Giving up on ebay after 5 years as a pro seller

terra_ferma

toffe wrote: »

i can assure you that for the product i'm retailing the retail premises were in a prime location, admitedly "out of town" (just) but ideal for my retail offering.

notably no one has yet pointed out any viable unique selling points that ebay retains today which only serves to affirm my decision to call it a day and move on from ebay......so long ebay, onwards and upwards i go.........

I did, but it's your privilege to choose to ignore them

I must add the marketing side, advertising and SEO, which with own website would take up time and money, although you'd me more in control.

toffe

terra_ferma wrote: »

I did, but it's your privilege to choose to ignore them

I must add the marketing side, advertising and SEO, which with own website would take up time and money, although you'd me more in control.

valid points however despite ebay saying they market your shop on search engines when you subscribe to a featured shop or above i saw no noticeable increase in trafic from this myself.

also as i've said already there is a serious problem on ebay with he lack of available marketing space on the best match system, there are only approximaely 50 spaces on page one of the best match system available, with most popular catagories having several hundred sellers there simply isn't enough space to market every TSR's products evenly and fairly, if that was even what ebay wanted to do which fom my research it isn't.

almost every catagory/search term is dominated by two or three sellers who no matter when you search will appear there on page one never moving and yet other TSR'S of equal standing, paying exactly the same money to list on ebay, will never be shown on page one.

this has happened to some of my listings over the last 12 months and i'm not prepared to pay the same as my competition to appear 3 pages down from them.

as you say, at least with Pay per click marketing i can control how and when and where my ads appear, though if you have no experience it can be expensive i grant you that, however it really doesn't take alot of time to set up and manage an adwords campaign.

soolin

Again I think it all depends on item and selling rating.

I am a PS and a TRS ( how long for I have no idea of course!) and can dominate the early pages I do not however sell in categories like electricals and clothing where there is a lot of Far east competition so that may make me slightly unique.

I have use dmy own web site and have advertised extensively on pre paid sites like ebid, going as far as carrying links to both in my signature every time someone bought from me on ebay. My own web site proved a disastor and i closed it down after no sales and before I had to make further payments for hosting. My views on ebid are well known.

I also found that as a small seller (and I accept that once again I am unusual in having so few items) a lot of my costs were paypal, and that cost was going to arise however I sold as I could not afford to pay more for a virtual terminal and that basically left paypal as my only option that buyers trusted.

My buyers are all on ebay, I odn't know why but maybe it is a unique brand and if they want somehting that traditionally is only sold in the UK they try ebay first.

I do not have a shop at all.

terra_ferma

toffe wrote: »

valid points however despite ebay saying they market your shop on search engines when you subscribe to a featured shop or above i saw no noticeable increase in trafic from this myself.

also as i've said already there is a serious problem on ebay with he lack of available marketing space on the best match system, there are only approximaely 50 spaces on page one of the best match system available, with most popular catagories having several hundred sellers there simply isn't enough space to market every TSR's products evenly and fairly, if that was even what ebay wanted to do which fom my research it isn't.

almost every catagory/search term is dominated by two or three sellers who no matter when you search will appear there on page one never moving and yet other TSR'S of equal standing, paying exactly the same money to list on ebay, will never be shown on page one.

this has happened to some of my listings over the last 12 months and i'm not prepared to pay the same as my competition to appear 3 pages down from them.

as you say, at least with Pay per click marketing i can control how and when and where my ads appear, though if you have no experience it can be expensive i grant you that, however it really doesn't take alot of time to set up and manage an adwords campaign.

I totally agree about best match, my position changes almost everyday, and each time I cannot work out what they have tweaked this time, so I just ignore it as it doesn't actually make much difference in terms of sales.

I think if I sold items that are available to many other sellers, thus competing solely on price I would struggle (several of my competitors have as good fb and stars as I have, although that gives me an advantage on quite e few)

I think niche sellers who don't need to fight for a good ranking in best match are in a better position. Also areas with high levels of repeat purchases can work (for example if the seller's expertise and good customer service are valuable to the customer).

I'm 3/4 niche, although the fight for me is that once I start selling something people will follow, so my strategy is based on finding markets that have barriers of entry for competitors.
(easier said than done, but by thinking outside the box helps).

Solely from a business point of view, I found ebay very unprofessional, you don't have a business-like relationship you would have with any other supplier of services you pay (al lot of) money for, plus they also have a role of regulator at the same time (performed really badly, let's not go there...).
I totally agree, you pay for the 'privilege' of using ebay, and for the very good tools they give you, and have to comply to worst (and most secretive) regulatory framework that must exist in the world... I think privilege is the right word in ebay's minds, describing how they see us sellers. Buyers bring in the money and are the real customers, sellers are a go-between and need to be heavily policed (without any understanding that many are proper businesses, and people's livelihood).

( just to make it absolutely clear, I still think ebay is a great place for me, although I don't like how they operate, but it's my choice to use it.)