Alternatives to ebay

Brooker_Dave

Garethgrew wrote: »

So there is no real competition to eBay and Amazon?

Facebook, and they are rolling out Facebook payments, instant and to your bank account.

Other than FB there are loads of free classified sites, Gumtree for example, bit hit and miss, but free and if you list loads of stuff something will sell.

Ebay may have milked it a bit too much, I can't help thinking online selling/buying has peaked and any new growth will be in B&M.

RFW

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Ebay may have milked it a bit too much, I can't help thinking online selling/buying has peaked and any new growth will be in B&M.

No. It's just spreading out. Lots of niche sites popping up. It's easier and cheaper to set up your own shop site than it ever has been. Plenty of opportunities to reach an audience in advertising. There's not much money in just being a marketplace. My hunch is that Ebay will start selling their own stuff to compete more with Amazon. Maybe about 12 months from now.

There will be some B&M successes too. I'm probably more likely to try a shop again now than any time in the last 15-20 years. I'm still not tempted though. There's still plenty going under and more to come.

forgotmyname

I used to use yahoo auctions, maybe i was luck or just fewer scammers around back them but i send money all over the place and did bank transfers without a second thought and never had an issue with something not arriving or a buyer scamming me.
When they closed down they sent everyone to ebay.

Buying more and more stuff direct from China now.

Brooker_Dave

RFW wrote: »

No. It's just spreading out. Lots of niche sites popping up. It's easier and cheaper to set up your own shop site than it ever has been. Plenty of opportunities to reach an audience in advertising. There's not much money in just being a marketplace. My hunch is that Ebay will start selling their own stuff to compete more with Amazon. Maybe about 12 months from now

Too many people trying sell the same stuff to the same people.

You only sell something online if you happen to be cheaper than the cheapest man on ebay/amazon.

You make a loss, ebay/amazon/paypal/banks still get 20%

Nation of busy fools.

mrcol1000

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Too many people trying sell the same stuff to the same people.

You only sell something online if you happen to be cheaper than the cheapest man on ebay/amazon.

You make a loss, ebay/amazon/paypal/banks still get 20%

Nation of busy fools.

That is probably true of Amazon. Ebay however you can charge more yet have more sales. That is why I stopped selling on Amazon. It just comes down to who is the lowest price. On Ebay you can compete on more. Of course if you are a rubbish seller on Ebay then you will not last long regardless of what you do.

Garethgrew

Flyonthewall wrote: »

The best idea is to use the major platforms along with your own website and drive traffic to your site.

Only if you're a business seller though. Not worth it if you're a private seller.

Where is the best place to get a free website these days?

Flyonthewall

Garethgrew wrote: »

Where is the best place to get a free website these days?

Wordpress is really good. Free and you can install loads of different site features, including a store. You can host it on various free hosting sites.

However, if it's a business site, and especially if you're going to sell online, then you really need to be paying for hosting and a domain name. There's numerous web hosting sites that vary in price. Depends exactly what you're looking for. You may do better using something else if you just want an online store though.

Either way, you need a secure website that can be trusted if you expect people to buy from you.

Brooker_Dave

Garethgrew wrote: »

Where is the best place to get a free website these days?

Free websites look like free websites, and will scare off customers.

Either do it properly or don't bother.

southerly

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Ebay have recently had numerous offers for listing items that make it cheaper to sell.

There is Amazon, but their fees are a bit higher than ebays. However, sometimes you can sell items for more.

Ebays listing offers have only been to selected people. I used to sell a lot but not at all since December, I have not received any listing offers since then , it would have worked to tempt me back to selling. On Amazon it is a lot quicker to list items, as you do so it calculates for you how much you will actually receive, & there is no listing fees or having to relist items.

soolin

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

Free websites look like free websites, and will scare off customers.

Either do it properly or don't bother.

I find myself agreeing with you again. As I have mentioned in the past I was playing with the idea of a website as I have a new unique item that is selling well and which people keep asking me about. I did investigate a free website or two, but talking to people on the forums connected wih those sites it was all a bit doom and gloom. No visibility, sites disappearing or just looking plain shoddy unless you paid for upgrades.

I then checked out a few paid for sites but the costs start to build up if you want all the bells and whistles . Probably great if you have high end items to sell, but for me with sub £10 items it is actually cheaper to sell on eBay at the moment.

It is still something I have plans to do at some point purely to spread my selling . I was using a facebook site quite successfully mainly to the US but managed to get banned for once again trying to warn people about a scam in progress (the usual one, they have the new iPhone for sale and it can be sent to the UK complete with customs clearance for £500, all they wanted was £75 down by bank transfer to a UK bank account - for the buyers convenience- to pay the deposit, customs, tax and shipping , the rest to be paid on delivery. ). The admin on that one was in the US and warned me once that I was over reacting as a bank transfer was safe, but when I argued that in the UK it is not safe for the buyer she banned me.