11-14-2006, 03:24 PM
Well, the sales results are out (assuming they are the REAL figures). The number of sales did go up, but not by much. Compared to the number of listings, they basically stayed at the same place as the week before, with a less than 1% chance of any item selling -- this at a time of the year when the percentage of sales should be escalating. The most disturbing part of the report was that the number of "unique" sales dropped dramatically. This means that the sales were concentrated among a few sellers making multiple sales (e.g. someone selling 4 trading cards to the same person), and that WP is basically getting no new business. Although there's no way to substantiate this from looking at completed sales, nothing else makes much sense. Any long-time e-seller will tell you customers will generally only buy one item the first time from a seller he/she does not know; wait to see how that transaction goes; and then come back to make multiple sales. So, it's clear to me, that WP sellers are purchasing items from other fellow sellers who frequent the boards and have come to know. And since WP has a system where every feedback is counted, I think it would be safe to say that the feedbacks on these sellers is going to show multiple sales from the same buyer. In my mind, this is not a true picture of a seller's reputation. Â
From reading the boards, it's also apparent that WP is having an unsually high incidence of NPBs, so how many of those "sales" are actually paying sales? Apart from that, why are there so many NPBs? Are they all flaky buyers? Or are they "bogus" sales? Also, bear in mind, that WP has no system in place for automatic refunds of FVCs for NPBs. Sellers must wait 8 days before they can be eligible, and then they have to email CC for express permission to receive a FVC from Karen, which is only granted after WP investigates the claim to see if such a credit is warranted. How many of these FVCs are actually awarded? And how many sellers just "give up" or never bother to file due to the awkward process? I can tell you from personal experience, it took a month, some board posts, and several emails before I finally received a small FVC from WP and that was for a transaction that we both agreed to cancel, involving no investigation whatsoever.
All in all, the sales were not impressive. At the time of this writing, Karen has not come on the boards to defend her numbers and put a warm and fuzzy spin on them.
P.S. Since I am talking about WP here, please feel free to replace the word "sale(s)" with "sell(s)" as it appears.
From reading the boards, it's also apparent that WP is having an unsually high incidence of NPBs, so how many of those "sales" are actually paying sales? Apart from that, why are there so many NPBs? Are they all flaky buyers? Or are they "bogus" sales? Also, bear in mind, that WP has no system in place for automatic refunds of FVCs for NPBs. Sellers must wait 8 days before they can be eligible, and then they have to email CC for express permission to receive a FVC from Karen, which is only granted after WP investigates the claim to see if such a credit is warranted. How many of these FVCs are actually awarded? And how many sellers just "give up" or never bother to file due to the awkward process? I can tell you from personal experience, it took a month, some board posts, and several emails before I finally received a small FVC from WP and that was for a transaction that we both agreed to cancel, involving no investigation whatsoever.
All in all, the sales were not impressive. At the time of this writing, Karen has not come on the boards to defend her numbers and put a warm and fuzzy spin on them.
P.S. Since I am talking about WP here, please feel free to replace the word "sale(s)" with "sell(s)" as it appears.