Is ebid a waste of time?

angelic84

Hi, have been an ebayer for a while but was looking for somewhere to list some new products for free and was looking at ebid. would it be a waste of time, heard a while back that there was not much traffic to this site but wondered if it had changed?

thanks

soolin

If anything it has got worse. I have three shops and a mix of auctions and BINs and absolutely nothing at all sells.

I took out a seller lifetime sub a couple of years back and have never actually even sold enough to cover that subscription, so overall I am running at quite a big loss.

angelic84

thanks - dont think i will bother then! the products i am trying to sell rely on volume listing and ebay fees would run too high for me i think. but i spose there is a reason ebid dont charge to list!

soolin

angelic84 wrote: »

thanks - dont think i will bother then! the products i am trying to sell rely on volume listing and ebay fees would run too high for me i think. but i spose there is a reason ebid dont charge to list!

Depending on your volumes etc have you researched an ebay shop? If you can get the turnover and amount of sales then you can get power seller status and from there go for Top Rated sellers status and with that you can get a discount on your FVFs. Of course you might already be doign that, and if so I apologise!

I do still double list if i have more than one item, one on ebay one on ebid (at a cheaper price). However all I end up doing is selling the ebay one and then delisting the ebid one as I have sold it to the ebay underbidder. I've just taken another half dozen items of ebid as I'm selling out on ebay and don't want to run the risk of over selling.

angelic84

its a new line for me so not sure what to do! i was selling cosmetics in bulk on ebay, not in a shop, but the prices got too silly with others selling the same stuff for peanuts. the new products i have are gift type items and some jewellery via a dropshipper i have used in the past who are very reliable and i want to sell their products now. i know you are a big book seller, any advice??? thanks!

soolin

angelic84 wrote: »

its a new line for me so not sure what to do! i was selling cosmetics in bulk on ebay, not in a shop, but the prices got too silly with others selling the same stuff for peanuts. the new products i have are gift type items and some jewellery via a dropshipper i have used in the past who are very reliable and i want to sell their products now. i know you are a big book seller, any advice??? thanks!

Actually I have virtually given up on books, the market is disappearing quickly and I stick mainly to Amazon.

If you have competitors with cheaper prices then change your stock, the one thing you can't compete with is pricing. As for drop shipping, I have never ever managed to make a profit on the occaisons I've tried, if you can't compete on ebay then realistically the drop shipper isn't worth botherng with.

Shops can save money if you have very large volumes, but it won't help if your competitors are rpepared to undercut you.

StaffsSW

I recently received my "congrats on your two years membership email" which also coincided with my 3rd sale in the same period.

The problem I see is that eBid has so much potential, but do very little to capitalise on it. They have an afiliate programme that only targets getting new sellers on board, rather than bringing buyers in. When ebay announce unpopular changes, ebid do very little if anything to publicise their policies.

They did have a reputation that banned ebay sellers set up shop there, but in fairness they have cracked down on these, but again have not publicised the fact.

More tellingly though, search google for any product and chances are there will be an ebay listing or placement advert. When was the last time anyone saw an ebid listing appear in a google search?

On the flipside, I did find the registration and listing process quite simple, the fees are lower overall, and the administration of sales is relatively simple as well. In all honesty, i would be happy to pay a bit extra in fees if ebid where to spend a bit more money on their marketing budget to bring in the customers.

Crowqueen

stevew8975 wrote: »

...

The problem I see is that eBid has so much potential, but do very little to capitalise on it. They have an afiliate programme that only targets getting new sellers on board, rather than bringing buyers in. When ebay announce unpopular changes, ebid do very little if anything to publicise their policies.

...

On the flipside, I did find the registration and listing process quite simple, the fees are lower overall, and the administration of sales is relatively simple as well. In all honesty, i would be happy to pay a bit extra in fees if ebid where to spend a bit more money on their marketing budget to bring in the customers.

The fees being low is part of the problem. With more realistic fee structures, eBid could be a big contender - but it tries to massively undercut eBay and as a result doesn't have the revenue stream to publicise the site more, provide structures to protect both buyer and seller, and establish credibility in a marketplace which is essentially needing another place to allow private sellers to sell stuff that aren't media items in Amazon or Play's database.

That said, there are people here that have made it work, and if you distance yourself from saying "eBay's crap, eBid should be able to capitalise on all the disillusioned eBay sellers" (because in an awful lot of markets, things that attempt to piggy-back on someone else's success without a unique selling point of their own, usually fail to achieve the success of the "mothership" - look at the market for online games, World of Warcraft cleans up, while loads of other games try to be WoW but cheaper or less commercial or whatever, and the only other MMO that approaches WoW's userbase is EVE online, which is a different style of game altogether) then there's no need to write it off completely. I buy there, I buy a lot from Amazon, not much from Play but I find Amazon has better prices, I'm always on eBay because I sell a few items there and I help out on the forums as a kind of unpaid paralegal (I'm studying for accountancy exams so it's good practice). I'm not prejudiced as regards buying.

I think giving themselves a realistic fees model, not trying to hide free listings behind a steep subscription fee but making people pay for what they sell like eBay and only making people subscribe to use tools like shops might help generate some interest and cash to go critical mass. eBay could definitely use a competitor. But that would probably negate their "selling point" of free listings and annoy their current clientele who are content with having something for nothing.

Any sane discussion should revolve around using it in tandem with eBay but there are too many people who think that a mass exodus there from eBay is just around the corner, and that buyers will naturally follow them without a real tightening of systems and a cash injection for advertising.