eBay Inc. (Nasdaq:EBAY) has long been the dominant player on the online auction front. The company has grown into a behemoth that rivals have virtually no success competing with. eBay has many times raised its fees and gotten away with it with very little problems, but is this time different? At the end of last month the company announced major changes to its fee structure, which makes selling on eBay much more expensive for the vast majority of its sellers. The outrage is widespread, and sellers have even banded together to plan a strike that began today and will last through February 25th.
Obviously the sellers are hoping that by striking they are able to negatively effect eBay's sales for the week and make the company consider changing its structure back to something more seller-friendly. Will this strike cause what the sellers are hoping? Will this be an opportunity for competitors?
I have found that the majority of time these types of strikes do far less damage to a major company's bottom line than the protestors are hoping for. The fact remains that eBay will certainly be the number one auction listing service online for the week because no one has been able to put a dent into their dominance.
Can competitors use this as an opportunity to finally make a wave in this market? It's possible, but it won't happen overnight. Amazon and Yahoo are the most likely to try to benefit from this sellers strike, but there are other smaller sites who will certainly try to take advantage as well. It is likely that some of the sites will run specific campaigns to try to entice disgruntled eBay sellers to try out their auction listings.
eBay has certainly ticked off a number of sellers and it will have to work hard to minimize the effects of this, but count me among those who isn't expecting the death of eBay anytime soon.
Comment Preview