How exactly do ebid actually make any money?

RFW

toffe wrote: »

Ebid could compete with ebay but it would take major investment

Then again why would anyone invest in a company that has got nowhere in 10 years rather than start their own. Ebid's loyal base of users is disgruntled and banned Ebay sellers, hardly a healthy grounding for a successful business.

There are rivals to Ebay cropping up all the time, the ones that are successful are the ones that don't compete by being Ebay clones.

soolin

RFW wrote: »

Then again why would anyone invest in a company that has got nowhere in 10 years rather than start their own. Ebid's loyal base of users is disgruntled and banned Ebay sellers, hardly a healthy grounding for a successful business.

There are rivals to Ebay cropping up all the time, the ones that are successful are the ones that don't compete by being Ebay clones.

If you read the ebid forums there are more and more disgruntled ebid users as well. I also believe that it is actually diminishing in presence rather than increasing, it is nowhere near as lively now as it was a few years back. I actually wouldn't be surprised to see it slowly sink beneath the waves in a year or two, taking my money with it.

TurkishDelight

The thing is, with the paypal rule changes it's actually not a bad place to buy now, but they won't try and capitalise on this, which is fustrating.

They do need one small thing though, borrowed from ebay since it's ebay's "fault", the ability to block sellers from your results.
All the >.99p private businesses, well they had to go somewhere, and browsing on there the other day (probably what made Dave post this thread lol) I spotted more than a few familliar names.

Oh and totally agree Soolin- the childish name really don't help anyone, it'll just put people off.

soolin

I don't even buy on there anymore although I do browse on occasions. I did go through a huge buying spree a while ago, catching all the new ebid selllers who were trying to trade as though they were still on ebay but starting off low to attract buyers. I got many a huge bargain at next to nothing and immediately turned round and resold at a big markup on ebay. However I rather teed off the sellers and more than one emailed me to congratulate me on 'winning' and forcing them off ebid and promising me a run for my money once they started back on ebay.

The forums ar enow full of advice like 'don't expect to sell anything here like you do on ebay, this isn't ebay' so sellers are much more canny holding out for better prices which means no more bargains.

At the time i now I annoyed someone very badly as they posted about me all over the ebid boards saying what a horrible person I was buying up all the ebid bargains merely to resell on ebay. The odd thing was many ebidders took my side telling the poster that they should be grateful for anyone actually buying stuff at all, and not to worry if ti could have gone for more on ebay as that was not th epoint. There is actualyl someone on th eboard at the moment who mentioned that his stuff was being resold at a huge mark up on ebay..so there are still sellers that haven't 'got' how ebid works yet.

cyberbob

RFW wrote: »

I don't really know what it takes to run Ebid, but a business with little effort that makes a £30-£40k p/a profit isn't a disaster, it just isn't a competitor to Ebay..

You have to think that the 30-40K wouldn't be clear profit by the time you take into account Tax and other expenses Also depending how many shareholders it could be incredibly poor. I would have thought that amount would be greatly decreased. I don't think its a disaster I just don't think they have really acheived anything. The customer base as far as I can see has actually got worse.

A good businessman knows when he is flogging a dead horse (thats my cliche of the day ) and realises that they either need to stop and do something different or totally rethink what they are doing. The people running ebid in 10 years don't seem to have realised this

As much as people have their moans about ebay. They have adapted and changed as the Market has. They haven't stood still in a Y2K timewarp as ebid have

RFW

cyberbob wrote: »

You have to think that the 30-40K wouldn't be clear profit by the time you take into account Tax and other expenses Also depending how many shareholders it could be incredibly poor. I would have thought that amount would be greatly decreased. I don't think its a disaster I just don't think they have really acheived anything. The customer base as far as I can see has actually got worse.

A good businessman knows when he is flogging a dead horse (thats my cliche of the day ) and realises that they either need to stop and do something different or totally rethink what they are doing. The people running ebid in 10 years don't seem to have realised this

As much as people have their moans about ebay. They have adapted and changed as the Market has. They haven't stood still in a Y2K timewarp as ebid have

I think we're pretty much agreeing with each other, my point was that if it isn't a main business for anyone and doesn't take up a lot of time its a nice little earner, if they only work on it for a couple of days a month and can keep it ticking over until someone waves a cheque in front of them for it, then its worth hanging on to. I think given the way the internet has chopped and changed in the ten years they've been going that to still be trading profitably is quite laudable, it doesn't mean I'm going to start listing on it though.

toffe

RFW wrote: »

Then again why would anyone invest in a company that has got nowhere in 10 years rather than start their own. Ebid's loyal base of users is disgruntled and banned Ebay sellers, hardly a healthy grounding for a successful business.

There are rivals to Ebay cropping up all the time, the ones that are successful are the ones that don't compete by being Ebay clones.

You might not think 30 - 40k is a good profit but lets not forget, paypal was losing several million a year when ebay bought it and they paid millions for it (can't remember exactly how much).


So if the owners of paypal can get several million for a company losing huge amounts of cash what's to say no one will want to buy ebid? compared with where paypal were when they were taken over, ebid looks like a good buy.

Of course ebay saw a value in paypal that no one else would have at that time because they had a site which they could link it up with and make money, maybe someone will see a way forward for ebid, ebayy are moving away from auctions and becoming more like amazon so there will be a vacum left for those who enjoy the auction format as both sellers and buyers, someone may feel that they could capitalise on that vacum with ebid.

soolin

If ebay had wanted ebid they would have bought them a long while ago, ebid has more and more auctions listed but fewer and fewer sales, there are pages and pages of unsold items in the categories I use, I struggle to find a single successful sale. Ebay tried the free model for private sellers, and all it does is flood the market with rubbish, hence the cap on 'free' private sales now on ebay, I can't see them wanting another site where they continue to use an unsuccesful model.

RFW

toffe wrote: »

You might not think 30 - 40k is not a good profit but lets not forget, paypal was losing several million a year when ebay bought it and they paid millions for it (can't remember exactly how much).


So if the owners of paypal can get several million for a company losing huge amounts of cash what's to say no one will want to buy ebid? compared with where paypal were when they were taken over, ebid looks like a good buy.

Of course ebay saw a value in paypal that no one else would have at that time because they had a site which they could link it up with and make money, maybe someone will see a way forward for ebid, ebayy are moving away from auctions and becoming more like amazon so there will be a vacum left for those who enjoy the auction format as both sellers and buyers, someone may feel that they could capitalise on that vacum with ebid.

Ebid and Paypal are two different entities though, Ebid is a clone of a company that anyone can set up. Paypal held (at the time) a unique way of processing money.
I'm fairly sure that the amount of auctions on Ebay has remained fairly constant over the last few years, there is probably a higher proportion of fixed price than there were.
The "Ebay is becoming more like Amazon" has been said for the last few years, there have been some moves to compete more with the Amazon market, but that's business. Ebay's core market and uniqueness is the auction side and they know that.
Ebid is losing ground in an increasing pool of online auctions. I certainly know of a large group of auction houses who have moved to selling more by online sales.