who has every advanced degree on the planet. She has an
awesome poster collection. She sells stray items here and there but she's
really not into it in a big time way. She has multiples of some of the
finest premium poster titles in the world locked in a vault. She goes into
the entertainment industry instead, tries out a few things here and there in
the production end of things -- but she finds herself learning about the
craftsmanship of making high-quality frames. She voraciously learns
everything about the subject.
** Today, her profit margins are slim per unit are slim, but her volume is
so tremendous that it enables her to sell competitively without sacrificing
quality to buyers. She reinvented herself many times and now this is what
she does. She's great at many things, but her revenue stream is museum
quality to economy quality frames. Nearly everybody on these boards is a
customer and it's not hard to see why. She is generous with her knowledge
because she knows there's a difference between having knowledge and skill.
She's not afraid to impart knowledge because the reliability factor and
peace of mind you get in return is worth more than gold. Because god knows,
if I tried to use a metal saw to cut my own frames with precision, I'd be
without a whole hand. The same with restorers.
-------------
** You guys can argue all you want about the $$ value merits of restored vs.
unrestored, but for some people, there will always be a preference for
restored even if it hurts value. Purists like things, fold lines showing
and all, even chips, but others don't. For them, presentation is
everything. If they do it with 18th century paintings at the Met in New
York, it can be done with anything, esp. for truly rare items.
-------------
** And now I circle back -- the world is a better place with eBay, despite
its faults, because it has become a tremendous information tool for
consumers. Buyers must always beware of shady sellers -- (and so must
sellers of shady buyers), but what a different world eBay has created for
buyers.
** Presently, the real estate industry with which I work, is debating the
merits of Zillow.com. Go visit it. It enables you to look up any address
and get a very, very rough value of the market values of any home. It may
never replace realtors, but it arms buyers and independent homeowners with
more information than they had previously. It may become the Kelly Blue
Book for homes, a guide, not a Bible -- if it gets better, more
sophisticated, more accurate.
** eBay spent millions to build their software -- became a pioneer and
survived the dot-com bust. I don't begrudge them gouging and raping and
pillaging or whatever -- because users do not have a gun to their heads
forcing them to using its site if they hate it. Perhaps eBay will hit a
ceiling like AOL -- perhaps not. Being publicly held, again, cause pressure
to "keep topping yourself." That's horrific and eventually a threshhold
will be reached whereby sellers AND buyers will just flat out REFUSE. And
that will be the day of reckoning, not ruin.
-------------
** AOL was brought down by competition -- but it took more than 15 years to
bring 'em down to earth. Netflix was laughed at by the Blockbusters of the
world and someday its "video" stores will a way to survive, or get gobbled
up. Many Evil Retail Empires have fallen. Their carcasses are everywhere,
e.g., Montgomery Ward, Robinson's/May, Woolworth's, many beloved
institutions. Sears will likely be next. Gateway, Packard Bell, etc. And
lookie here, Dell is still #1 in computer sales and you can't find too many
of 'em in stores. The battle continues between competing DVD recording
technologies. Someone is going to lose. Hewlett Packard got out of
computers and stayed alive by sticking to printers, a field dominated by
Xerox. It goes on and on.
-------------
** Finally, a personal note. Never has a Gilda Style B one-sheet poster
from 1946 EVER been offered by an independent seller at eBay. It may have
been offered by an auction house using eBay Live Auctions, but I doubt it.
This is the prize of my collection. If I were an investor, I would've gone
into horror, which seems to retain its value. But I'm a collector of movies
and material I like. I see horror titles offered year after year and they
still fetch great prices. But I don't see many Gilda Style Bs, even though
we know many more MUST exist than any one-sheet from Dracula or
Frankenstein. They seem to appear at major auction houses every 4 years or
so. Mine is on linen and it's not perfect, but it'll be a long time before
I see another without paper loss of any kind.
** People who know me know that I'm a Rita Hayworth nut. Perhaps less than
1/10th of 1% of today's population know or remember who she was, but her
beauty is timeless; Marilyn Monroe is legendary, not Rita. But unless you
were told in advance, if you looked at her famous pin-up photo in the August
1941 issue of Life Magazine, you'd have to guess what decade she had her
greatest success. Where did I get it? At an auction house. Not at eBay.
As Grey Smith proved, for premium material (like that odd Grand Hotel
one-sheet that a few of you crapped on), there will always be room to
compete against eBay. I still get a thrill looking at auction catalogs,
even though it's been a while since I've won anything I can brag about.
-------------
** Think of a world without eBay or the Internet. We can't and it's a moot
point. But if it were taken away, sellers would be using print ads again,
sending out photocopied catalogues to mailing lists, competing for a finite
number of people against other dealers.
** Yet we complain about eBay, because there seems no alternative reaching
so many millions. But there are always alternatives if you want discerning
buyers who hate eBay as much as you do as sellers. eBay earned its success.
** But for many, a line of morality was crossed long ago that feels greedy.
Now you feel eBay must be punished. They are the oil companies of the
Internet. Fine. I don't feel that way. Of course, I'm biased. I KNOW I'd
feel differently if I were a seller accustomed to eBay's "glory years" (when
it used to be called "Auction Web"). Well 1995-2000 were glory years for
eBay buyers too. You've come to hate what you used to have because you now
feel "locked in" as sellers.
-------------
** When I'm overseas, I see what people pay for a "liter" of gasoline or to
mail a letter with a better than average record of success. To me --
notwithstanding the horrible prices for gasoline we're paying today -- the
idea of paying 39 cents to have someone deliver a letter from California to
New Jersey still seems like a miracle AND a bargain.
** So consider again the higher fees eBay is now "punishing" you to use its
"stores." The innovators among you will find someway to compete or
"workaround" eBay. And that "workaround" could likely be Movieposterbid.
