Sotheby's Ditches eBay - Fed Up With Internet Auctions
from the just-not-working dept
It appears that Sotheby's simply can't figure out a way to make their auctions work online. In 1999 they teamed up with Amazon to put their auctions online, which ended in failure. After that awful experience, Sotheby's decided to partner with the best and teamed up with eBay about a year ago to let them handle their internet auctions. At the time, we wondered if Sotheby's would be any happier with eBay. The answer is in. They're not happy at all. They announced today that they won't be auctioning things off via eBay any more due to "lower than expected demand". It sounds like this was a case where someone sold Sotheby's on the notion that the internet was "changing everything" and all they needed to do was "get online" to be a part of it - rather than carefully thinking out a strategy to target the types of people who are focused on such high end auctions. The typical picture of an eBay shopper doesn't exactly match with the stereotype of the Sotheby's auction buyer.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
