I’ve just received an email from Tazbar: they’re obviously keen to grab the business of any disaffected eBay sellers while they can:
Search results are not affected by any form of hierarchy based on seller feedback. … Every seller can benefit from whatever level of membership they choose, thus giving the smaller seller the same opportunity and rate card as the larger seller. … It is by helping the small to medium size seller that we feel we will get this diverse product range. This isn’t to say we don’t welcome large volume sellers. … It is as level a playing field as we can create.
Whoever you are, we love you.
However, what really tickled me was this paragraph:
Tazbar operates a time served traditional Feeback system with a simple Positive, Neutral or Negative option. This is applicable for both buyers and sellers.
We’ve said time and time again that Tazbar and eBay’s other competitors need to work on attracting buyers. In that context, what a great message: “come and buy on Tazbar, where you can still get negged”. 😆
8 Responses
PMSL – I love the “where you can still get negged” 😆
Tazbar are still going? 😆 😆 😆
I left Tazbar after Lee left so glad to see he is back. Might have a look on the site again.
Hmm, near the entire video game category there is listings for pirated games. Similar to Iofffer, its seems the only sellers these other sites can get are ones who can’t sell on ebay.
rogue sellers = tazbar!!! 😛 😆
I’ve said it several times on Tamebay: you don’t win the fight by plugging into anti-eBay feeling. You do it by selling your benefits, delivering sales and helping sellers be profitable.
@ Dan: the more time I spend looking at the non-eBay auction market, the less I’m convinced about that now. I think I’ve changed my mind about half of this blog post already…
You can set up an auction site these days for less than a grand (considerably less, if you’re not so feature-picky). And to make money yourself, you only need to attract sellers, because there is a large and growing group of sellers who 1) don’t need to actually make money, they just like selling, and 2) hate eBay with a passion. Those people will pay you minimal fees, and if they sell some things, they’re happy.
These people will *flock* to an anti-eBay banner. And not only that, but they’ll then do all your marketing for you, by promoting the fact that their site isn’t eBay. They recruit more sellers, and then all those sellers sell to each other.
You’re never going to out-eBay eBay like that, but that’s okay, because you’re not trying to: you’re trying to capture the niche market of “people who hate eBay but still want to sell in online marketplaces”. eBid and Tazbar aren’t competing with eBay: they’re only competing with each other. Personally I find the negative marketing uncomfortable, but plenty of other people seem to find it more than acceptable.
JMO, obviously.
OMG I can not believe tazbar members staying with the site after what they did to their members. TWICE!!
I have supported the site for as long as I could but just before Christmas 2007 they changed and increased there fees and never contacted anyone about it until lots of members started complaining about it on the forum.
They say the new fees and limits are to help reduce listings of the same items.
All tazbar needed to do is make some software changes like other sites have done that automatically remove multi listings of the same item and close listings if you don’t login after a set time etc.
Charging high fees and reducing listings is not the way forward.
I would love tazbar to succeed but I can’t keep paying tazbar more and more if I don’t get any sales its like paying for air, Buyers want choice not just 2 items in each category, think about software changes and not fee increases and i will come back.