2m new listings on 1st day of strike

May 2, 2008

This post was written in May 2008; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

It’s day two of the seller strike and I wondered just how much effect it may be having on the site. It’s difficult to tell, but one thing’s for certain. The number of listings on eBay.co.uk is well up compared to earlier this week. That’s not altogether surprising considering there was a 5p cheap listing day for auctions yesterday, but the numbers are astounding.

On Monday 28th April when I checked there were 6,996,764 active listings on the site. This morning there are 9,100,154 listings live, or a touch over two million additional listings since the beginning of the week.

Whether that number would have been significantly different had there not been a strike is almost impossible to tell. One thing is for sure, there’s a lot less noise in the press concerning the strike than for the previous strike in February.

It’s time for the strikers to change their approach to eBay. Rather than focus on the negative side of eBay it’s time to focus on the positives of running a multi-channel business. Instead of publicising a boycott of eBay (who have about a 25% share of all ecommerce in the UK) it’s time to publicise the fact that if you’re business is solely on eBay you’re missing out on the remaining 75% of the online marketplace.

Amazon, Play.com, paid and natural search and shopping comparison sites make up three quarters of the available online business but the 25% share that eBay holds is just too big to ignore.

Two million new listings on the site says that the strike won’t have a significant impact. The message should be that it’s time to go capture the 75% of sales you’re missing out on - Not to cut off the 25% of sales that you already have.

Written by Chris Dawson · Filed Under Featured, News | 7 Comments 

Stoke postal workers strike til New Year

December 18, 2007

This post was written in December 2007; specific information contained within it may be out of date.

Workers at the Burslem postal depot have voted to go on strike until January 2nd. The depot handles post for 32,000 homes and businesses in the ST6 area, but Royal Mail have said that 200 bosses have been drafted in to handle deliveries.

The strike is the latest action in a long-running dispute between workers at the depot and management, over the suspension of nine colleagues. The Communication Workers’ Union have said that the complaints against the delivery workers were “spurious”, and have condemned RM’s refusal to take their cases to an independent national appeals’ panel.

In seperate action, postal workers in Alderley Edge are to strike on Christmas Eve, in protest at the closure of the village’s delivery office and forced relocation to Wilmslow. 2,000 residents have signed a petition condemning the plan, and union leaders have criticised Royal Mail for putting “the pursuit of hard cash before all else”.

Written by Sue Bailey · Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment