Where will the strikers go?

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I’m not convinced UK sellers have anything to worry about from the changes to eBay fees and feedback about to revolutionise the site. Certainly claims from companies such as eBid that fees will rise up to 67% are simply not true, almost every seller in the UK without exception will be greeted with lower eBay invoices soon, and that’s even if they don’t qualify for volume discounts. I’m still being contacted by sellers who believe that their eBay bills will rise although I’ve yet to find one that will.

Feedback changes appear to be still the biggest concern and doubtless the proposed eBay sellers strike will still go ahead on the 18th – 25th February. The numbers taking part will probably be small compared to the thousands of sellers on eBay today but the big question is where will these sellers go?

No seller large or small can simply afford to lose a weeks income – smaller sellers don’t generally have large funds to fall back on and larger sellers have employees and business premises that need paying regardless of income.

I’ve looked at the traffic for the main four alternative auction sites in the UK and with just ten days before the proposed strike you might expect to see an increase in activity as sellers prepare to list inventory but that’s not the case.

Auction site traffic stats

According to Alexa there is no discernable increase in traffic to these sites, and in fact hasn’t been for the whole of the last year.

Visiting the alternative sites doesn’t inspire confidence either, entire categories are berefit of products, and if competitors aren’t listing there already it’s for one reason alone – there aren’t any buyers. Buyers simply aren’t visiting alternative auction sites and are the most important commodity eBay has to offer. Whilst sellers might decide to list elsewhere it’s unlike they’ll be able to support their businesses on these sites. The only serious contender as an alternative is still Amazon.

If strikers are hoping to replace their income from other sources they’re going to find it difficult, the alternative is to simply give up a weeks income and that’s something not many can afford to do.

75 Responses

  1. I really dont think these strikers are aware of what they are doing, even if it mattered to ebay
    ebay cant lose,
    the very fact they are striking is going to please many buyers, pleased buyers buy more ,
    more buyers please sellers, pleased sellers use ebay to sell,

    so they are shooting themselves in the foot with a nuclear missile

  2. plus once they strike and not a thing changes
    ebay make just as much money, then ebay will be even more unlikley to listen or be negotiable

  3. I think it’s a really good idea. I know in the past I’ve suffered from a negative feedback that was totally undiserved from a seller as the product I had purchased was not as described (to say the least). The seller then left an unfair reply on my profile then making it next to impossible for me to buy from others as I had a negative remark saying that I was non payment buyer.

    Since then I’ve had the hassle of dealing with this, and also a lot of contact from the seller DEMANDING I remove my comment, and then they will remove theirs.

    with this kinda new ruling it will give buyers a more unbiased choice available to the customers, and I think that if sellers genuinely have nothing to worry about, then it will work out much better for real sellers.

  4. all my neagtives are undeserved, though I can think of an awful lot more I should have received and squirmed my way out of 😆

  5. I agree with North – there have been a good few times I have expected a neg and not gotten one, and that’s solely down to the niceness of my buyers 🙂

  6. eBay are on a real push to get buyers, something that Tazbar and ebid do not seem to grasp. If loads of sellers jump ship, the ones that stick it out will have far less competition, but more buyers to sell to. That’s a scenario that I think we would all enjoy.

    Rather than not listing, and spending a week with the bottom lip out, grumping with other sellers, the whole strike idea would have been better organized as an exodus to Tazbar, 121bid, ebid etc, with sellers bringing their customers with them. These sites do offer better pricing and service than ebay, no doubt, but they do not have the traffic of buyers that ebay currently has, and I am more than willing to pay that for the extra exposure.

    At the moment, I am only hearing the voices of reactionary militants, who have not though through their own actions on the strike action, or what to do after the strike. I guess a lot of them will come back, tail betwixt legs, feeling rather sheepish about the whole situation.

  7. Hey Steve, the only problem I foresee is your statement “with sellers bringing their customers with them”.

    Lots of sellers already have their own website and will happily migrate past eBay customers into future website customers. Why any seller would migrate a past eBay customer into a future tazbar/ebid/otherauctionsite customer is beyond me.

    Fact is eBay are the only highly trafficed site with two orders of magnitude more visitors than the others put together (compare this graph – the others don’t even register). That’s why sellers can’t make money on other sites.

  8. Chris, I fully agree with bring former customers direct to the sellers own website, but many smaller sellers do not have these, and many larger sellers still use eBay as a “signpost” to their off eBay sales site. I’m in a position now where my PS status is at risk as more sales are going off eBay.

    If the purpose behind the strike is to make ebay change a policy, then a stronger willed method than “a week off listing” is needed, and if a long term effect is required, then a huge pool of buyers needs an alternative single venue, rather than diluted amongst thousands of small outlets. eBay will always easily compete with a myriad of stand alone websites, but if true striking seller unity is to be demonstrated, then they could do a lot worse than collectively promote one alternative to make a noticeable difference to eBay.

    Rambling aside, the point is that the strike is badly thought out, poorly executed, and by the 26th of February, it’ll be nothing more than chip wrappers!

