E-bay or alternative

billdfm_2

Hi everyone

with reference to terrymats posting , great starting a new auction site i know it tookme 6 months to do it , and a lot of money , however am in a different position to terrymats in that i have other business interests . So a get me rich quick plan it isnt . however in comparison to ebay i only charge a listing fee and fees for bolding , highlighting and extra pics , i dont charge ending fees , i dont charge commission so if you just want a basic listing then thats what you get and nothing else to pay . i dont want to advertise the site here as i am new here and dont want to get kicked off before i have even started enjoying the forums , but anyone is free to e-mail me for a link to the site . Once i am familiar with the rules of the site then it may be that i can make a referral to my site

In the meantime Terrymats good luck its a hard slog believe me and i already wasted £17000 on adword advertising to get just a handful of people registering

PASCALI

E-bay or alternative

EBAY

Tojo_Ralph

billdfm wrote:

I am in a different position to terrymats in that i have other business interests. So a get me rich quick plan it isnt.

The implication being?

billdfm_2

Hmm yes sorry that was a case of writing before i thought about it

the implication being that every listing would be scrutinised , if it even looked slightly or obviously dodgy or we weren't satisfied that it was legitimate we suspend the listing until the seller can prove beyond all doubt that it is a legitimate listing .

and on the point of my case being different i should have made it clear that a lot of money went into launching the site and it will not be disappearing overnight , if it takes 5 years to become "known" and used then it will stay online until that time arrives . What i dont want terrymats to do is spend his money and like so many of you have said sites have come and gone and will continue to come and go i believe there is room for more than just e-bay out there , and why should e-bay have the upper hand , take it from me if the site does well i will not be selling my customers out to e-bay so they can rid themselves of competition . unlike a lot of other auction sites the site and company is owned by me and not shareholders , its usually greedy shareholders who have the upper hand in forcing a company to sell so they can profit .

Please accept my apologies for being so unclear in my previous posting

Flimber

Why not sell the link to your alternative eBay on eBay for a penny each (refunded upon first auction placed ?). Or somehow give some free listings to eBayers ?

They are the people you need to be advertising at, after all. And I don't see how it contravenes any eBay T&Cs (?).

billdfm_2

Now why didnt i think of that doh! perhaps my mind is in the wrong place , what a brilliant suggestion i think i wll do that at around 10c then i had planned to offer e-bayers their first week with me completely free or indeed anyone else for that matter and i will be re visiting my site fees to make sure they are better than e-bay . on another matter can anyone suggest an alternative to paypal as they wont allow a uk company to have a US account unless they are based in the states , it seems unfair to charge say 10p for a listing which would work out at around 19c for an american or do you think i am being perdantic here and should i just go with one fee bearing in mind that paypal charge me 20p +3.4% on every transaction from the site for listings so the base listing would have to be at least 30p to make a little beyond the free week , actually no i just got it up to £10 ill make it free beyond there i wil charge a fee , and as i am not going ot charge commission or ending fees your brilliant idea could work if it does there be a nice big slap up meal for you wherever you like

PASCALI

I saw a link on this site for a voucher for a free KFC meal, thats the only one you will be able to afford . Get real, move on.

PASCALI

Sorry to be so negative in the above, but you cannot compete against Ebay on a like for like basis.
However I was looking at the motor section today and apparently this is the biggest Ebay growth area. There may be scope for regional based car auctions (the car I was looking at was over 200 miles away), if you are based in Greater London that may be one area for you to consider, free to buyers and sellers for say 6 months, then start charging, advertise it in local papers and canvas local car dealers. Limit it to within the M25.
If you have the auction infrastructure in place then it should be relativerly straightforward.

billdfm_2

Hey there
no worries constructive criticism/advice is welcome . The site is set up somewhat alike e-bay in that it has the usual auction stuff has categories for vehicles and property alike and has storefront capability . the possibilities are endless . the site can also be run in different currencies but this is intended for later use . Your right i probably couldnt go head to head with E-bay but the problem is they are getting greedier and greedier and eventually their bubble will burst as buyers and sellers leave in droves . how many disgruntled e-bayers have already left their comments on here and just a search engine search using "ebay sucks" will bring you to hundreds of different forums and chat boards one of them is even on the ebay singapore website . which really shows ther contempt for their own customers . I am probably just one of many sites that will eventually colect some of their losses

soolin

Overall ebay are still gaining more customers than they are losing.

When people get disgruntled with ebay they tend to give up on auctioning altogether not go somewhere they have to work twice as hard to get a quarter of the sales they are used to.

I really would suggest looking at some of the long established auction sites like https://www.fridayauctions.co.uk . Overall they have less sales now than they did 3-4 years ago. At one point they had listings that were in the thousands, today they have 22 auction listings.

You ask how many disgruntled people have already left their negative comments on here, actually not many..a handful of people that have had problems doesn't even dent the 200 million+ users overall. FOr me I will continue using ebay, but once i get bored I will give up on the auctions altogether and find 'the next best fad' and do something different.

Soo

RACHIE77

Flimber wrote:

Why not sell the link to your alternative eBay on eBay for a penny each (refunded upon first auction placed ?). Or somehow give some free listings to eBayers ?

They are the people you need to be advertising at, after all. And I don't see how it contravenes any eBay T&Cs (?).

Cos its against ebay policy to include links in your auction let alone sell them???

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/listing-links.html (including links in listings)

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/policies/catalogs.html (selling links)