Yahoo Closes Yahoo Auctions
Yahoo has closed another service, and this time not because it also owned Flickr. Yahoo Auctions will be closing June 16, 2007 in both the U.S. and Canada, while the Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan auction sites will remain open. Some account tools will remain available until October 29.
While I’m sure lots of people used Yahoo Auctions, it must be way too hard for an all-purpose auction site to compete with the likes of eBay. We’ve seen specific niche sites, like StubHub, grow into something popular (and then get bought by eBay, natch), so until eBay does something stupid and ruins its own marketplace, the best bet might be to go small. Yahoo Auctions tried to be eBay, and there’s only room for one of those.
The question I always ask about Google is, is there only room for one major search engine? I bet Yahoo’s been asking that question a lot lately.
[…] Via Inside Google. […]
Pingback by Yahoo Closing Doors on American Auction Sites | Marketing Pilgrim | May 8, 2007
there’s only room for one general purpose search engine. Perhaps Yahoo should focus on perfecting vertical search niches.
For instance, I used Yahoo Local Search exclusively before Google got their local act together. Too bad Yahoo didn’t realize that they should be perfecting local search instead of going for general.
Comment by Hashim | May 8, 2007
The one locale where Yahoo! won’t close their auction service is Japan, where they beat eBay and dominate the auction market. Some Wharton fellows a few years ago did a short overview of how Yahoo! Japan beat eBay in Japan. I have that plus a number of other relevant links on my blog:
http://www.kanai.net/weblog/archive/2005/06/06/17h26m02s
Comment by Gen Kanai | May 8, 2007
Your statement regarding how Yahoo wanted to be like Ebay is farther from the truth. Yahoo Auction Inc could of cared less about the Sellers and Buyers and in trying to make it a booming Auction Site.
Since Yahoo Auction went free the place was a mess! There was not one day that went by that Yahoo Auction didn’t have some kind of techinical problem/issue. The Auctions customer service is/was a big fat F.
It also so happens that Yahoo Auction site was taken advantaged of by some companies who would place auctions for the sole purpose of advertisment! Yahoo Auction was a place to go and list thousands of items and those companies would then get free advertisment, one company would even state on their auction listing that the item wasn’t in stock! and they had redirection links to there site. Those companies ruined it for the small seller and for the USA Yahoo Auction Site!
Comment by Scott | May 9, 2007