How is Ebid getting on?

RHemmings

I used to be active in this forum about ten years ago. One thing that I thought of after looking at this forum again is to wonder how Ebid is getting on. When I was active here there were always people promoting Ebid and calling it the future of online auctions. I registered on Ebid and after some effort found a minor item I could buy. But, after that it was just too hard for me to find stuff, and I gave up.

It's clear that after all this time we're not in a world where Ebid has supplanted Ebay. I see the site is still there. Does anyone have the skinny on how the site is as a place to buy and sell in 2023? 

soolin

I used to watch ebid in case it picked up as I still have my lifetime membership , but I don’t think I’ve even gone to the page now for 2 maybe even 3 years. The last time I looked even some of the regulars were saying they weren’t seeing the results they once had and suggested it was better used alongside other sites rather than a standalone site.

I don’t think I’ve seen it advertised recently either , the only ads I’ve seen recently have been for Vinted. 

tightauldgit

I've never heard of it but unfortunately in the online world there tends to be a lot of 'natural monopolies' where one site captures all the traffic and then that's the end of any real competition. You can maybe pick off a niche here and there but it's hard to ever dethrone the behemoth.

RFW

Ebid have always seemed happy in their own little world. They always looked to me like it was just set up for someone to buy the company/name.
I had a quick look at their accounts and they don't seem particularly active. They show as having 2 employees and not much financial activity.
It's a shame no one's done anything with it as it's a cracking name, apart from that there's not much there.

soolin

RFW said:

Ebid have always seemed happy in their own little world. They always looked to me like it was just set up for someone to buy the company/name.
I had a quick look at their accounts and they don't seem particularly active. They show as having 2 employees and not much financial activity.
It's a shame no one's done anything with it as it's a cracking name, apart from that there's not much there.

That would make sense according to gossip at the time . Many years ago when there were many little online auctions eBay would buy them out and take over their users. Some sites did very well out of the deal and seemed more than happy to sell up, there were even suggestions that some sites were almost set up merely to get a payout from eBay. I started off on Freeserve auctions, plus a few others and eBay took most of them over and that’s how I ended up on eBay. 

RHemmings

Thanks for the comments everyone. I forgot about the Ebid forums, and went hand had a look. There are still people posting, but I noticed that on all the threads I was on that there were 0 registered users and 1 guests browsing the thread - I guess that would have been me. 

I found a thread complaining that someone trying to buy on Ebid kept on finding that the products had already been 'sold elsewhere'. They received refunds, but were discouraged from using Ebid. And said that these problems may be putting off new buyers. 

In the forums people were posting 'blast from the past' charity cookbooks from Ebid sellers and were nostalgic about past charity drives on Ebid. 

It does seem a little bit a 'dead man walking' as an auction site. There was a poster in the forums who said that he has made thousands of sales on Ebid. I found his profile, and he sells stamps from his personal collection. My eyes boggled when I saw how cheaply he was selling the stamps, and while postage is an order of magnitude higher, he is happy to combine postage and you can get a lot of stamps in an envelope. If I was a stamp collector, I would probably resuscitate my Ebid account or make a new one just to buy from him. And, if he's on stamp collecting forums - I could easily imagine stamp collectors buying a hundred stamps from him at a time - for a few quid. I suspect that his supply of product and pricing will mean that he simply would be able to sell pretty much anywhere. 

One of the searches I used to do for checking auction sites is 'bass guitar'. On Ebid this bought up very few actual bass guitars, but a lot of 1:4 models. They are all clearly described as 1:4 models in the descriptions and some photos even have the models held in a hand. However, I expect that there will be buyers who don't read the listings properly and expect to be receiving a real Fender Jazz bass for £25. 

I know I can post links here, but I'm not sure if I should link to an Ebid profile (the stamp collector) or not. But, I found it interesting seeing someone who can see on Ebid, and finding out (I believe) why. 

soolin

I think that's where smaller sites can work, if a seller has access to virtually free items and can sell cheaply in a niche category, in the 'old' days ink cartridges always did very well on ebid for some reason, empty, refilled or new it didn't matter. Where listings even for businesses are free people can post up hundreds of speculative auctions at no cost and just leave them to run. 

Look at other successful sites, Etsy is niche really, supposedly handmade or vintage but of course flooded with the usual Far East tat. Vinted is strict on what you can list, and even deletes items that are allowed if the auto bot goes into overdrive (I suspect there are very few larger sellers on Vinted that haven't had things removed) . I also sell on a few very niche facebook groups, very specific to what can and can't be listed. None of these sites try and compete with ebay, they run alongside them quite successfully. I don't think ebid were following the right model to go head to head with ebay, and do it badly. Remember as well that ebid were launched in the UK before ebay UK was launched, they didn't come later like many of the other smaller sites did.

