FREE LSTING. 1-8 th September

Ms-Money-Penny

aeb wrote: »

One mans tat is another mans treasure

Totally agree with the amount of [STRIKE]tat[/STRIKE]treasure i've sold lately.:j

porto_bello

Crowqueen wrote: »

eBid have very little market presence, Porto. No-one wants to buy there - they either don't know about it or would prefer to stick with one of a number of bigger sites because of better protection. And you don't get free listings unless you pay another way via a subscription fee - at least on eBay you only pay for what you use.

More likely is that eBay have seen Amazon with their free listings and want to rejig things for private sellers - without causing the unregistered businesses to take advantage. I have thought this for a while; I don't think it's a conspiracy theory at all, I think it's more of a practical solution in order to test any problems/restrictions that could be imposed to prevent unreg businesses exploiting it.

If eBay had a fraction of the efficiency you give them credit for they would have stopped the unreg business problem a long time ago properly. I agree they target some categories more than others.

But I seriously think you are living in cloud-cuckoo-land if you think eBid are going to challenge any time soon. They don't have the revenue to increase their presence where it matters - to attract buyers - and if they did they would have to charge the market rate for their listings, simple equation.

I fail to see how Amazon's long-term market presence and its facility for private sellers to list only specific, registered items, in a limited range of categories, is the reason why eBay has more recently provided private sellers with a regular supply of free listings for every kind of item and every kind of category.

Like most private sellers, I use eBay to sell unwanted items. Amazon is fine for DVDs, CDs and books, but this represents only a small proportion of what I have ever listed on eBay. What about all the other, usually higher value stuff? Collectibles? Antiques? Vehicles? Property? And the multitude of everything else that isn't already registered on Amazon?

A private seller certainly would have to be in cloud cuckoo land to attempt listing unregistered items against Amazon's range of existing registered products!

Though eBay is the dominant auction site, it's Achilles heal was (and to some degree, still is) that you have to pay to list everything - and therefore run a risk of being out of pocket - something which eBid and others have tried to utilise as their unique selling point.

Being as eBay's free listings have only appeared in abundance since eBid has entered the market, I suggest it's far more likely that eBay has seen the danger and offers regular free listings as a loss leader, as a strategy to try to prevent eBid (or any other competitor) successfully attracting a private seller base and thereby gaining a market share.

soolin

porto_bello wrote: »

Being as eBay's free listings have only appeared in abundance since eBid has entered the market, I suggest it's far more likely that eBay has seen the danger and offers regular free listings as a loss leader, as a strategy to try to prevent eBid (or any other competitor) successfully attracting a private seller base and thereby gaining a market share.

Not sure where you get that bit from, but ebid has been in the UK for 10 years without making even the slightest dent on anything. It is not a new site and if you look at when ebay.uk actually started up as a seperate entity to ebay.com, it started up at basically the same time.

soolin

Actually I will correct that, ebid in the UK pre dates ebay.uk. Ebid has a 1998 UK launch, ebay. UK was 1999.

From Ebid itself :
FoundedLondon, England UK (1998)HeadquartersSurrey, England UK
From ebay

Launched in the UK in October 1999, eBay.co.uk is the UK's largest online marketplace

lovinituk

porto_bello wrote: »

My guess is that it's only because of eBid's market presence and permanent free listings, that free listing opportunities are being offered by eBay.

LOL!! That's a good one :rotfl:

You are joking.... right?!?

soolin

lovinituk wrote: »

LOL!! That's a good one :rotfl:

You are joking.... right?!?

It is a common misconception that ebid is unsucessful purely because it is new. In fairness to ebid though that have continued to push on despite not going anywhere.

Ebay bought out all the other big online auction sites, or else they just gave in and closed up shop. I suspect ebid are too small to trouble ebay and as they are one of the last remaining long time sites feel they might as well continue as they have very little to loose.

A second site is never a bad idea and I do park items on there sometimes (although I think I closed my largest shop about 2 holidays ago and haven't bothered to reopen it yet), but I would urge people to definitely not spend money buying a membership as it is costly and will take years to recoup. I still have not covered my lifetime membership I took out about 8 or 9 years ago.

Crowqueen

eBid is a victim of its own policies. If it had enough money generated through actual sales it might have grown in strength and rival Amazon/eBay/Play. eBay may have bought them out but they may have left them.

I doubt they lose much sleep over eBid tbh. I think they are more interested in competing with Amazon, who do free listing for private sellers and offer actual vfm. They will view eBid as primarily a dumping ground for people who don't like eBay's policies - but since that doesn't inspire buyer confidence, they are reasonably confident they are not going to take their buyers with them. It's a bit unfair on eBid, who don't really want them to damage their reputation, but it's true enough.

I'm surprised a seasoned reg like Porto thinks they are new, I used them back in 2004 and gave up because everything on eBay was selling like hotcakes, so I moved what I listed on eBid over there. Just like, tbh, I am doing with stuff now listed on eBay to Amazon because of slow sales. It's not any one site I'm interested in - just in getting the best price for what I'm selling.

porto_bello

Assuming Crowqueen’s analysis is correct and that the competition offered by Amazon is the real reason why eBay offers 100 free listings regularly:

Could anyone rationally explain how private sellers can list their allowance of 100 unwanted items on Amazon, when the majority of those items going on eBay aren’t actually registered on Amazon?

Please don’t say temporarily cease to be a private seller and become a paid up high volume seller, with registration privileges … for a weekend!

[PS, Fair enough, I have only heard of eBid in the last 4-5 years and thought it was relatively recent, compared to Amazon].

lovinituk

I'm not sure that Amazon is the reason behind the free listings, but I seriously doubt it has anything to do with ebid. I think its simpler than that - free listings leads to more listings, sales and therefore more FVF's for ebay.

porto_bello

lovinituk wrote: »

I'm not sure that Amazon is the reason behind the free listings, but I seriously doubt it has anything to do with ebid. I think its simpler than that - free listings leads to more listings, sales and therefore more FVF's for ebay.

I suggest that an additional reason would be that any future competitor of eBay will need to offer advantageous fees and completely free listings are the most obvious advantage over eBay.

By offering a supply of free listings, eBay makes the task of a DIRECT competitor establishing a toe hold very much harder.