With some sellers seeking the greener pastures of their own web sites, eBay seeks to retain their presences.
First one’s free. That’s the offer from eBay for its ProStores Web Store service to sellers, as the online auctioneer opens its user conference, eBay Live!, today. ProStores will be offered for free for the first month for new users.
Yahoo and Amazon have both offered auction services for a while, neither with the impact of eBay on the marketplace yet. But both of those services provide options for online selling as well.
Yahoo’s stores, based on their purchase of ViaWeb several years ago, let sellers create a storefront easily. Now, eBay wants to emulate that success with an easily implemented storefront mechanism.
After the first month, four tiers of pricing will go into effect. Sellers would pay a total fee including a monthly subscription rate, a successful transaction’ fee, plus any services the seller chooses to add to their storefront.
Current eBay sellers receive a 30 percent discount off the monthly subscription fee following the free trial.
Optionally, sellers can purchase design and update services for their storefront. Also, sellers can purchase domain name registrations and Thawte SSL certificates via ProStores. Also, traffic generation services can be purchased to help bring buyers to a new store.
The traffic generation services may be purchased in a way that if a minimum number of users don’t visit a store, the seller would receive a refund. Another generation service for the top two tiers will see ProStores submit store categories to the major shopping engines, including Shopping.com, Shopzilla.com, Froogle, and Yahoo! Shopping.
Buy It Now
ProStores will be integrated with eBay’s PayPal service, to allow for online payment processing. Pricing for items can be tweaked so certain customer groups, such as those who are members of a loyalty program, can see better pricing than the general public.
In the wake of what eBay has admitted as less than effective communications, the company has made an effort to bolster its customer service efforts. Many sellers were furious at the off-hand way eBay communicated fee increases to them. The most recent fee increases took place in February.
And, according to sellers, the prices they’ve been receiving have been much lower on eBay than in other outlets. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise; assuming the vast majority of visitors to eBay have come there to find a bargain, or at least reasonable price, for an item isn’t much of a stretch.
While eBay has continued to grow, traffic to the US eBay site fell in the first quarter, the first time that has happened in a decade, according to the Wall Street Journal. It has seen significant growth in China, Korea, and the U.K.
David Utter is a staff writer for murdok covering technology and business. Email him here.