  9. The thing that everyone seems to forget is that by and large buyers are happy with eBay 😯

    eBay is without doubt the premier destination auction shopping platform and that’s why buyers flock to it. Nothing and no one will pursuade buyers to migrate to an alternative until one of them out eBay’s eBay, and I can’t see that happening.

  10. my attitude is ,buyers can leave as many negatives as they like, as long as they pay my mortgage and feed my kids,

    I cant see what there is to gain by striking

  11. even if sellers go elsewhere, PayPal is there…’

    Yes, unfortunately it is….but so is Google Checkout, on an equal footing, cheaper and better (in my experience).

  12. I’m an ebid seller and have seen a big increase in forum activity with new sellers asking ‘how to’ questions. I’ve also made one of my best ever selling months on ebid, whether this is due to new ebay converts (sellers are buyers too) or because i’m making more use of ebids free uploads to google products i’m not sure? whatever the reasons it’s good news, because a high % of ebid buyers come back and buy from the same seller again. Less buyers than ebay?- of course, but much more loyal 🙂

    I’m not going to be an ebay striker because i don’t find it viable to sell there anyway. 😆

  13. I used to sell on eBay, and had a store but closed it when I was relocated to a dingy back alley where no one ever found me. I moved to both eBid.net and tazbar.com and in the following 12 months I made more money than I had on eBay in the previous 12 months.

    The myth that ebay is the only place is a lie. I can also use Google Checkout and any other payment method I CHOOSE. Will the srike make ebay change their mind, I doubt it, but small sellers cannot be taken for granted and ebay has gone too far.

    Some seem to think there will be more buyers for them and less competition as sellers leave, well the news is, the sellers that leave wont be buying on ebay, and I dare say they will encourage their buyers to join them at the alternative venues which are growing steadily.

    There is life away from GREEDBAY.

  14. artyman, I had a quick (but not exhaustive) look at your tazbar and ebid profiles – you have 22 positive feedbacks in the last 12 months on tazbar, and on ebid 17 positive feedbacks.

    39 sales in 12 months!

    Assuming they are the sum totals of all your sales, I have to say I am not very impressed!

    There may be life away from greedbay Jim, but it’s not as we know it.

  15. Biggles i note you didn’t’ have a quick look’ at my ebid feedback. (which by no means represents all my sales- around 25% don’t leave fb). Maybe you didn’t have enough time 😎

  16. Biggles, I’m an artist, not a massive “lets ship chinese rubbish” seller! It takes me time to do a decent painting, and it was still more than I sold on Ebay.

  17. Biggles.
    A quick look at Tazbar is not enough if you want to see the true picture. 😕
    I too gave up my Ebay Store in Oct 2006 because of there policies then, let alone now so feel for those still there and being ripped off.
    With regard to the above comments about looking at Tazbar.
    Unlike many on Ebay, Artyman sells higher end and slightly specialist items, not 10p chinese imports so to compare his items on feedback alone and in real terms against those that bulk sell chep stuff on Ebay is unfair to both him and other venues.
    I am another seller that has account both on Tazbar and Ebid and quite frankly I know where my income is coming from and it’s not Ebid.
    On Taz my feeback is 115 with repeat customers.
    I have been in Ebid longer than Tazbar and quite frankly the results there are disappointing in comparison. There I have only 23 feedback and the site is very slow considering the nuber of listings and sellers.
    Note, on Ebid you will also see the problem Ebayers are going to hit with. I have one buyer there that was a newbie and has left Neg by accident, even though satified with the transaction. I also have another that was a bad buyer, the kind no honest sellers want to have to encounter but sadly will. Also note, that the Ebid feedback covers both of my stores. Not One
    I have another account on Taz to my main one and that totals 105 feedback.
    As to doubting which direction and effect the discent on Ebay is having for sites like Tazbar then these figures sepak for themselves.
    Tazbar on Alexa on 3rd Feb:-
    Tazbar.com has a traffic rank of: 3511921,748977488 (up33,518)
    Tazbar on Alexa on 8th Feb:-
    Tazbar.com has a traffic rank of: 110,73467992 (up36,622)
    For a site that supposedly is going nowhere I suggest you look again.
    Time to kick Ebay (and Paypal) where it hurts the most – in the pocket.
    There are plenty of alternatives out there and if you are a good seller willing to get of your backside and actually work to promote yourself, you will sell on those sites and your own websites too.

  18. But artyman you have 55 items listed on tazbar alone, which means that unless you just ramped up your listing, your sell through rate must be dire?

    I’m sure that for you type of category there may be an argument, low sales but very high margin, but you don’t have to be selling “Chinese rubbish” (slightly derogatory the the Chinese too) to selling in volume and lets face it if you want to sell in volume, ebay is the way.

  19. okay so my above comment didn’t make total sense, but hopefully you get the gist 😉

    Biddy/Chris, why cant I edit my idiot comments, is there a widget that you could install so I don’t have to look quite such a muppet! 😳

  20. Hannah, you also have a feedback total of 2120 but you CURRENTLY have 3463 items listed. I wonder how many ebay sellers have those kind of stats. They also suggest a very poor STR. Most ebayers have a far far higher feedback count than items listed, not the other way round.

