We first wrote about Andy of kreativebargains when we asked eBid for a case study or to put us in touch with a successful eBid seller turning over £1000 a month on a regular basis. eBid stopped answering our emails but Andy, the most successful eBid seller we’ve been able to find, got in touch.
At the time he wasn’t selling £1000 a month, but as far as we can tell the £700/month he was selling made him eBid’s top seller. Today Andy is back and has shown us his sales reports and they really are running at over £2000/month which we’re massively impressed by that.
As Andy says it may not be a liveable wage depending on your profit margins, but it’s certainly a decent chunk of income and additional revenue. Here’s Andy’s experience and his top tips for making a success on eBid:
kreativebargains on eBid
As an eBid seller who is doing reasonably well and with some sellers looking for a alternative I would like to share my experience of eBid with you.
I have been on eBid since October 2010 and saw my sales compared to my eBay selling drop considerably. But I had made the decision to leave as I was seeing a gradual reduction in sales and visibility and an increase in costs.
My sales gradually improved from five in the first month to fifteen to twenty a month. Then I started to visit the forums and picked up tips, that helped. After coming from eBay where the traffic was much higher and frankly at times all you had to do was list and you could get a sale, I had mistakenly thought that eBid would be the same. How wrong I was.
One of the regular forum members hit the nail on the head when he described eBid as a platform that was like having a B&M store in a shopping mall. The eBay mall had plenty people who would visit knowing that they would almost certainly be able to get what they wanted, in addition they had plenty of footfall and people would pass your shop on a regular basis and if you had something they liked the look of they might buy it.
The eBid mall on the other hand had fewer stores so fewer people would visit, as it was less likely that they would be able to find what they wanted, and less footfall for the same reason. In that situation the eBid mall will do some advertising, but with less income would not be able to able to do much and certainly not for each store individually.
What would you do in that situation to get people to your store in the eBid mall? The answer is probably that you would utilise whatever the mall offers and add whatever else you can. After all there would be the incentive of lower rents so that the potential to make a profit was good if you could make the sales. This is exactly the same on eBid.
On the eBid forums there are frequent posts that are along the lines of “Been here a month no sales”. A closer inspection of the seller and how they are selling there are invariably things they could do differently that might help the situation. Some of them take the advice that is offered, others do not. In the last month three sellers in particular on the forums have taken the advice and all are now selling.
Andy’s Top eBid Selling Tips:
Keywords
There is not the traffic, so you have to get people to your listings from other sources. As ebid uploads to Google Shopping this is the key to getting those views. The best way to achieve this is using strong keywords. So here are two listings currently on eBid, “KE7 SG27a FINE MINT” and “ANGEL BUNNY”. There are 81 characters available and these listings use 19 and 11 respectively. The chances of a potential buyer using a search term that matches the title is small, so the items are unlikely to be seen and unlikely to sell.
Price
With the lower fees on eBid there is an obvious opportunity to offer a better price to the buyer and still increase margins. This is another regular mistake that sellers make. Price is obviously a matter for the seller but in a recent example that appeared on the forums a seller had an item listed on eBay at £10 and on ebid at £12. In all other aspects the listing was the same. So if the item was found using a search where would the buyer purchase from? But using this example it is the buyer who loses out by making the purchase on eBay, here’s why’:
Sell on ebay at £10 with £3 shipping |
Sell on eBid for £9.50 with £3 shipping |
| FVF on £13 is £1.29 Paypal fees on £13 are £0.64 Seller receives £11.07 |
FVF on £9.50 (no FVF on shipping) £0.19 Paypal fees on £12.50 are £0.63 Seller receives £11.68 |
So selling at 5% less would actually make the seller an extra £0.61 and on eBid there are no store fees or relisting fees. It could also bring the price below the competition on not only eBay but Amazon and other sites with the potential for more sales.
Listing duration
When I started on eBid and saw the Run Until sold option for listings I thought ‘great, no need to relist’. That was the first of many mistakes. This option can be a useful tool for those with listings that are less popular and likely to be found using a search, but for the majority of listings it is a mistake. The main problem is that on eBid itself they are listed below those with a set running time and will always remain below them.
For that reason I use 7-10 day listings. But you can gain even more using timed listings. My analytics show regular return visitors and if a visitor logs on at the same time and sees the same listings on a regular basis, the chances of a sale are reduced and they might stop visiting. I therefore use listings at 7, 8, 9 and 10 days with 10 Auto Reposts. This has the effect of ‘moving’ listings around my stores and presenting different items to potential buyers who might visit on set days.
