One of the guys I like to read and keep up with is Skip McGrath’s Auction Seller’s Resource. In his latest newsletter is a good article on what we all have known was happening, but Skip sums it up very nicely.

ARE EBAY AUCTIONS GOING AWAY?
At eBay’s annual meeting, CEO John Donohoe said that auctions now make up less than half of all listings on the site. And he predicted it could drop to as low as 30% by 2011. Just a few years ago, auctions made up around 70 percent of the listings on the site but in the last quarter they were only 45 percent.

This is not by accident. Since Donohoe took over, eBay has made a concerted effort to look more like Amazon…..

The very nature of the auction business is that it only works when there is a sense of community and a shared passion between buyers and sellers. Those are the traits that made eBay successful. And, these are the same traits that eBay has assiduously tried to kill over the last few years….

Once you learn how to sell on eBay successfully you have learned valuable skills that you can transfer to selling on other venues such as Amazon, Craigslist, Upillar and Bonanzle (both Upillar and Bonanzle are really growing fast) and your own website.

Read all of Skip’s article here. While you are there, sign up for his free “The Ebay Seller’s News” newsletter – you will be glad you did!

Bonanzle Raises $1 Million to Help It Grow
By: Ina Steiner (Thu Apr 29 2010 029:10:16)

Big news in ecommerce today comes from Bonanzle in Seattle, Washington: “Bonanzle announced this Thursday that it closed a $1 million round of investment, led by Seattle angel investor, and Voyager Capital Venture Partner, Geoff Entress, and with participation from Voyager Capital, Matrix Partners, Ignition Partners, Founders Co-op, Curious Office and other prominent Seattle angel investors. As part of the financing, Entress has joined the Company’s board of directors.”

Read the rest of the story here.

I totally agree the test from COLDERICE of Bonanzle vs Ebay FP30. We have been on bonanzle for 5-6 weeks WITH a google feed and sold zero, nada, nothing during that time. I’m gonna give it more time, but like John, I was trying to find another viable venue from which to sell. In the same period of time on Ebay, there have been 21 sales for $642. With the economy, our sales are slower than normal at ebay as well. For Bonanzle, we DID submit a google feed and I have submitted the URL to over 1000 listing submissions including the major ones. I would love for Bonanzle to show me more.
Check out John’s test here.

Also, John, thanks for the info on setting up ecommerce for wordpress. I didn’t realize this either. Our actual selling domain, I had set up as a BANS site with our listings and will probably change it over to WP ecommerce – as I haven’t gotten any commissions through ebay partnership on new members, etc. anyway. Check out John’s WP ecommerce article here.

Kudos to John for all his hard work! Check out his blog here!