Is Ioffer the Future Ebay? Nahhhh....

Ioffer right now is what ebay was becoming back around 2003 - a global source for pirated materials, illegal items, and porn. I used to say that ebay was becoming such a dirty back alley that in another year they would no longer be "mainstream" and would lose critical mass.

Ioffer is there - and much worse.

I've had an Ioffer account since 2004, and I have listed over 20,000 items there over the years. I believe I have sold around 400 items - been paid for maybe 250 items.

I stopped selling there altogether back around 2007 when my NPB rate hit 75%

Way too much time dealing with I-idiots (yes, ioffer buyers make ebay buyers look like friggin geniuses), and way too many technical issues.



But I did take a chance and list 200 of my best-sellers from Jan-Feb of this year after I see how they've cleaned up their software. I will say that their system is improved, and I encountered no technical problems.

However, after nearly 60 days of listing items that I sell daily on ebay and my own website, I sold zero items. In fact, I had only 2 items viewed more than 5 items. Around 150 items were viewed twice. and 40+ items were never viewed at all.

So something has obviously changed with their organic traffic, and I'd guess that it's now a very tight niche buyers market. Not sure if it's a youth market, or a pirate market, or a porn market - but it's not my market.

Under it's present form, I don't believe Ioffer is mainstream enough any more to even be a significant e-commerce player, much less serious competition for ebay or Amazon. Certainly not a place for "mom and pop" anything (well, unless it's a "mom and pop" sex act).

Places like Bonanzle and Atomicmall have a much greater mainstream appeal - but neither site feels "scalable" enough to get that big. I think there's a certain appeal to the "small town" feel I get from both sites, so maybe that's a good thing.

Amazon is just way to big and selective - both in what they sell, and who they allow to sell, and how they process money and orders. I don't see small time sellers flocking there. I also don't think Amazon, in the long term, really needs or cares about it's 3rd party "marketplace".

Maybe facilities like Google-base will ultimately succeed (or something better) and it won't matter where mom and pop online sellers are. They could be on eBay, or Bonanzle, or have their own shop, and people will find them based on what they sell. "Critical mass" will be created by search aggregation instead of site aggregation.

Think ahead a bit. Imagine a world full of devices like the new Ipads, Iphones, and Droids (by Google). Internet everywhere. Will they be using cumbersome archaic looking sites like Ebay, or even Amazon? No way. They will be using new small-screen-centric specialized search facilities. This will also be a boon to the old B/M sellers since when a buyer is looking for a product, the device also knows exactly where the buyer is - and where the B/M store is.

Arguing about which online site is gonna be the next ebay is like arguing about future DVD formats - there ain't gonna be DVD's in the future.