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eBay, Amazon Try to Best Brick-and-Mortar—and Each Other

Black Friday is typically known as the day of unbeatable deals, but also long lines, packed stores, and jostling customers.

But this season, online retail giants Amazon and eBay are doing their best to get customers out of stores and onto the web to start their holiday shopping on Nov. 28, Retailer Daily writes.

eBay has already begun its ironically named “$1 holiday doorbuster” promotion, giving shoppers a chance to find “hidden” listings of popular items (e.g., iPod Nano, Nintendo Wii and Fit) for just $1.

Finders of the items will be able to purchase it at that price, with no extra costs, including shipping.  Over the course of the promotional period (Nov. 24- Dec. 8), a total of 1,515 products will be offered for $1—100 regular items and one luxury item offered each day .

Amazon, in turn, is doing its part to lure holiday shoppers. Its Black Friday section has signature Gold Box hourly specials and deals in the most popular gift categories, such as electronics, entertainment, tools, and jewelry.

Amazon is also running a $10,000 Black Friday giveaway - and advertising it on eBay, to the chagrin of many eBay sellers who do not want users navigating away from the site.

eBay has, in fact, been losing out to Amazon over the past few months. In October, eBay’s unique audience was down 9.7% (vs. Oct. ‘07) while Amazon’s climbed nearly 8%, according to Nielsen data (via AuctionBytes). More dramatically, eBay’s pageviews have declined 32.6% year-over-year while Amazon’s were down just 1.1%.

eBay users spent an average of 20% less time on the site in Oct. ‘08 vs. Oct. ‘07—the second straight month of decline. They also looked at less pages than the year before—more so than Amazon visitors.

The figures could mean that visitors are finding what they want faster due to eBay’s improved search algorithm, or that it’s part of the trend toward a commodity-driven shopping experience rather than casual browsing for unique or hard-to-find items.

Others were less optimistic. The decline in traffic, pageviews, and time spent are indicative of the trends that have been “clobbering eBay for the past two years: those of competition, overpricing, and the deterioration of eBay’s value proposition,” writes Silicon Alley Insider.