Your biggest ever competitor is coming to eBay UK

2/11/2009 at 06:00

Buy.com are coming to the UK, Germany and France with Italy and Spain to follow before the end of the year. They also intend to list on eBay in those countries.

For those unfamiliar with Buy.com in the US, they are a Top Rated Seller and have the best part of a million items currently listed on eBay. If they list in a similar fashion on eBay UK that represents a substantial increase in items for sale, dwarfing all of the current Diamond and Outlet sellers put together. Worse still, for those competing in categories where Buy.com will list, it’ll probably happen pretty much overnight.

Running the figures for Buy.com’s current eBay operation they’ve had 690,080 feedback in the last 12 months at 99.7%. DSRs are 4.9, 4.9, 4.8 and 4.9 and according to Terapeak they have listed 39,664,311 items in the last 90 days and sold 312,581, giving a 17.61% sell through rate. About a third of their listings and sales are generated from the books category.

In the last three months the cheapest item Buy.com have listed on eBay is a 62p ($0.99) book and the most expensive item sold was an £8,700.00 ($14,417.99) printer, with quite literally 39 million products in between.

Buy.com started selling in earnest on eBay in June 08 and since then have risen to be the 5th highest feedback seller worldwide – which considering the top 4 are all the same company in reality makes them the 2nd biggest eBay seller of all time.

We plan to replicate our successful online retailing model throughout the world. Like Buy.com’s U.S. roots, we’re introducing our core offerings in electronics first, but we plan to deliver robust product catalogs featuring a variety of categories and the same value-added services to our global customers.
- Neel Grover, President and CEO, Buy.com

Buy.com will headquarter it’s European Operations Center in Galway, Ireland and establish warehouses in the UK and other territories they operate in.

Whilst competition from high street retailers has beeen largely unwelcomed by current eBay sellers and often bred resentment at the perks they have been granted, Buy.com is in a totally different league. Buy.com are themselves a marketplace where merchants can list products, the effect of them listing on eBay wouldn’t be overly different to Amazon deciding to list their entire product set on the ‘Bay.

Without a doubt it’s time for sellers to re-assess their online strategy, and in particular the product sets they list on eBay. Where one retailer finds success others will surely follow. If your business relies on selling high street brands, your competition is growing and will continue to grow as the retailers themselves embrace online marketplaces.

Sellers who continue to succeed will be those who specialise and source unique inventory not normally found on the high street, but for many that’s a change in direction. It’s a certainty that the dynamics on eBay will continue to change and change has been about the only constant in the decade that eBay’s been in the UK.