Tommo2448

I'm interested to read all this, as I have been using Ebid alongside Ebay, Etsy and Delcampe for several years (and Ebay only since 2010).   I am selling mostly postcards, old photos, ephemera, books etc., paper collectables generally.  Delcampe BTW is an excellent and large European site, primarily for selling postcards/stamps.

In the last three years since June 2020, the bulk of my turnover and profit has been Ebay, of course, with Delcampe second to that. I have used Ebid essentially for two purposes.  One has been listing items on which I could not make a profit on the other sites, mostly postcards at £2 or less, but where Ebid's 2% sale fee still allows me to make a little.    The other has been "storage", for want of a better word - listing things for free that can sit for months without me having to do anything with them.  Some I might later transfer to one of the other sites if they can be "lotted" alongside other similar stuff ; bundled into a larger lot ; or after I have done some research to add value to the item (e.g. family history of a postcard sender or recipient).

My actual income from Ebid sales has only been £125 in three years, and overall profit is still only a few tens of ££s when taking into account the one-off lifetime sub for free listing.   But I still find it useful.   I also buy on Ebid, for my own collecting.  And I have had buyers on Ebid who have also bought from me on Ebay or Delcampe.

I haven't got much listed anywhere right now, as I am reorganising my selling (and waiting to see whether the Royal Mail dispute is finally resolved !). But I am listing stuff on Ebid which I will almost certainly transfer to one of the others in the autumn.

I would also add that when I have had occasional minor technical issues with the Ebid site, or other queries, their staff have been extremely responsive and helpful.

Interested to hear other's experiences !

RFW

soolin said:

Look at other successful sites, Etsy is niche really, supposedly handmade or vintage but of course flooded with the usual Far East tat.

I checked on Etsy a couple of months ago and was shocked how bad they've let it go. That said they had a steady profitable income until lockdown when it increased like crazy and they seem to be one of the few companies who've sustained it. So they're clearly doing something right even if it looks "messy" to us.

soolin

RFW said:

soolin said:

Look at other successful sites, Etsy is niche really, supposedly handmade or vintage but of course flooded with the usual Far East tat.

I checked on Etsy a couple of months ago and was shocked how bad they've let it go. That said they had a steady profitable income until lockdown when it increased like crazy and they seem to be one of the few companies who've sustained it. So they're clearly doing something right even if it looks "messy" to us.

Certain things do well on Etsy , I sometimes get a fair bit for something that might struggle somewhere else, but most of my items never sell so I pick what items I list on  there very carefully. Buyers seem to like authentic vintage , once they wade through all the ‘brand new with tags’ vintage items made yesterday in a factory in the Far East. 

I find the listing tool rather cumbersome though, I’m far too used to eBay. 

Tommo2448

soolin said:

RFW said:

soolin said:

Look at other successful sites, Etsy is niche really, supposedly handmade or vintage but of course flooded with the usual Far East tat.

I checked on Etsy a couple of months ago and was shocked how bad they've let it go. That said they had a steady profitable income until lockdown when it increased like crazy and they seem to be one of the few companies who've sustained it. So they're clearly doing something right even if it looks "messy" to us.

Certain things do well on Etsy , I sometimes get a fair bit for something that might struggle somewhere else, but most of my items never sell so I pick what items I list on  there very carefully. Buyers seem to like authentic vintage , once they wade through all the ‘brand new with tags’ vintage items made yesterday in a factory in the Far East. 

I find the listing tool rather cumbersome though, I’m far too used to eBay. 

I've haven't used Etsy for over a year, but did a bit 2019-2021. Again, mostly paper collectables.  I found that more "cutesy" things went better there than elsewhere - I get the impression that the demographics are slightly more "creative" than other sites, but that's a very simplistic analysis !

I agree with soolin's comment about the listing tool .  However, one site I found very useful with this is https://erank.com/, which is basically designed to help you improve your keywords/tags/item titles/photos etc and all the other things the Etsy algorithm demands.    I only used the free version but even that was helpful in identifying gaps. 

Signing in there for the first time for ages reminds me it also tells you however many items you have sold (in my case 171), which is "more than 82% of other shops on Etsy" - which is perhaps a revealing statistic in itself...