The Gavel Comes Down on Yahoo Auctions

Yahoo has announced it will shut down its North American online auction site on June 16th.

Earlier this week, Yahoo announced it would shut down its Yahoo Photos site in favor of its other photo-sharing property, Flickr; now, Yahoo has announced it will be shutting down its Yahoo Auctions service in the U.S. and Canada as of June 16, 2007.

"After careful consideration, we have decided to close down our Yahoo U.S. and Canada Auction sites to better serve our valued customers through other Yahoo! properties," Yahoo said in a statement on its site.

The move is Yahoo’s latest effort to streamlines its operations by cutting back lackluster operations, or businesses which simply fail to grow fast enough to justify Yahoo’s continued attention. And Yahoo Auctions definitely falls into that category: the online auction industry is absolutely dominated by eBay, which according to comScore accounts for almost 95 percent of all online auction activity. Amazon.com’s online auction offerings are barely blip at about one third of one percent of all auction traffic; Yahoo’s online auction share was even smaller.

For the time being, Yahoo will continue to offer its auction services in Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong; existing Yahoo Auctions users will be able to list items through June 3, 2007, and a limited range of account management and other tools will be available to customers through October 29, 2007.