Run the numbers. Is there a model you can invent on your own that has never
been tried? Moreover, how much risk can you assume?
** Thank goodness I don't have to face such issues -- all the more reason I
admire all of you who keep doing this and are still surviving. This is why
I have a day job that's not near as fun. I don't have that kind of courage.
-koose.
----Original Message Follows----
From: JR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: JR <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
Subject: Re: FW: EBAY has a Skewed Self -Image!
Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2006 00:12:04 -0400
David,
Good points... except I don't see how a Google auction site is going to be
very much different from eBay in any significant way, so what's the point?
Breaking up a marketplace that is already declining into two mega-auctions
sites, when the auction business on eBay is already slipping? Where's the
growth potential? eBay practically invented the field, took it over and
mined it heavily and now the vein is playing out. It seems like there isn't
much left for Google, coming this late to the table. Google is not likely to
have any policies or fees on its auction site that are very different fro
eBay, are they? Won't it just be a "Me too" auction site, perhaps offering
slightly lower fees... which will cause eBay to lower its fees... so that
both companies make less and less? I don't see how Google can generate any
business that eBay is not already generating... all it can do is siphon off
a piece of the eBay pie (and as far as Wall Street is concerned, that pie is
already shrinking). How is that going to be good for either eBay or Google
-- at least as far as their market financials and stock prices go? How many
places does the world need where it can go to bid on refrigerator magnets?
In some areas competition can lead to real innovation, new products and
lower prices. But I don't think the mega-online-auction-website field is one
of those areas.
It still think the future of internet auctions lies with specialized sites
focusing on a specific collectible market, be it coins, comics, movie
posters, art prints, antique dolls or whatever. I think more and more that
the buyers with specific interests will come to appreciate auction sites
where all the crap is kept out, category integrity is maintained and they
can find stuff they are genuinely interested in much more quickly and
easily. There are now healthy specialized auction sites in all areas of
collecting, not just MPB, and they are all entering the 2nd or 3rd year of
operation and growing. Thinking of it in the terms we might have used before
the internet, if you're a movie poster collector looking to purchase some
nice new additions, would you go into the nearest Wal Mart Super Center, or
seek out a poster store?
The only reason so many movie posters sellers are on eBay now is because
eBay was first to exploit the idea of online auctions in a big way and so
that's where they all got started with online auctions and where for quite a
while the best market was. I think that will slowly change over time to
where the specialized auction site will become the more attractive venue for
both buyers and sellers.
By the way, I never saw any real reason for eBay to go public. They were
already bringing in more than enough money to fund operations and massive
expansion and pay hefty bonuses. It was simply a golden opportunity for the
founders and executives of eBay to become mega-Millionaires overnight and
was too good of a deal for them to pass up.
-- JR
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Kusumoto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 19:05
Subject: [MOPO] FW: EBAY has a Skewed Self -Image!
> ** What's puzzling is eBay has enough cash socked away that it no longer
> needs to be a publicly held company. Raising cash should no longer an
issue
> but its purchase of Skype increased its debt load and stil looks like a
risk
> to me.
>
> ** If eBay were NOT so beholden to stockholders and Wall Street, it could
> keep re-inventing itself without the pressure for non-stop quarterly
reports
> and the urge to continually announce short-term profits.
>
> ** Many public companies pay lip service to being in things for the "long
> haul," executing strategies under the umbrella of "maintaining growth"
over
> a 4-10 year time span, but it's a joke. Financial analysts -- many with
a
> vested interest in certain securities -- keep pushing for non-stop
returns
> at levels above the returns for money market funds. eBay's paper value
is
> linked to its stock price and people will cash in when they sense a peak.
> It has one of the most admired business models -- and buyers will
continue
> to use it -- but the peak is over. When a weakness is revealed, things
> tumble.
>
> ** Remember how eager people were to get in on the action when eBay it
> announced its first public stock offering? Institutional investors got
> first dibs, the first big chunk of shares, shutting out small investors.
> eBay will survive, but we remember the high flying days of AOL. Now the
> chiefs of AOL are finally pondering offering their service for FREE,
cutting
> their losses, hoping ad revenue will keep AOL profitable on a smaller
scale.
> That's where eBay could be heading if people really take "alternative
> sampling" seriously.
>
> ** Hence I admire Google and others trying to chip away. The only way
> things can get better is via free market competition. Buying Paypal was
a
> no brainer. But now Google is going to cut into that with its own online
> payment service, which eBay has already said it won't allow as a feature
in
> its auctions. eBay's purchase of Skype, meanwhile, looks (at least
today),
> as one of those hare-brained moves in desperate need of better marketing.
>
> ** I agree with Claude that the world is better with eBay than without
it,
> yet it doesn't preclude the real possibility that its dominance can be
> brought down quickly if it carries too much debt. Time Warner learned
the
> hard way that no business model is immune forever. AOL was the biggest
> disaster in Time Warner history. If AOL is unable to recover from the
> rampant cancellations of its service, it will go by the way of Prodigy
and
> others like it. An important but short-lived footnote in American
business
> history.
>
> -koose.
>
> ----Original Message Follows----
>
> From: channinglylethomson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: channinglylethomson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: MoPo-L@LISTSERV.AMERICAN.EDU
> Subject: EBAY has a Skewed Self -Image!
> Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2006 15:45:35 -0700
>
> EBAY may want to bring back auctions as the main focus of their business
but
> the reality is that, due to absurdly high auction listing and final sale
> fees on sellers, Paypal fees on sellers, and bored and spoilt buyers, the
> auction side of the equation is EFFECTIVELY DEAD. Maybe they can rub
some
> garlic on it and it will rise from the grave!
>
> Channing Thomson in San Francisco
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