Ebay and Yahoo Japan Partnership?

Killua · Post by **Killua** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:41 pm

RoboFlonne wrote:
Keropi wrote:That's the part I didn't understand. How will YJ prices go down?

You mean eBay prices will go down right?
When you eliminate the middle man... All prices go down on any collectible in any market.

The secondary market is significant in every collectible hobby.

p.s. and Deputies will start to go out of business...

Maybe. There are a lot of people who don't use or even know about deputies. YJ effectively merging with ebay could vastly increase the pool of bidders.

RoboFlonne · Post by **RoboFlonne** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 5:53 pm

kira wrote:international shipping is another thing to worry about ifyour a seller for here in the us. i assume it doesnt cost to much if your shipping from japan via ems. here in the states that international fee to ship a package is a killer. another thing to think of.

I think the last package I sent to Japan EMS was $25...

How much does it cost EMS from Japan over here?

Grico · Post by **Grico** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:43 pm

Well it is not directly stated, but I would think that with the business arrangement ebay and YJ would try to entice more sellers to ship internationally and not just in Japan. We really won't know the effects it has on cel prices and availability until its actually starts getting rolled out. It seems possible at least that auction winning bid prices on both would go up as more U.S. sellers would have access to YJ cels and more Japanese would have access/ realize that ebay cel auctions exist. While the winning prices might go up, the deputy fee structure as it exists would no longer exists and perhaps a straight winning bid+shipping fee system would come about. So with some upward pressure and downward pressures on total cost its hard to know what will really happen.

klet · Post by **klet** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 6:50 pm

darksuzaku wrote:mmm, how does that 5000 yen limit work?, or how deputies bypass it?

I mean, i have a gold account with celga, and my registered CC in YJ is international, but i can bid whatever amount i want. Maybe it's because i registered it several years ago. If that's the case then new gold accounts probably suck if you can only bid so much.

YJ will no longer accept international credit cards. But, they'll let anyone bid and have a YJ account for free. You just can't bid over 4,999 yen without a "premium" account. You pay a set-up fee for a premium account, then you're charged a monthly fee.

Celga is now paying your premium account monthly fee with their own credit card and then charging your credit card. So, basically, you're not paying YJ, you're paying Celga, who in turn pays YJ.

cutiebunny · Post by **cutiebunny** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 7:47 pm

I doubt that the merger is going to make much of a difference when it comes to sending items to foriegn locations for many Japanese residents.

I would also think that E-bay running a deputy of service to cater to the demand for Japanese goods would be out of the question. Land is expensive in Japan and running a huge storage center is likely out of the question. Addtionally, the staff needed to monitor, sort and mail these items to their destined foriegn locations would also run high. E-bay would like compensate by charging fees to use Yahoo Japan services and it is likely that the fees would be just as high if not higher than with the pre-existing deputy services. If E-bay chose to impliment higher fees for the seller, I would expect that these fees would either decrease the amount of items on YJ or that the cost of selling would be passed to the buyer. I recall that when YJ began charging 3% comission on all items that many sellers annotated in their auctions that the winner would also pay the 3% comission fee.

Which, brings us back to where we are now; The pre-existing deputies would still be in high demand because their services would still be cheaper than E-bay. Additionally, many users enjoy the fact that they can use deputies to snipe at the last minute. Unless E-bay runs a deputy service where you bid under certain select IDs, I can't see that being a reality anymore. And why would E-bay keep that deputy feature when not doing so increase the prices of all goods sold there?

Honestly, I don't see this being a good situation for anyone but E-bay and Yahoo Japan. Higher fees for sellers means more sellers won't use YJ. Higher prices on goods sold on YJ due to increased competition, E-bay 'deputy' fees, etc. means that you'll be spending more for less.

RoboFlonne · Post by **RoboFlonne** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 8:46 pm

Killua wrote:
RoboFlonne wrote:
Keropi wrote:That's the part I didn't understand. How will YJ prices go down?

You mean eBay prices will go down right?
When you eliminate the middle man... All prices go down on any collectible in any market.

The secondary market is significant in every collectible hobby.

p.s. and Deputies will start to go out of business...
Maybe. There are a lot of people who don't use or even know about deputies. YJ effectively merging with ebay could vastly increase the pool of bidders.

