Selling your stuff on EBID. advice for new sellers

wigglebeena

Well, I can't really see why you would work that hard. As I say, I make no effort at all on Ebid yet make sales reasonably often. Perhaps it's not the right venue for you.

Frugaldom

Looks like the special offer was just an existing members' offer on the 25th. here's the link to the announcement that was made, if you check the date & time, it was made on the day.

Soolin, I like the site on the grounds of it's replacing the need for us to pay for a secure server or ecommerce site and merchant account. It's like all of that rolled into a lifetime advertising package. For what I paid to join (nothing), I can't ever complain. We use it purely as a platform for our own sites and it seems to work well for us. But on its own, it doesn't (yet) pay the rent.

I think it may be a whole different kettle of fish if/when eBay closes down their auction side of things completely to opt for the global superstore of buy it nows. Trouble is that it'll leave millions of small sellers looking for auction outlets rather than buyers looking for bargains. To mop up the spillage, eBid needs to get the word out that it can offer an easy alternative, a quick turnaround on listings, a quick buck for sellers and a massive opportunity for bargain hunters. Our disposable society doesn't lend itself to secondhand stuff that costs more to post than to pick up in a charity shop and that's a big problem. In this case, eBid launching their 'Ninja' lister and having the existing membership test it for them is excellent planning. I'm eagerly awaiting their next move, just as soon as the bulk uploader has been fine tuned. They have their own objectives and I reckon the guys at the top, (infuriating as they can seem! ) know what game they're playing.

If you owned an auction website that had no puppetmaster but a competitor that could chew you up and spit you out for breakfast, what would you do to make it a success? Play a game of stealth and be hellbent on success?

If you were in charge of an auction website that was controlled by puppetmasters pulling you in a direction that wasn't your original goal, what would you do? Take the money and run?

At the end of the day, money talks. Can you afford not to list on eBid if there's a chance that eBay could pull the plug on their own auction site to avoid all the messy law suits and demands from shareholders? Small sellers cannot always afford the distance selling money back guarantees that they'd be obliged to honour if they were forced into 'buy it now' listings. Even if eBay plays its, 'we are legal guardians of the entire online auction programming concept, all other sites must bow down and pay us a license fee' card, the eBidders are, at least, a rebelious lot that I suspect may gather en mass to defend and protect their patch regardless of the ultimate outcome.

Longwinded way of saying stick with it if, for no other reason, you're protecting your own back from the conglomerate. Sorry, just realised this has turned into an epic post! Must go check my eBay share prices now! :rotfl:

soolin

As there are still more auction listings on ebay than BINs I can't imagine ebay closing that side of things down any time yet. The point about second hand goods also overlooks a vast community of sellers that sell only second hand. I'm moving my business into used items even as I speak. My books are 99.9% second hand and I've started buying at bricks and mortar auction houses to resell on ebay as I can sell quite a lot to the foreign markets that way. Although my business model changes constantly depending on where my market goes and what goods I can source , I currently sell consistently more used items than new, by a huge margin.

On the topic of books I actually sell more of them on greenmetropolis than on ebid, and that of course ignores the fact that th emajority of sales will almost certainly remain on Amazon, with the odd flurry of books sales on ebay.

That also means that BINs are not always ideal for my goods as the prices can vary hugely depending on fashion and demand.

I think if you are waiting for ebay to give up the biggest chunk of their market before ebid can even start to be successful then you have taken away any hope that I might have had that ebid is worth bothering with.

I list in ebid as it seems that they are bigger overseas than they are in the UK, and since that is where my market tends to be I thought I might attract some sales.

soolin

For the purposes of clarity I should also point out that I do still sell brand new goods in quantities via bIN on Ebay. Those same goods are also listed on ebid (as I have a big stock) and the only time i go onto ebid is to remove them or change numbers as I am selling too many on ebay and don't want to accidentally over sell. They are cheaper on ebid and they just don't sell, that's why I started with the one off items.

cyberbob

Frugaldom wrote: »

if/when eBay closes down their auction side of things completely to opt for the global superstore of buy it nows.

It'll never happen.The used goods and auction listings are what pulls a huge amount of customers and sellers into ebay.

Frugaldom

cyberbob wrote: »

It'll never happen.The used goods and auction listings are what pulls a huge amount of customers and sellers into ebay.

I'm not suggesting that they'll stop the sales of secondhand goods, I'm suggesting that they'll lean further and further towards 'buy it now' until they eventually offload the auction end in favour of becoming the world's biggest online shopping mall, which offers far more security to customers via the distance selling regs. If the CEO of the company is predicting that only 30% of goods offered in 2011 will fall into the auction category, that's a 33% drop over the next 12 months that could be mopped up by sites like eBid IF they have what it takes to control it.

With eBay owning the patent on their online auction programming or whatever, which they've fought tooth and nail to win for over 10 years, it's laid the path clear to licensing it to third parties, or worse - insisting that others using similar online auction formats pay them a fee for the right to do so.

Virtually nothing is impossible in the world of business development and ecommerce, especially when we're looking at the likes of eBid as a potential competitor for eBay. It's like comparing Costcutter with Asda WalMart - a few people earn/save money thanks to the small store but it is no threat to the big one and would never handle the enormous customer base even if given the opportunity to do so. But they are constantly preparing themselves for that possibility, which can only be a good thing. They can learn from eBay's mistakes.

Soolin, I wouldn't let anything drag me away from eBid. Like Costcutter (or Spar), it's like my local convenience store where I can trade a few bits & pieces without forking out a small fortune in getting to Asda (or Tesco). It's also handy for saving my buddy points (all the best stores seem to have loyalty points of some description). Notice that eBay has now introduced their own new loyalty points scheme - has anyone been taking part in those trials?

toffeecoated

I can't understand how Ebay are still in business. They are the worst company i have ever dealt with. If Amazon, Google or Yahoo ever decide to start an auction site they will kill Ebay overnight. Until then we have to keep listing on Ebid in the hope that something will eventually sell.

soolin

toffeecoated wrote: »

I can't understand how Ebay are still in business. They are the worst company i have ever dealt with. If Amazon, Google or Yahoo ever decide to start an auction site they will kill Ebay overnight. Until then we have to keep listing on Ebid in the hope that something will eventually sell.

Actually both Yahoo and Amazon have run auction sites in the past, They both gave up. Ebay entered the UK market and took all the business.

toffeecoated

Ebay banned me today for the 5th and final time. Apparently they were worried for the safety of their users. The cause of this concern was me listing an Altrincham v Millwall football programme with a starting bid of 99p. I will never use them again. They are a joke.

soolin

toffeecoated wrote: »

Ebay banned me today for the 5th and final time. Apparently they were worried for the safety of their users. The cause of this concern was me listing an Altrincham v Millwall football programme with a starting bid of 99p. I will never use them again. They are a joke.

I'm sure they will miss you.
If you would prefer I could move your posts to a seperate thread for two reasons. Firstly there ar every few people who read this ebid thread as ebid it is not widely used. Secondly, those that do use it might not like the direction this is going, ie I am banned by ebay so am going to try ebid. I'm not sure that 'ebid is full of ebay rejects' is an impression that ebid regulars like to see.