Fashioning eBay’s future?
by Sue Bailey
I don’t seem to be able to escape the ads for eBay Outlet at the moment. Not only are they all over the site, and in my inbox, they’re following me to Waterloo tube station too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen eBay push one specific part of the site this hard – and as I had a long train journey to follow my spotting of this ad, I got to wondering why.
Clothes and shoes were the first things I sold on eBay, back more than a decade ago. And I wouldn’t go back there if the stock were free and there were no DSRs. I have serious admiration for those who can sell any kind of apparel on eBay, because personally, I just don’t have the patience to deal with all the emails saying “well I’m always a size 12 normally but I can’t squeeze my fat bottom into these jeans you’re selling and so that must be your fault”. 
By the time I closed down that Shop, I swore that I would never again sell clothes to anyone that they couldn’t try on before they bought.
Of course, if you’re a great big catalogue company selling off its returns and end-of-line, things are probably a bit different. eBay creates a new market for you that just doesn’t exist if you’re trying to sell those same goods instore: as one Outlet-owner said to me, “eBay’s made our end-of-line actually profitable”.
John Donahoe has said many times that the “secondary market” is where eBay sees its future. Clothes make sense: everyone needs them, so the market is huge. The “secondary market” itself is huge, because online clothes merchants always do have huge quantities of returned stock to shift. And perhaps most importantly, Amazon doesn’t yet seem to dominate this huge sector.
Amazon UK does have a “Clothes, Shoes and Watches
I’ve seen a lot of smaller sellers complaining bitterly about the preferential treatment being given to Fashion Outlets at the moment. I don’t have any good news for you: quite the contrary, I expect eBay to keep pushing these merchants, to push them harder and to add to them with any other big name retailers they can sign up. They will get better deals on fees than you get; they’ll get great leniancy on feedback than you get; they’ll get more promotion to more buyers than you could ever dream of. And they will kill off a lot of smaller sellers.
But for those who can survive it, who can diversify beyond eBay and yet still maintain an eBay presence, there’s an opportunity here. eBay is positioning itself as a destination site for fashion lovers. And some of that traffic will, inevitably, filter down from the Outlets to other clothing sellers. For those who can take advantage of that, there may yet be something to be gained from Fashion Outlets.
16 Responses on "Fashioning eBay’s future?"
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I would hardly call ex mail order return and overstocks. The pro clothing sellers on eBay laugh at this venture into fashion. I had a look at the mens suit offering from the so called fashion outlets and there are still none, in fact there are waistcoats there… Erm wrong category.
I agree with diversification. I have an amazon pro merchant account already and have not pushed it, together with my website. I started the process of change last week. I am also personally against the stupid % of item not as described for clothing… It’s not the same as selling a DVD? Also the new rating of buyer disputes is a bridge to far. I am a TRS and leading clothing seller. My sales are up on last year, and buyer satisfaction high. What I can’t and won’t accept is the fear of my business collapsing in 1 day from a small number of buyers, SOLEY due to the % margins of error that are forced onto the selling community.
JP, if one thing is clear, it’s that eBay don’t care what smaller fashion sellers think. That’s kinda my point. Sorry.
Let’s face it ebay HAVE to do something to entice the buyers back.
Ebay fashion ? John Donahoe is a dork.
eBay may be positioning theirselves as a destination site for Fashion, but I actually think it may be a little too late.
ASOS, which is renowned for the place to go for fashion are due to launch their fashion marketplace for large and small sellers.
Maybe this is why they are pushing this now!
I for one would (and will be) going to ASOS just because of their reputation, and I’m really excited they are doing this so I can put a nail in my own personal eBay coffin
Yes, VERY exciting to see what ASOS will be doing.
I know
Its the breath of fresh air fashion sellers have needed!
The best thing is its been really nice that one of the lead ASOS people in Marketplace has been asking potential sellers how we want it to work.
Nice to see a company asking for suggestions from its possible customers, rather than acting like a supreme being and steam rolling over them lol.
They have been talking about this for a while. Asos and amazon present a viable alternative to eBay for clothing. I will be watching asos very closely.
Fashion and “secondary market” don’t really mix. How do you get your cloths featured in Grazia if when people come to buy them they are no longer there? You have “Hot New Look” not “Hot last years look” (you can’t even get a retro buzz going on last years non sellers and returns).
It’s not “last year” – it’s end of season, or even earlier this season. Watch how La Redoute do business (it’s extremely instructive): everything is priced way up at the beginning of the season, and progressively comes down in price over the next six months. eBay sellers could seriously learn a LOT from them.
And obviously what’s in Grazia is beginning of season. What’s on Google ads, OTOH, is deep discount clearance, and boy does it work.
Clearing stock within the context of ever changing “new” lines is one thing but purely being an outlet for discontinued lines is rather different.
Deep discount clearance is a necessity (for some) not a strategy. It is something that retailers should try and avoid.
That advert was in the Guardian style mag on Sunday too
Four pages in Grazia.
Four?! Good grief. No, I will NOT buy Grazia just to see what they’ve done…
You can borrow my copy.
I BUY lots of clothes on eBay, I used the Grab a Bargain link on the homepage, select 2 categories within the section I’m interested in, jump through hoops to narrow the search (UK only /endeing soonest etc)and off I go.
Not this morning, the home page was just a massive fashion outlet, the bargain link had gone, when I eventually found my way to the auctions , let alone a genuine eBay shop, I could only select ONE category. So I need to go through the process twice tofind similar items. eBay could not have made it more dificult if they had tried. I, like many other buyers have no interest whatsoever in teir OUTLETS.
So if your sales are poor, the home page might be partially to blame