Ebay does have alot of cels on it already...

This floods the market.

Every business person I know fears the day E-bay is introduced to what they sell...

That's the day profit margins go from 100% down to 15%...

Not right away but within a year.

Killua · Post by **Killua** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:04 pm

RoboFlonne wrote:
Killua wrote:
RoboFlonne wrote: When you eliminate the middle man... All prices go down on any collectible in any market.

The secondary market is significant in every collectible hobby.

p.s. and Deputies will start to go out of business...
Maybe. There are a lot of people who don't use or even know about deputies. YJ effectively merging with ebay could vastly increase the pool of bidders.
Ebay does have alot of cels on it already...

This floods the market.

Every business person I know fears the day E-bay is introduced to what they sell...

That's the day profit margins go from 100% down to 15%...

Not right away but within a year.

Cels on Ebay are generally not as good as cels on YJ. My prediction is that if Ebay cel quality generally remains the same, prices will decrease there, but increase on YJ. I generally buy my cels on YJ, so...

This will probably be good for YJ sellers and ebay buyers, but bad for YJ buyers and ebay sellers.

RoboFlonne · Post by **RoboFlonne** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 9:16 pm

Killua wrote: This will probably be good for YJ sellers and ebay buyers, but bad for YJ buyers and ebay sellers.

The value of an item is worth as much as it resells for.

If it's bad for ebay sellers... prices will drop in order to sell the items.

I'm only talking from experience.

p.s. YJ becomes part of Ebay basically and it runs SMJ, Rinkya, etc out of business. Ebay is a giant.

grEenLeaFx · Post by **grEenLeaFx** » Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:08 pm

In the third phase that is scheduled for the middle of 2008, the two companies will launch a site by which American eBay users can directly bid on Japanese Yahoo auctions

Wow I can't wait for that. I've been hoping something like this would come along some day. Right now I hardly visit YJ because of all the fees that my deputy charges. It's a shame because eBay's selection is close to nothing compared to YJ on anime goods. It sounds promising to me.

Animechaos · Post by **Animechaos** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 12:03 am

I was a bit concerned at first, but then relised one key thing. I won't change the mentally of your everyday seller on YHJ.

Language barrier - will still exist.
Payment options - not likley anyone in Japan is gonna hop on the Paypal bandwagon.
Seller restrictions - won't ship overseas, etc.

So its all the same problems, and the only cure is a deputy service. Is Sekaimon going to be a full deputy? Or just a glorified search engine with a built in translator?

And for now, its only for English Ebay goods to be listed and sold to the Japanese. Not the other way around (yet).

Its concerning but not at the same time.

Animechaos · Post by **Animechaos** » Wed Dec 05, 2007 2:40 am

Found this little tid-bit:

"Shop Airlines, a unit of online sales services firm NetPrice will manage the site, payment services, customs clearance and delivery. It plans to charge 15 percent in fees on each transaction."

So already, its more expensive then just about any of the current deputy services. Full article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7124297

RoboFlonne · Post by **RoboFlonne** » Mon Dec 10, 2007 6:57 pm

Animechaos wrote:Found this little tid-bit:

"Shop Airlines, a unit of online sales services firm NetPrice will manage the site, payment services, customs clearance and delivery. It plans to charge 15 percent in fees on each transaction."

So already, its more expensive then just about any of the current deputy services. Full article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7124297

Maybe you can sell SMJ to Ebay for 1 Billion Dollars!

Caroline · Post by **Caroline** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 1:31 am

i think that, regardless of a merger, i will still use my deputy. i take comfort in the fact that my deputy can fluently communicate with sellers and ask them my questions, whereas i would not be able to.

Animechaos · Post by **Animechaos** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 4:50 pm

I'd sell it for a billion.....then buy-out the company thats handling the YHJ/Ebay thing. lol Ya can't get rid of me that easy.

sugarcels · Post by **sugarcels** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 5:18 pm

While the idea of "cutting out the middle man" (aka deputy services) and thus (possibly) save money on double shipping and other deputy fees excites me, I can't help but think this won't really help. Most Japanese sellers who don't ship overseas probably still won't - plus I'd get more competition from buyers discovering all the things they didn't know they could get.

Bah! *swats at falling snow*