    BTW I hope that the other auction site do make in roads into ebays dominance, competition is healthy for us all!

    I do also like how ebid looks, much “cleaner” than ebay.

  21. I would think a Feedback Rating of 2120 on any platform warrants further investigation.
    I have never looked at Ebid seriously before, are they similar to Amazon where you just list the item and wait for it to sell ?
    What are the set up/ listing costs ?

  22. Cumbrian Rider:
    if you are a good seller willing to get of your backside and actually work to promote yourself, you will sell on those sites
    No, that’s what I pay eBay etc. to do. Why would I work to promote someone else’s website? The site I “get off my backside to promote” is my own – and your assertion that I would need to work hard to promote my sales on Tazbar/eBid tells me all I need to know about them 🙁

  23. Jade (and everyone else) re. editing comments:
    Sorry, it’s not as easy as it looks to make it possible to edit comments – I’m working on it.

    Well, that appears to work here anyway. You have approx. 2 minutes from posting to edit. Have a play – let me know if anything doesn’t work.

  24. And there’s the difference Sue. Some people are lazy and willing to pay eBay and some aren’t.

    Pay a hefty fee to eBay and let them find you buyers. It’s not clever or magic but it does work. They’re already an extremely expensive traffic provider and becoming too heavy handed in controlling sellers businesses in terms of who sees what and who pays by what method etc. for me. But if your product lines have the kind of margins that can absorb eBay’s fees and leave you time to run Tamebay then good luck to you.

    The alternative is to use a Tazbar or eBid. Pay a penny for every dollar you spend at eBay but you need to do more of the advertising yourself. As long as people understand that then where’s the argument?

    I guess the more expensive eBay become the more sellers will try using cheaper venues and maybe just use eBay on a scaled down basis to build customer lists and signpost their cheaper venues which makes perfect sense to me. Why be one or the other? Use both types of venue to mitigate costs and still benefit from eBay’s current traffic. Just look at the higher eBay fees as advertising costs more than a transaction overhead.

    eBay dont owe me anything and I don’t owe eBay anything so they wont lose sleep if I don’t list there in future and I wont lose sleep if they have overcooked their sellers this time.

    I’m not a stock holder in eBay and I don’t own a stake in eBid or Tazbar. They can worry about their businesses, I will worry about mine. So I’d like to see all the sites carry on in ever increasing competition. That will be best for sellers.

  25. Sorry, Helen, you lost me at the point where you called me lazy.

    FWIW, anyone who thinks that you can be lazy *and* a full-time eBayer is seriously deluded. What you can be is profitable. Part of being profitable is knowing what to do yourself and what to outsource: I outsource some traffic generation to eBay, just as I do to Google, etc, etc. I’m afraid this “I’m not going to pay anyone for anything” is the hallmark of true amateurs, and good luck to them: but I pay my accountant and my bank and for decent webhosting and for people to do packing for me and so on because it’s cost-effective for me to do so. Spending time listing on eBid, and then driving traffic to eBid, is NOT cost effective for me.

    And I’m still waiting for eBid (or Tazbar; I’ll extend the challenge to them) to find me six full-timers. I so far haven’t heard from a one.

  26. I’m going to repost a comment I put on an earlier thread….

    I would love to think there were alternative sites to sell on other than eBay – would be nice not to have all my eggs in one basket.

    However currently on eBid a search for “Laser Printer” brings up a grand total of just three items. A search of just my own eBay shop for “laser printer” brings up seven times that amount, and I’m a small seller. If eBid was a site where laser printers could sell I’d list some, but all the time I personally list more than all the eBid sellers put together I can’t regard it as a serious contender for a site where I could sell my products successfully.

    Someone tell me, if eBid, Tazbar and all the other sites are so great, why isn’t anyone selling laser printers on them? Surely someone running a serious business selling printers must have realised that eBid et al are serious marketplaces and that they can make a profit…. unless they’re not serious marketplaces and they’ve given up trying to make a profit?

  27. Quote Sue:

    No, that’s what I pay eBay etc. to do. Why would I work to promote someone else’s website? The site I “get off my backside to promote” is my own – and your assertion that I would need to work hard to promote my sales on Tazbar/eBid tells me all I need to know about them 🙁

    Actually Sue, Ebid and Tazbar do promote their listings but that is neither here nor there.

    A good seller will always find ways to drive traffic as cost effectively as they can to wherever they sell. It’s not about promoting someone else’s site at all, it’s about making a living and getting sales rather than rely on someone just randomly finding you.

    I am no part timer. I run a retail shop in addition to online

    As to paying Ebay to sell your business and get you customers, well sorry, but more fool you. You would be wiser spending that sort of money on your own site and paying a marketing company / manager to promote you as well as other far more cost effective means of promoting yourself.

