Moved to Forum: Original Link
Aussie Amazon launches tomorrow and eBay will try everything possible to compete. Link to the confirmation from eBay MD that there will be sitewide coupon tomorrow. As per "The Current Affair" it sounds like discount will be 10% sitewide, yet to be confirmed on eBay website.
Mod: Insufficient details for upcoming sale as discount % is not known. Moved to forum at this stage, deal should be reposted as a deal once details are confirmed/known.
But apparently there is no 10% off, not that I can see.
Just expire the deal and publish in forum.
It was inevitable.
God, you can just smell the fear and desperation from the quotes from the EBay managing director and Gerry Harvey.
The actual quote from the EBay MD:
“We’re so confident on that we are offering a best-price promotion on all of our more than 15,000 deals items. We’re confident Australian retailers will seek to match [Amazon’s] prices. We also run big sales — tomorrow we’re going to do a site-wide coupon that will make the Black Friday deals even better.”
I prefer the Gerry quotes..
Mr Harvey said he was “a bit flabbergasted” as to why Amazon would launch just before Christmas, when “most people don’t want to buy online because they’re scared” they won’t receive the items in time.
“Amazon have got a big new warehouse, big new staff, they’re all set to make some gigantic stuff-ups,” he said. “It makes no sense. All they’ll do is get themselves into trouble with a whole heap of people all complaining, ‘I didn’t get it.’
Unlike some of the mouthbreathers employed at your average HN store…
My private wish is that Amazon causes Gerry Harvey to go bankrupt. His company is a blight on our landscape; it could not exist in the US, too uncompetitive. My experiences with the store have all been miserable (you can read my experience, and many others, at productreview.com.au). Good riddance to bad rubbish!
As someone that lives regionally - with the local electronics store being beyond terrible, and the nearest town an hour away having a HN who'll usually price match and deliver pretty much anything for $50 or less - I'm torn.
If Amazon coming onto the market can cause others to be competitive for delivery to regional areas of larger objects like TV's, I'll be happy.
Translation:
"I have no idea how to get products shipped to customers on time so I don't think anyone else is able to either."
Amazon is actually famous for this: Enter a new market, leverage its incredible logistics and supply-chain skills and experience to minimize both expenses and shipping times, and also sell at zero margins (for cost-of-goods-sold - so making a loss taking into account overhead).
Would rather have seen Gerry try to compete with Amazon and innovate rather than clinging on to some idea that Amazon will fail. Unfortunately not a good attitude by which to lead his company I think.
At least the eBay MD is trying to compete and seems a bit more level headed.
Good old Gerry, who used to think online meant you just send your local store a fax telling them what you want.
And if you want to avoid GST on imports, just get them duty free next time you're in New York.
Gerry is concerned that Amazon may fail which is weird as if Amazon fail, it is good for him. Don't make sense to me.
so where is deals from amazon? not making to the ozb?
Not until they are Live . This is OZB, not Fortune Tellers Anonymous.
apologies - i heard they are live at thursday 2pm
tbf I hadn't even tried :D
Yep live for select/randomly chosen customers for testing their online ordering system and logistics, this isn't available to the general public as of yet :(
There was a soft-launch today at 2:00pm - basically a closed beta test of Amazon's Australian systems. Hopefully someone here was invited and can tell us rough pricing.
But that's the delicious part of it: EBay and HN are running scared even before Amazon has actually really launched or even indicated what its prices will be. People are 'estimating' about 30% lower prices than current retail, but no one really knows yet.
Anyone want to take bets on what the code will be?
NOTAMAZON
AMAZONSUCKS
BUYLOCAL
DOWNWITHFOREIGNERS
STILLRELEVANT
CLOSINGDOWNSALE
Code: ebaywinning
PISSOFFAMAZON
THEENDISNIGH
No ARSE code :'(
OUTONOURARSE
You know Ebay is American too, right?
I'm channelling Gerry Harvey here. Anyway, eBay is more Swiss than anything else (at least where it counts).
PRICEJACK10%SITEWIDE
25% Sitewide ?
Who knows.
Most eBay promos are simply them taking less of a cut out the fees, anything over 10% (less really) costs eBay money.
The big ones are partly supported by the sellers, so 15% is eBay taking only 5% in fees and the sellers discounting 10%, hence the price increases you see before the sale.
25% or even 20% would represent a fair chunk of change for eBay if it was just them funding it. We all know the sellers are going to be on both platforms, so they're not too fussed about saving eBay from Amazon. (Possibly some behinds the scenes deals happening, "hey, if you'll be exclusive to Ebay we'll only take a 5% cut" etc to stop sellers jumping ship.)
I rarely buy on eBay, and now I'm annoyed at having brought some stuff yesterday. Dang.
user name checks out.