August 21, 2008 | Thursday

Ebay to become price comparison site?

By Robert Weatherhead – Digital Media Manager in Affiliate |Latitude Publications |Marketing |News

EBay announced yesterday that it is going to be making significant changes to its business model on September 24th. The changes which are described by Lorri Norrington, president of eBay marketplace operations in the US, as “the most fundamental change we’ve made, ever, to the marketplace”, will include an overhaul of its site search, and will place more emphasis on fixed price listings.

There is not indication of what this increased emphasis involves but it sounds pretty drastic. The auction system and the ability to find bargain priced items have been the foundation that eBay has been built on, and this move could effectively completely remove this, dependant on the format they run with.

If the changes are drastic enough to prove the end of auction listings then does that not effectively make eBay a price comparison site? Ok, it would be one where second hand listings appear alongside brand new items, but what else differentiates it from the likes of Kelkoo, Pricerunner and Google Product search.

This announcement is unsurprising when you consider the story broken by NMA today showing that consumer interest in price comparison sites has increased as a result of the current economic downturn. However, it does worry me, as one of the key beauties of eBay in my opinion is the ability to find a bargain and outbid an opponent at the last minute! I can see why eBay have done it as they will invariably make more money on a higher cost, fix priced listing but is this at the detriment of what has made eBay so successful to date? Only time will tell.