    I had been on Ebay for over 6 years running several accounts. Some full time earners, other as hobby and buying accounts.

    As a UK Seller the past two years Ebay have done nothing but limit visibility of listings to outside the UK which killed 50% of my trade as it has many other sellers too. This figure was nearer 80% on one of my accounts because the items I sold predominantly went to USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavian countries.

    Ebay has gradually decreased shop listing visibility, and now propose to base your visibilty on whether or not you are a “bulk item shifter”. Small and Medium Sellers are being well and truly stitched up IMHO with the latest changes. The feedback scenario for many will be the final straw as DSR rates fall etc.

    In my time on Ebay I have seen my fees rise for both Auction and Shop Listings and in the latter years seen little for the privealage of paying increased fees, getting ever increasing hassles from rouge buyers that then try and scam me via Paypal, and now, based on the past year had I still been there, even less visibility when shops were no longer included in the main auction searches unless you were a specialist field and Ebay needed to bulk out auction listings.

    To add further insult to Sellers, Ebay now also openly promote off site selling to direct competitors of those sellers with their banner add promotions at the bottom of every page.

    Since Paypal was bought by Ebay, the scamming problems have just increased even further. You only have to search around the net to find that this is an ever increasing problem that sellers are faced with whilst being offered little or no protection and in the process end up with their Paypal funds being seized regardless of whether or not they are related to the problematic transaction. This is set to become even worse with the 21 day rule.

    Not so bad if you sell low end, low value items but when you are selling expensive goods you cannot afford to be constantly ripped off by scammers and you certainly cannot afford for Paypal to sit on YOUR money for any length of time either when someone tries to create havoc.

    So ask yourself this, just what exactly are you paying Ebay for ?

    Value for money promoting of your business ? – even though they don’t give a damn if you go or stay just so long as you line their pockets.Or, are you paying for an ever increasing burden on your business, profit margins and your business reputation.

    Lets face facts here, just about everyone knows someone that has had their business affected in one way or another or totally wrecked in some cases by unfair actions taken by Ebay, competitors logging complaints and causing their competition to have all of their listings and shop closed or suspended without any proof of whether or not the seller is actually guilty of an offence and loosing their income and business overnight with no warning, and now ultimately by the feedback rulings which will without any doubt have serious implications to the reputation of many seller’s businesses.

    Putting you eggs all in one basket, namely Ebay, is a very unwise move.

  28. Quote Sue:

    No, that’s what I pay eBay etc. to do. Why would I work to promote someone else’s website? The site I “get off my backside to promote” is my own – and your assertion that I would need to work hard to promote my sales on Tazbar/eBid tells me all I need to know about them 🙁

    Actually Sue, Ebid and Tazbar do promote their listings but that is neither here nor there.

    A good seller will always find ways to drive traffic as cost effectively as they can to wherever they sell. It’s not about promoting someone else’s site at all, it’s about making a living and getting sales rather than rely on someone just randomly finding you.

    I am no part timer. I run a retail shop in addition to online

    As to paying Ebay to sell your business and get you customers, well sorry, but more fool you. You would be wiser spending that sort of money on your own site and paying a marketing company / manager to promote you as well as other far more cost effective means of promoting yourself.

    I had been on Ebay for over 6 years running several accounts. Some full time earners, other as hobby and buying accounts.

    As a UK Seller the past two years Ebay have done nothing but limit visibility of listings to outside the UK which killed 50% of my trade as it has many other sellers too. This figure was nearer 80% on one of my accounts because the items I sold predominantly went to USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Scandinavian countries.

    Ebay has gradually decreased shop listing visibility, and now propose to base your visibility on whether or not you are a “bulk item shifter”. Small and Medium Sellers are being well and truly stitched up IMHO with the latest changes. The feedback scenario for many will be the final straw as DSR rates fall etc.

    In my time on Ebay I have seen my fees rise for both Auction and Shop Listings and in the latter years seen little for the privealage of paying increased fees, getting ever increasing hassles from rouge buyers that then try and scam me via Paypal, and now, based on the past year had I still been there, even less visibility when shops were no longer included in the main auction searches unless you were a specialist field and Ebay needed to bulk out auction listings.

    To add further insult to Sellers, Ebay now also openly promote off site selling to direct competitors of those sellers with their banner add promotions at the bottom of every page.

    Since Paypal was bought by Ebay, the scamming problems have just increased even further. You only have to search around the net to find that this is an ever increasing problem that sellers are faced with whilst being offered little or no protection and in the process end up with their Paypal funds being seized regardless of whether or not they are related to the problematic transaction. This is set to become even worse with the 21 day rule.

    Not so bad if you sell low end, low value items but when you are selling expensive goods you cannot afford to be constantly ripped off by scammers and you certainly cannot afford for Paypal to sit on YOUR money for any length of time either when someone tries to create havoc.

    So ask yourself this, just what exactly are you paying Ebay for ?

    Value for money promoting of your business ? – even though they don’t give a damn if you go or stay just so long as you line their pockets.Or, are you paying for an ever increasing burden on your business, profit margins and your business reputation.

