Are Stores getting the ax?

[stardust]

The trend I see emerging now is that folks want to buy from mom and pops again.
I think the masses are as tired of the BIG BOX stores / mall types site as many of us are.

Well, that dream is out the window, too, if the telecoms have their way and charge exorbitant fees for broadband speed like they want to.  The only companies that will be able to afford it will be the BIG BOX stores............

[xppman]

Well more the reason to GET out their now and do something about IT.

The consumers will be the one's who really decide.

Let em TRY and charge more for bandwidth for broadband.

The market WILL take care of that me thinks.

Many of us who have already anticipated stuff like this and
have websites you can access on 28 or 56K fast.

We Will STILL win. and if the phone companies try to charge dial up the same?

Well than tech and the global economy just went out the window....

[amy]

Maybe they'll merge eBay Stores and Half.com 

[bargainbloodhound]

My gut instinct is that since ebay has lost the BIN lawsuit, they will be forced to dump the stores and all BIN/fixed price 'auctions'

Half uses the same BIN technology covered by the patent (and used it long before eBay opened Stores in 2001) so they would definitely dump Half, but I think with Stores eBay would probably replace the Half BIN technology now used by Stores and BIN/Auctions in favor of the new Express BIN technology.

The BIN lawsuit was probably one of the main reasons eBay let Half decay (in 2001 eBay announced plans to change Half's name to eBay Express Buys.  A few months later the BIN lawsuit was filed and within 3 months eBay dropped its plans for renaming Half).

The BIN lawsuit filing in 11/01 is also probably one of the main reasons eBay Stores don't have a shopping cart.  When Stores opened in 6/01 eBay said it was planning to add a shopping cart (which would have used Half technology) to them by that Fall, and that it planned to add the ability to link to sellers' items on Half from the Stores. Those plans fell apart after the lawsuit was filed.

I think regardless of the final outcome of the lawsuit, the presense of Express means Stores will sink into the dead but not buried status Half has enjoyed for the past several years.

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I dug up this old quote--it sounds exactly like the announcement/reasons given by eBay this year for opening Express...but it's from 2001 and is actually describing Half and the opening of eBay Stores the prior month:

The move into fixed prices could be huge for eBay, allowing it to expand its appeal to the mainstream, analysts say. U.S. and Western consumers are much more familiar with fixed prices than with bidding at auction. Allowing people to purchase with fixed prices could help eBay tap into customers who might never have shopped on its auction site.

http://news.com.com/eBay+seeks+to+sail+i...70198.html

[stardust]

Well, opening a high $ priced art gallery store is now illogical to me.  I can be kinda  stupid at times, but I'm not THAT totally stupid!  They've done something to the search to *ignore* stores items (no matter what they say), as I witnessed with my 1-StopArtShoppe (only 30 items in it), when hits went down from 75-100 per day to 1 or 0 per day, all of a sudden, after April 6.  And the ebay powers-that-be  are not very good liars any more.  I can certainly AFFORD $20 per month for the store fee and lots of listings, but with the screwy search the way it is now, it's not worth my TIME.