I have always viewed eBay and Amazon as unique. eBay has always seemed to have an identity crisis though. Why try to be Amazon?
Here is how I see Amazon:
– Logistics company (they own tons of warehouses and coming soon, trucks) – eBay has NONE of this
So I know Amazon have a lot more divisions (Kindle, eBooks, Music, Film, Prime, web services, cloud) and just to be clear, eBay has none of these.
Here is how I see eBay:
– eCommerce platform where you can sell pretty much anything as long as it is legal, new or used and eBay facilitate a relationship between buyer and seller. eBay do not own any product or sell anything directly nor do they get involved in the handling or shipping of the product (with the exception of helping you do a label with a carrier) — NOT LOGISTICS
It completely baffles me why eBay wants to get involved in just being a copycat site of Amazon. It is a unique creature and if they had any balls, they would stick with that and grow that. Instead their envy for Amazon and they arrogance that they play in the same circle is amazing. Some of the competing platforms that are “eBay similar” like Etsy should take notice. If Etsy dropped their crafty requirement, they could really probably take some share from eBay. Smaller platforms like Mercari and OfferUp are giving it a shot and for them, every sale they pull of eBay is a win because they are growing it off a small base, but a bigger player like Etsy could REALLY take some share and I think with how sellers on ebay are feeling with all the changes, they would switch at least some of their inventory over quite quickly.
eBay are making a mistake and thinking sellers on eBay and buyers on eBay are different. THEY ARE THE SAME PEOPLE. Sellers on eBay buy a lot on eBay whether it is inventory or packaging or supplies or personal use stuff, their seller base represents a portion of their buyer base so they should be treated like “partners” not like employees. Some of the things that have come out of eBay show a disdain for sellers and that is actually scary for the future of eBay — how can you openly hate the sellers who helped you build eBay? It shows that there is a management problem at eBay that needs to be corrected. It is never a good idea to treat anyone poorly even if you think you don’t need them, because you just might need them tomorrow.