    Lets face facts here, just about everyone knows someone that has had their business affected in one way or another or totally wrecked in some cases by unfair actions taken by Ebay, competitors logging complaints and causing their competition to have all of their listings and shop closed or suspended without any proof of whether or not the seller is actually guilty of an offence and loosing their income and business overnight with no warning, and now ultimately by the feedback rulings which will without any doubt have serious implications to the reputation of many seller’s businesses.

    Putting you eggs all in one basket, namely Ebay, is a very unwise move.

  29. I did a very short and dirty experiment.

    I took one of the most popular ceramic collectables, Beswick Horses, you know, the ones they are always on about on Flog It, Bargain Hunt et al, and looked to see how many auctions there are live at the moment on ebid and Tazbar, and how many on ebay.

    Because if I am a buyer who likes to buy at online auction , I want to have lots to choose from, I don’t particularly want to go somewhere with only a couple…

    ebid 0
    Tazbar 0
    eBay 222

    hmmm maybe I’m not being fair… let’s see if Beswick as a whole does any better…

    ebid 13
    tazbar 6
    ebay 2318

    I wonder where I am going to go to look for my next piece of Beswick ?

  30. I am tempted by the fees on Ebid :

    Seller+. Register as Buyer then upgrade with your debit or credit card.
    Upgrade Fee : 7 Day £1.99 | 30 Day £6.99 | 90 Day £16.99 | 365 Day £59.99 | Lifetime £79.99
    Auction Listing Fee : £0.00
    Auction Final Value Fee : £0.00
    If you choose Gallery then final value fees are 2%.

    There appears to be a Bulk Uploader, might be worth trying 90 days, upload a couple of hundred items, if a couple sell then costs are covered, all depends on the time involved on the bulk uploading

  31. Thing is Dave, why not either spend the time uploading a couple of hundred extra listings to eBay (hey maybe try eBay Ireland for example) where you know there’s a good chance they’ll sell, or do some work promoting your own website, maybe spend the time uploading products to google product?

    I know it’s tempting to scout around, try a few of the more obscure sites etc, but there’s some very simple rules for success in business. One of them is to go for the mother lode first where the pickings are rich and you can shovel the sales in by the truck load. There’s no point trying for “if a couple sell then than the cost are covered” all the time there are ways that are more certain to turn a few bucks profit.

  32. Josordoni I did the same with a couple of my interests with similar results.

    Cumbrian Rider.. your question:

    “So ask yourself this, just what exactly are you paying Ebay for ?”

    Is answered every time for me when I transfer money into my bank account.

  33. “Cumbrian Rider”, carry on telling me, on my own blog, that I’m a fool and I’m wasting my money and anything else. That’s fine. My bank account, my accountant and sadly my tax bill all say different. All my eggs are NOT in one basket, but I will say it again and again and again until you and your chums from the eBid forum start listening to me: even if I can list for free on eBid, it is still not good value for money.

    Where are the six full-time sellers? SIX!! That’s all I’m asking you for, and you can’t even find them. It’s really, really sad.

  34. My goodness, we should be getting some kind of renumeration from ebay for all this!…. Oh hang on a minute, we are! 😆

  35. in reply to == Josordoni Says:
    February 9th, 2008 at 10:46 pm

    1. Because if I am a buyer who likes to buy at online auction , I want to have lots to choose from, I don’t particularly want to go somewhere with only a couple…
    ebid 0
    Tazbar 0
    eBay 222
    1. hmmm maybe I’m not being fair… let’s see if Beswick as a whole does any better…
    ebid 13
    tazbar 6
    ebay 2318
    I wonder where I am going to go to look for my next piece of Beswick ?

    where have you been looking,
    that statement of yours is totally false,

    I have 4 ebid stores, 2 of which are mainly beswick HORSES and BIRDS,

    go on and look 4o plus horses, 60 plus birds,

    I MAKE YOUR DAY,

    you make mine,

    I have done much better on EBID than I

  36. Hi Dave.
    The Amazon comparison is a good one as i sell their too. the strategies i use to sell on Amazon and ebid are very similar.
    For clarity i pay a monthly fee to sell on Amazon, and i have lifetime seller+ membership on ebid- so i paid them a one off £45 a couple of years ago.

    On both Amazon and ebid i take full advantage of the free listing and list as much as i can, and keep it listed until it sells(this strategy would bankrupt me on feebay!). On ebid i use a mix of 3 day (auto reporting) listings so that i get good visibility, and of longer BIN listings which qualify for ebids (free) upload to google products.

    I am also a tazbar member and did have listings there too, but i removed them when they introduced the monthly listing fee structure as i had only sold 2 items ( in fairness i never listed in high numbers on tazbar).

