Estocks

traybro

I am a small seller on Ebay who is trying to earn a living, pay the bills, pay my mortgage, look after my kiddies.
Recently a cd/dvd seller started up and seems to undercut everyone of my items by 1p, as anyone else experienced this?
My sales have dissapeared and after shelling out listing fee's I am running at a loss I'm scared my business is going to go under.
Ebay used to be a marketplace for second hand sellers and small businesses, I'm unsure why hightstreet shops and big businesses have now started selling on Ebay? It puts small sellers under very very quickly.
This month I haven't been able to pay my listing fee's, bills or mortgage.
I have tried lowering my prices but it seems the seller is using some type of software? Everytime I lower my price, they lower there's by 1p.
Some items that are worth a bit are now being sold for literally pennies
I thought about switching to play or amazon but apparently estocks trade as zoverstocks and have done the same on the other 2 sites.
The software they use will always undercut every seller. This is so unfair I can't sleep at all, scared in going to lose my home
Anybody else experienced this?

Kite2010

E-Stocks, that's the E-bay version of Magpie isn't it?

Nothing you can really do, other than try to give something extra (state you post via 1st class).

squack

sorry traybro but you will have to accept that you will have to find another way to make a living, your business will be destroyed by the aggressive price cutting of this competitor

Darksun

There are tricks you can use to encourage people to buy from you. A lot of people are more happy to buy from smaller independent retailers (especially when it's for the sake of 1p), so explain that in your listing.

I've also seen people offering free 2p coins with every order, so as to undercut the automated software :rotfl:

techspec

Do you think the software just allerts them of a lower price and then they check it and reduce theirs. I can't imagine it lowers the price itself. If you raise your price - does their software tell them to increase theirs? If it was lowered automatically, i'd be putting mine at a silly price in the middle of the night so it pushed theirs down and then put mine back up. At least i would get them selling at a loss. Doubt it does it without manual input though.

But does it count postage when it scans. I have just done a search of a cd, and they have undercut the cheapest with free postage by 1p. BUT there is a cheaper one - that is done by charging lower for the item plus £1.25 postage. Their system may have ignored this one. If you currenty do free postage - try charging postage with the item cheaper - it will push your item to the top of search when put in order of price - and save you fees.

I'm afraid Ebay is seeing the same changes that the high street saw when big supermarkets etc moved in. Small business and private sellers are being sqeezed on Ebay by big business.

Draksun has a point too - their customer service seems none existent - judging by their feedback. Another seller thats selling such an high amount of items, that they don't answer emails - as bad feedback and low dsr's have little effect percentage wise.

johnnyboyrebel

techspec wrote: »

Do you think the software just allerts them of a lower price and then they check it and reduce theirs. I can't imagine it lowers the price itself. If you raise your price - does their software tell them to increase their? If it was lowered automatically, i'd be putting mine at a silly price in the middle of the night so it pushed theirs down and then put mine back up. At least i would get them selling at a loss. Doubt it does it without manual input though.

Its automatic, the software checks prices of all other sellers at a regular interval via an API. This is a direct link between the software and the marketplace itself. Most sellers have a minimum selling price (example cost plus £2.00 or cost plus 15%) but the likes of Zover (by all accounts) probably just has a minimum of 1p which means it will always undercut any other price. If you are the next seller (that they have just undercut) and you raise your price then there price will raise accordingly so it is still just 1p cheaper than you. You could lower yours to a stupid price in the middle of the night as you suggest however as soon as you put your price back up, theirs would go up too. Even if it didn't, they most probably wont care less, sure its a loss of profit (where normally they could get a higher price for the item) however they make profit on the postage so even selling at 0.00p would give them a profit!

techspec wrote: »

does it count postage when it scans. I have just done a search of a cd, and they have undercut the cheapest with free postage by 1p. BUT there is a cheaper one - that is done by charging lower for the item plus £1.25 postage. Their system may have ignored this one. If you currenty do free postage - try charging postage with the item cheaper - it will push your item to the top of search when put in order of price - and save you fees.

It may or may not do, each piece of software is different. Seller express does take postage into account however the likes of Sellermania doesnt I dont think. As for ignoring, most pieces of software allow a "black list" where you enter a seller name and it is always ignored (for example, someone who is cheaper but who ships from Outer Mongolia therefore is not a competitor due to a longer delivery period)

techspec wrote: »

afraid Ebay is seeing the same changes that the high street saw when big supermarkets etc moved in. Small business and private sellers are being sqeezed on Ebay by big business.

Its unfortunate but there is nothing anyone can do about this, they have the right to sell where they please just like you or I do. If it is a good source of revenue for them then clearly it makes sense for them to sell on there.

