Selling your stuff on EBID. advice for new sellers

numberthree

Well done Soolin :beer:

I still have 100+ listings (99% books) on Ebid - after all they look after themselves once on there, and I have paid out the lifetime membership fee

I have made about 15 sales in 2 plus years - I have resisted the temptation to drop my prices too much as I only tend to list my higher priced books on there. I pick up the odd sale which is more than welcome, but I am considering listing all my stock including my Amazon penny ones - not sure if it will be worth the work though

soolin

I had all my stuff on ebid to match ebay prices (after taking into account fees) but it got to the point that I felt I had to do something major to get a sale..just seeing the stuff sitting there year after year was getting really depressing. So I dropped the prices to break even + a bit really just to prove that they were at least visibly listed.

I've still got quuite a bit on there at less than ebay prices and I just log in every day or so and remove items when I have sold them all on ebay.

unwina

Right I'm just a passing seller so to speak, clocked on to ebid a long while ago when they were giving out the world for a fiver so I have the highest selling account , think. But ...

My father-in-law gave me some of his books to try and see if I could sell them, they cost >£25 on amazon, so I pitched them at £10 + 2.50 postage ( he reckoned they were selling at 9.99 when they were first published and they are brand new - he has rather a lot of them). So I thought lets run some onto ebid and see what happens.

I have put 3 on my area and its been available since August i have had 20 hits but not sure how many are mine, not all I know, but not even a sniff of anyone buying them.

So I got to thinking is there a way that one could set up a web site for the book, a single page say that point buyers at the ebid book link. Is this legal, is this worth it, i know how to get it up the google search lists.

Is there any other way people have got traffic into ebid.

Just wondering not really that bothered as its not a business venture but it is damned frustrating that amazon is selling em at 2.5 times the correct retail price when they were available and I can;t get a sniff at a tenner.

Just for poeples interest my father-in-law is a scientist, and this stuff is not particularly interesting to the mainstream. I guess I could get him to sign them but unless I can traffic in they are never going to shift.

Just wondered if anyone could help.

Regards,
Alan

PS i'd try on ebay but there are fees to pay even if it don't sell and besides ebid must work on some level i'd have thought.

soolin

unwina wrote: »

PS i'd try on ebay but there are fees to pay even if it don't sell and besides ebid must work on some level i'd have thought.

Firstly ebay and ebid are not at all the same. I sell hundreds of items every couple of months on ebay, the same stock never ever sells on ebid. It took me 5 1/2 years to get an ebid sale.

Why not put it on Amazon, there is a long Amazon thread on this board that will give you some tips.

soolin

I know i am the only one who appears to be still trying ebid, but has anyone else noticed that when you do a google search for ebid the first entry that comes up is Swoopo :rotfl:

I fear things are going from bad to worse.

I moved an entire line of items across to ebid and for the past 2 months or so have bene adding a note to all my existing buyer emails pointing out where they can get the next lot..and still no bids.

DaveAshton

soolin wrote: »

Secondly, I actually sold somehting :eek:

Did you get paid for it?

The sole thing we've ever managed to sell on ebid was an unpaid item (and we got stuck with the fees, so I get an emailed invoice each month asking for a few pence :rolleyes:).

It only sold for 99p and P+P anyway, compared to the £10 + P+P we consistently get on ebay.

soolin

I did get paid, and boy was that complicated!

Nothing since though so I am all despondent again. Even the forums are not as upbeat as usual, I don't post on them anymore but a book seller recently asked about sales as he was changing from ebay and was basically told he would struggle.

I know it isn't costing me anything to keep listing, but I list stuff daily on both ebay and ebid and frankly the time element in actually bothering with ebid is beginning to concern me.

val4xx

Soolin i'll always pop over and keep you company on this thread .

If you are a bookseller with high value books make sure you read the tips on the ebid forums to get your books picked up on google products.

If (like me) most of your books are low value then for a while this summer ebays free listing for 0.99p start auctions was a better option than ebid. However now ebay insist on free P & P for books i've stopped listing there and will concentrate more time to my ebid listings.

I have no problems getting paid on ebid? the buyer clicks the paypal (or google checkout) button on the invoice and the payments reaches my account.

soolin

The book sellers on ebid are all a bit gloomy, none of them are very upbeat about sales at all. I've listed completely random items on ebid so it isn't ust books that are struggling.

I've started moving my stuff back across to ebay this morning and I've had more page views in the first hour than I have had in 2 months on ebid. I'm going to leave my duplicate items on ebid and some of my personal items just so I have a presence there. Then if there is an upturn I am well placed to take advantage. I also still have items to refer my ebay buyers across to.

I'm going to see some possible new stock this afternoon and depending on the likely profit margins I may well go back to ebay with it all rather than try ebid first.

Frugaldom

Hi Soolin, I'm still with eBid. Well done with your long awaited sale but...

soolin wrote: »

The book sellers on ebid are all a bit gloomy, none of them are very upbeat about sales at all.

:eek::eek::eek:

WE ARE NOT ALL A BIT GLOOMY :rotfl::rolleyes::D:cool:
What ever made you think that?


I've had a couple of small (non-business type) sales over the past few months and the bookstore is still getting quite a few buyers and new sign ups. I no longer use the forums over there if I can help it. I can't think of a single reason that makes them appealing to me, but can think of plenty that puts me off them, iyswim. I do look in occasionally to see what's happening with the site, as I never seem to receive the newsletter. I understand there's a complete revamp due soon, but can't find any information about it other than a couple of complaining forum posts about the free (or buddy point) merchandise being useless if the owners are changing the site logo again. All I can think of is that the site must be generating enough turnover to warrant expenditure on rebranding, so folks must be buying and selling somewhere.

To whoever asked about linking eBid to their own webpage - YES, GO FOR IT! And use their referal links so you get buddy points or referal fee if it's still available. This is how most of our books have been sold, through buyers finding our web pages and then clicking through onto eBid. We use it like it's our secure server and that enables us to accept various payment methods. Lots of people on eBid do that and there are plenty of them in the promotional threads offering link exchanges.

I also used to include all of the relevant eBid news in our monthly newsletters, invite friends & family round for eBid shopping get togethers and offer help to anyone wanting to set up a store on there.