    Back to the article title – where will the strikers go? Go where it will work best for YOU 😀

  37. MMMMMMMMM me thinks alexa is a load of bull unless the people have the alexa add on you will not be counted in their poll
    real facts are thousands are leaving ebay for ebid and thousands are leaving ebay to try a few other sites

    GET YOUR FACTS CORRECT BEFORE POSTING I WOULD NOT PUT ALEXA ONTO MY COMP UNLESS THEY PAID ME A FEW GRAND AND MILLIONS OF OTHERS DO NOT HAVE THIS ADD ON

  38. EBID UP IN SALES THIS TAKES BUYERS AND SELLERS I HAVE HAD A FEW NEW BUYERS IN THE LAST COUPLE OF WEEKS AND THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF NEW SELLERS

    FACTS FACTS FACTS

  39. Dave, with 189 auctions listed, average selling price of about £2.00 and with 2000 odd feedbacks in 5 years for low value items, you must be raking it in?

    This whole ebid/ebay argument reminds me of Apple/PC in the 90’s Wolves/West Brom in the noughties where the former looks jealously on a the others domination and clings on to every nuance of bad press in the hope that it is a sign that the others day has come! I just think it looks a little desperate.

    William, a little tip that I have learned from the ebay community, put the word Beswick in you titles 😉 then they would show up in the searches.

  40. Chris
    You have a good oint re focusing more on website and Ebay, but the way I was looking at Ebid was for £16.99 for 90 days it might be worth a punt.
    I am conscious that Ebay continues to be and hopefully always will be the main player, and I cannot understand why sellers would ditch Ebay to move to Ebid, they are effectively blocking 90%+ of potential business, which is lunacy.
    DAVE
    How easy is the ebid bulk uploader ?

  41. Hang on a minute what does this mean –

    “This piece of positive feedback was officially imported into eBid by an administrator, the feedback rating was gained from a previous auction career at another site!.”

    This is displayed at the end of Daves feedback pages for lots of feedback comments, does that mean that all that feedback was not necessarily gained on ebid anyway? I genuinely don’t know ❓

  42. In fact the last 41 pages of your 48 page feedback history all display the above message, what does that mean? Does that mean that 41 x 50 = 2050 of your feedbacks were gained elsewhere?

  43. And the feedback is stated to come from “another site member”, well they certainly weren’t eBid site members. I didn’t realise that eBid were in the habit of feedback padding 😮

  44. Hi Dave, for £16.99 eBid *might* be worth a punt, but seriously I would spend just five minutes checking the categories you sell in first. I like mine for printers there simply are more or less none listed, with the few listed on good til cancelled you can be sure there’s no market for them.

    In order for it to be worth (not the £16.99, but you time) listing you need some evidence that buyers are actively buying your products in that marketplace. Like I said it’s all about raking in the most sales from the most fertile market. Not scraping the bottom of the barrel when there’s a nice full one sitting next door.

  45. i have 357 fb or something like that on ebid i am not a power seller this is the first time i have ever had this many auctions running on ebid i left ebid for about 3 years as i was just in and out seeing if it picked up over those 5 years if i have listed more than 600 items it would be a miracle so 350+ feedback from 600 items not bad is it

    i told you get your facts right before shouting people down and giving bunkum polls from alexa

  46. Chris Dawson Says:

    February 10th, 2008 at 11:14 am
    Hi Dave, for £16.99 eBid *might* be worth a punt, but seriously I would spend just five minutes checking the categories you sell in first. I like mine for printers there simply are more or less none listed, with the few listed on good til cancelled you can be sure there’s no market for them.

    aah but if you join for life £79.99 you can list the items on run til sold if you need new catagories putting into place the site managers will do this and you get real emails not rubbish auto posts and you mix auctions with 7 day auto repost and run until sold add buy it now and you get picked up by google is it so hard to go read the forums to get tips before you attempt to sell ??

    oh and i sold a printer with ease on ebid i used the front page auction used buy it now and it sold within 40 mins of listing

    you may have the items people want so list them

  47. I’m not in the habit of leaving stock sitting on the shelf in the hope that one day it might sell – 7 day auto repost and run til sold just aren’t of interest on a site that’s not already working for others.

    If it was that good then others would already be selling printers on eBid on a regular basis. If it’s not that good then I’m not interested in the occaisional one off sale, someone with more time and money are welcome to go dig for the crumbs.

  48. Chris Dawson Says:

    February 10th, 2008 at 11:06 am
    And the feedback is stated to come from “another site member”, well they certainly weren’t eBid site members. I didn’t realise that eBid were in the habit of feedback padding

    5 years ago you could import feedback now you cannot ebay stopped this they are my ebay feedback all the extra ones over 350+

  49. feedback is yours ebay only host it you can still copy it to a site and they can`t do anything about it , you gained that fb not ebay

  50. Exactly Chris, it is more than a little misleading for the buyer as it suggests a successful and established sales platform. Why would ebay want to help another site, benefit from it’s own success.

  51. Yes but Dave, it misleads the buyer into thinking that they can trust “that” platform, volume is also a good indicator of how reliable the marketplace is, not just the comments.

    You received those feedbacks for trades you performed using ebays system, not ebids, thus it is not a fair reflection.