As I always stated previously (in the other Zover threads that clearly got out of hand) I suggest any seller that has a fairly high number of listings should use software to reprice as the time saved and results achieved far outweigh the costs involved (they are minimal generally for the more basic software options)

I dont know if I can post links on here to this type of software so if someone can confirm this is ok, I will do.

johnnyboyrebel

traybro wrote: »

Hi thankyou all for your posts.
I'm worried sick, this is all I am thinking about. Worrying about my mortgage & Bills to pay.
Yes it is the selling side of Magpie & yes the selling is aggressive. A typical cd that sold for £4.95 last week now sells for £1.27 free p&p. I simply can't compete any longer. My sales aren't covering my ebay fee's. I haven't been able to pay last months fees.
I have lowered my price on all my items and when I check a few hours later I've been undercut. He seems to always be the cheapest by 1p.
I'm sorry for all the amazon & play small businesses, its truly awful.
It's great for their company but it will kill my business. I'm stuck and don't know what to do. A few people have said to look for another stock line but I don't know where to start.I have young kids and invested all my savings into stock and right now couldn't even afford new stock.
No matter how low I go he/she will always undercut by 1p and yes, 1p seems to make the sale.
They appeared from nowhere with 160,000 listings and seem to get all the sales.
I read that it's software that undercuts but don't know the truth of it.
I don't know how he can go so low on prices??
My future is scary.I lost all my sales in 4 weeks. In the last 2 weeks I have sold 2 items :(I even lowered my prices on a hope to sell but was undercut literally a few hours later. He/she's stock seems to be permanently refilled also.

Im a 100% Amazon man so dont know too much about eBay but if they are advertising free postage too then yes, they most probably sell at a loss as what they lose on those sales is made up for by all the positive feedback they will get which will then trigger future sales for them.

One saving grace is eventually, noone will order from them as there is an increasing number of people who have the opinion that you have and therefore I see a huge boycott towards them coming. Also their major downside is that they most probably dont stock everything that they are listing. Once someone confirms they are sending them something via the Music Magpie site then they will most probably list that for sale so in theory they would have sold it before they even get the item delivered to them! This is exactly why many of their customers on here have complained that after placing an order they get an email a day or so later saying the item "has not passed the quality inspection", clearly it is only a day or so later that they have actually received the item to check the quality!

Listing items for sale that are not in stock is completely against any marketplace rules so it may be worth thinking about how you could inform eBay of this to perhaps get rid of them. This is their big Achiiles Heel.

Too many people say that zover are so big that eBay, Amazon etc. will simply "protect them" and take no action but Amazon are truly ruthless when they want to be and if they get enough complaints they will look into it. Just do not complain because they are undercutting you as from anyones eyes, there is nothing illegal in this as they are simply a business like you are.

If you want any tips or help, PM me or ask away on here.

techspec

Thanks johnnyboyrebel - very informative. Sounds a nightmare to compete against that sort of technology.

Didn't realise they were one of them companies that give you cash for your cd/dvd's either - and then sell them on. So its not like you can wait for them to run out - and then list your own. Sounds a military style operation with regards listing etc - which explains their massive feedback in such a short space of time. But the number of items not received and out of stock shown in their feedback - suggests your right about them listing before they get them.

johnnyboyrebel

techspec wrote: »

Thanks johnnyboyrebel - very informative. Sounds a nightmare to compete against that sort of technology.

Didn't realise they were one of them companies that give you cash for your cd/dvd's either - and then sell them on. So its not like you can wait for them to run out - and then list your own. Sounds a military style operation with regards listing etc - which explains their massive feedback in such a short space of time. But the number of items not received and out of stock shown in their feedback - suggests your right about them listing before they get them.

I only say that as everyone keeps suggesting Zoverstocks are Music Magpie who are advertised on the tv etc. and buy your used stuff. As they sell online too then I would only assume they resell on there. It all fits together....

If you sell quite a bit on any marketplace i would really suggest getting some software to reprice for you as the difference in sales and ease on your workload is immense!

DCFC79

Nothing wrong with someone undercutting you, its called business, find something else to sell or some other form of paid work

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

estocks do use software on eBay, it can only undercut if you enter the barcode when listing your product but at the moment eBay isn't forcing media sellers to use the catalogue (thank god as it's full of errors) so if you list without the barcode added then they won't undercut.

From what I can tell e-stocks doesn't have a limit on their software so if you list yours at a penny their software will match so undercutting them is a pointless race to the very bottom. eBay is different to Amazon in that you can list with an ean but no title (so your listing is there but effectively hidden) technically meaning you can by anything from a seller using this software for just a penny. Whether this is ethical or not is another matter.

e-stocks are doing well on eBay in terms of sales but do have some disadvantages, their service isn't the best (a lot of big companies don't realise just how much eBay shoppers demand), they list on several sites so have stock issues and they have limited stock per title so don't benefit greatly from Best Match due to sales built up over a long period.

offering a 2p coin on eBay is pointless, it's currently very different to Amazon and in my opinion this wouldn't help achieve sales.

estocks have a very good business, they pay very little for stock to people using Music Magpie so can sell at very cheap prices. Due to their volume they can afford to lose on one sale whilst making a higher margin on another.

With regards to earning a living selling media, this is what I do with a 300K yearly turnover and trust me it will only get harder on eBay.

You say your savings are tied up in stock, it's hard to comment without knowing your business, however don't panic and sell goods at a loss but equally don't leave things sitting on the shelf for 3 years unsold, sometimes you have to accept it was a poor choice to carry that line and just get shot of it to reinvest in fresh stock.

There is also more considered than price when consumers make choices, yes it's important but ensuring your titles have the correct key words, listings are well written, you comply with the DSRs and Sale of Goods Act and most importantly come across as approachable in the event of an issue, are also important.

Those consumers who shop on price will continue to pick the cheapest seller and randomly suffer poor service, those who shop on service will happily spend more to avoid this suffering. As someone who doesn't have the buyer power to be cheap you need to focus on those looking for service.