  52. Actually, under the eBay user agreement, your feedback is theirs, not yours:

    While using the Site, you will not: … take any action that may undermine the feedback or ratings systems (such as displaying feedback information on, or exporting feedback information to, non-eBay sites, or using it for purposes unrelated to eBay);

  53. Jade Says:

    February 10th, 2008 at 11:49 am
    Yes but Dave, it misleads the buyer into thinking that they can trust “that” platform, volume is also a good indicator of how reliable the marketplace is, not just the comments.

    You received those feedbacks for trades you performed using ebays system, not ebids, thus it is not a fair reflection.

    so me showing feedback i have no matter where from makes me untrustworthy ?????????????? actually it helped me get sales to start my feedback for ebid i sold a new printer on the front page after a few small transactions and the buyer said if i had not shown my ebay fb shewould not have bought it

    While using the Site, you will not: … take any action that may undermine the feedback or ratings systems (such as displaying feedback information on, or exporting feedback information to, non-eBay sites, or using it for purposes unrelated to eBay);

    this was implemented 5 years ago before that feedback was yours it was just hosted on ebay

  54. @ william

    well, I just put Beswick Horse and then Beswick into the search box at the top, which is what I would expect any buyer to do.

    So you have lots more do you? If I don’t know who you are how would I know??

  55. and i will be damned if my hard work gaining fb will stay for their benefit ,when they hounding out small sellers , i used to list as a hobby seller upto 100 items a week i had a shop with 400 items in all the time then because of fee rises and taking away visibility i cut down gave shop up and listed 25 items a month my sales when visibility for shop ended went down 80% as i dealt mainly in soccer items i was only getting repeat customers thus wasting my time i was paying more in fees than making a month and now ebay has cut it`s own throat i cannot wait for the day when they start cutting jobs , that day is approaching

  56. Josordoni
    why not just look down the left hand side of the home page,

    pottery and glass, click there and you will find what your looking for,

    if you have looked ,, and found my horses, any take your fancy, doing a nice deal on them at the moment

    buy 3 pay for 2, THE CHEAPEST being the free one,

  57. All my feedback was earned on ebid.
    Can i ask a really silly question? I posted at 9.53am this morning, but when i view the thread just now there is a message next to my post which says “Your comment is awaiting moderation; it is not necessary to post it a second time” Does that mean i am the only one who can see it?

    Re ebid bulk uploader. If you are familiar with excel it’s fine. the most time consuming bits are entering ebid category codes (unless you’re lucky enough to sell lots of similar things?). And it’s easier if you host your photos off site somewhere like photobucket rather than hosting on ebid.

  58. to Sue Bailey == its the seller/ buyers feedback,

    and you can use it on EBID,
    for over a year now, I have a link on my EBID to take you to my ebay feedback,

    its says view my 600+ ebay feedback,

    if I have done 600 deals on ebay, well, its actual over 750, but repeat customers arent counted, I want to show that,

  59. Sue.

    You are so way off the mark with this comment :

    ” you and your chums from the eBid forum ”

    I have only EVER posted on the Ebid forum twice in the 14 months I’ve been there. Had you done your homework on me as a seller then you would know that. But guess, like everything else, you are so entrenched with Ebay that you choose to be blind to alternative venues.

    For those sceptics that say they don’t make any sales on the St Elsewhere sites then maybe you should look at it from another angle. That being that any sales are a bouns and that in the meantime you are getting Free or extremely cheap pubilicity and promotion of your items.

    Sue, as to this comment:

    Where are the six full-time sellers? SIX!! That’s all I’m asking you for, and you can’t even find them. It’s really, really sad.

    Maybe you should try asking the Ebid management instead of someone that uses it as a selling venue. I’m sure they could soon point you in the direction of plenty of successful sellers.

    You only have to take a look at such sites as Power Sellers Unite and Pheebay to also see that there is plenty of life outside of Ebay for those willing to move on.

    Also coming back to:

    “No, that’s what I pay eBay etc. to do. …….”

    You then go on to totally contradict yourself when you say why pay to promote a site that should be promoting itself with

    “I outsource some traffic generation to eBay, .”

    Hence doing exactly the opposite and in effect agree with what I say about promoting yourself !

    So which is it ?

    Sorry, I cannot remeber who posted the Beswick comparison, but again, this is not really a very fair comparison when Ebay currently has 13 million listings against 500,000 and 82,000.

    However, whether you stay on Ebay (if you can afford the extortionate fees and afford to have the way your business is run dictated to you) or Widen your horizons and look at the St Elsewhere sites, times are changing and this time for the better as the St Elswhere sites reap the rewards from Ebay’s dictatorial stance.

  60. I have to say I find it rather strange that people suggesting eBid is a more viable proposition than eBay then go on to imply that they’re reliant on eBay to sell on eBid.

    When I started on eBay I had no feedback and needed no feedback – just why is eBid so different that you need eBay feedback to make it work?

  61. for Chris Dawson
    nothing strange about it, I started with ebay almost 6 years ago, lost the will 12 months ago, now I only list a few items on the cheap listing days, with links back to ebid,
    its a win/win for me,

    and I dont sell a lot, per numbers, but value is quite high,

    and with regard to NEEDING on ebay, to sell on EBID,
    I dont, I already had feedback on EBID before I Implemented the link to my ebay feedback,

    all it does is show peeps I am not NEW to internet auction sites,
    I am also a member of tazbar, but dont use it,
    not enough exposure in my line,

    looked a Amazon , same there,

    so I can only talk from my own experiences,

    ON EBID I run 4 stores and not paying through the nose, to keep them there week after week,

    LESS fees, more profit, and by the way things are going, I expect there will be more peeps along the way,

  62. The thing is I could link to *anyones* eBay account and say that the feedback was mine – or at least I could for as long as it took them to find out about it.

    It really does nothing to prove you’re an established internet merchant and even if it did does nothing to ensure your reputation is as good today as it was when you gained the feedback on eBay and thus is effectively worthless.

    On that subject again it’s why eBay are placing so much emphasis on *recent* feedback with DSR’s used to qualify for discounts on the last 30 days only and retiring feedback once it’s a year old. Who cares how good someone was two or three years ago? What’s relevant is if they still provide great service today 🙂

  63. Cumbrian Rider: there is nothing contradictory about my comments. I pay eBay to send me traffic, which is exactly what I said. As for “why ask an eBid seller not eBid management” yada yada, if *you* bothered to do *your* research on what I have previously said about eBid, you’ll see I’ve done exactly that: no one has responded to me, so I can only assume that my request is impossible to meet.

    I’m now withdrawing from this argument: it’s boring, and pointless, and rather reminds me of the “who leaves feedback first” debates. If you want to sell on eBid, good luck to you and I hope it brings you much profit.

  64. to Chris Dawson==

    fine you have it your way, cant be bothered to argue over it,

    as my old grandad used to say, none so blind as those that will not see,

  65. Sorry Sue your but your:

    ” you and your chums from the eBid forum ” comment about Cumbrian Rider really made me laugh.

    Cumbrian’s chose place of business is Tazbar NOT eBid, in fact if you can read the Tazbar forums (some of them are member only) she has a thread running, telling how her best ever sale on Tazbar, came from somebody she managed to lure from eBid. 😯

    As for the rest of your comments, you seem to take the view that ebay is right to only be concerned with powersellers & that nobody else matters. 😕

    In real life if you go to almost any high street, the big names are all there, what makes a shopping experience different from one town to another is the range of small shops with different unusual goods.

    These are the people who will be driven away with the ebay changes, many of these smaller sellers are also buyers.

    These are the people who will find a smaller site with affordable fees works for them.

    I’ve never understood the searching to see how much is listed in a category before listing argument, why would you only choose to list somewhere where you had competition?
    In RL surely you’d rather sell in a town where you were the only pet shop as opposed to one that already had 4?

    I used to sell books on eBay, the last time I listed 20 & sold 1, most of them had less than 6 views, so eBay is no longer viable for me, every relisting before selling is another cut from my profit.

    As for lazer printer’s, it doesn’t matter if eBid have 3, & eBay have 300, I’m much more likely to buy from an established site like ebuyer, who 90% of the time are cheaper than ANY auction site listing.

  66. Well if you’re more likely to go to eBuyer I’ll carry on listing my printers where I *know* they’ll sell rather than on sites which the afficionados wouldn’t even buy on themselves 😆

  67. This is getting very wearisome 🙁 good luck to all you ebidders & tazbarers I sincerely hope that you do see some increase in sales and traffic. I look forward to the day that spending even just an hour researching the market on these venues and listing some items actually becomes viable and worthwhile.

    In the meantime I’ll stick to eBay, Amazon & Play.

    I am also withdrawing, because we are all just going round and round and round and round and round!! 😳 :mrgreen:

  68. “Well if you’re more likely to go to eBuyer I’ll carry on listing my printers where I *know* they’ll sell rather than on sites which the afficionados wouldn’t even buy on themselves”

    😆 😆 😆

    I think you missed my point there, at the end of the day as a buyer, I will buy where I get the best value for money.

    Whether on CQout/eBay/eBid/Tazbar/or Uncle Tom Cobbly & all auction site, Sellers, are competing with the big high street names as well as specialist sites especially when it comes to new goods. So their prices need to be competetive.

    If you CAN still be competetive, whilst making a profit on eBay, good for you, many people CANNOT, for them an alternative may be the answer.

  69. The point is, as a buyer, I go where the stuff is I want to buy, and that happens to be eBay.

  70. Chris Dawson Says:

    February 9th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
    Thing is Dave, why not either spend the time uploading a couple of hundred extra listings to eBay (hey maybe try eBay Ireland for example) where you know there’s a good chance they’ll sell, or do some work promoting your own website, maybe spend the time uploading products to google product

    Chris,Thank for the advice, I had been meaning to list on Ebay AU for a while, so I spent time on this, with great results, Ebay International seems the way forward

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