The items will be listed for 77 to 110 days so relisting is not a regular chore and at the end of that time I can review my listing and make changes if feel they are needed.
Stores
It should go without saying but on eBid a Seller+ member gets 5 free stores so it would be wise to take full advantage of this.
Forums
I am a regular on the forums and do get sales from there. You can build a rapport and a sense of trust with people that can help clinch sales. There is also a Plug Your Auctions thread that can be used once every day which is great for letting people know about sales, promotions and new listings. There is also plenty of advice on there that I have found invaluable.
If you are going to use the forums then add your store links to your signature as that makes it easy for people to navigate to them.
Social Media
This is not my strongest point but several eBid sellers have reported success that they can directly attribute to Facebook and Pinterest in particular. Recently eBid took on a new member of the team specifically to raise the online profile and this has lead to the creation of Pinterest boards that sellers can pin to.
Everything else
As with any site, images and descriptions need to be up to scratch. And completing the About Me section on the home page, stating terms and conditions, shipping discounts if you do them all help.
My own experience is that taking these steps can get sales on eBid and the site is showing signs of improving. My sales this month are already over £2,000 which might not be enough to make a living but would surely be a nice addition to the turnover of many smaller sellers. In the last 3 years my sales have gone from an average of about £250 in the first year, £700 in the second and £1000 in the third. My target for next year is £1500 and current trading is pointing to this being achieved and possibly exceeded.
95 Responses
We have colleagues doing quite well on ebid; We are looking at it as another venue- can;t be worse than driving traffic to your own website. Excellent insight, thanks very much.
cant help thinking if the same effort was applied to ebay you would get a better result
and when you have competition on ebid what will the results be
Has eBid got a API yet, untill it does its not really an option for a lot of sellers who need to sync their inventory across multiple platforms
Ah! but does ebid
have seller protection!
LOL,
seriously though
we would use ebid instantly if it were known to be cost effective
though we need to pay the bills
I’ll ask him to contact you Chris; I don’t think he is doing anything major on ebid but I know he has regular sales there and is looking to increase Inventory; no listing costs- some of his items are low value but needed in the niche market he operates in- are a big attraction.
eBid have a really good opportunity now to get the culled eBay accounts. However, they need to shout about it, and that they can offer an alternative selling solution. Get an image on the homepage about rescuing restricted eBayers! and a small discount to sign up TODAY I’m sure would seal the deal. I’m looking for a new place to sell my personal and used items. Know anyone?
Don’t know if this is in breach of any Tamebay policies, but thought it was an interesting article and relevant to this thread. Aplolgies if it’s in any sort of breach and please delete it if that is the case.
https://auctionsitenews.com/alternatives-to-ebay/
Only one top seller after 14 years ?
Ebid really need to promote any others they have.
And they really need an API.
They last mentioned it officially about a year ago.
And lower joining fees
And easier buyer registration
And buyer protection
And traffic
‘
.
Typically $49.99 on US platform & £49.99 on UK platform….
What happened to exchange rates….???
WHERE’S THE VIDEO? BE TRUE TO YOUR WORD!
Dan Wilson says
2:27 am on 28/08/2012
I will happily eat my hat if anyone can say they make their living on eBid.
And if we can verify the claim, Chris will film me chewing on a tasty titfer and we’ll put the video on YouTube.
Hmmmm. Seems we have someone moving the goal posts to save face.
You said –
We also asked specifically for an example of a seller who “makes their living on the site with a regular minimum of £1000 per month in sales”
Just checked out the laser printers on eBid. Still hardly any choice (much better then a year ago when there was none).
Sadly every single model available is cheaper on eBay than on eBid (not counting the spare/repairs – who wants a broken printer anyway?). The argument that you can buy cheaper on eBid because the seller isn’t paying high fees doesn’t seem to apply to printers.
Like many others, I have deserted eBay – sick of the policy changes, price hikes, and sharp practices.
I find eBid to be an easy, friendly site to use, free of the pressures to perform, and to conform, that are found on the other site.
In contrast to other sites, the seller is free to develop in a direction of his own choosing, and the success of his stores and listings is entirely due to his (or her) efforts. Success can’t be bought, it has to be earned.
Listings and visibility are the same for all sellers – size truly doesn’t matter. Neither will size save you if you are a bad seller, or dishonest.
I would urge all online sellers to give eBid a try – there is little to lose, and much to gain.
.
I registered with ebid 14 months ago & never got round to it.
Had a look tonight & decided to list a few items.
I used the Platinum service for these listings, so there are fees of………..wait for it……….wait for it……….. 5p to list and 3% fee if a item sells.
If we sell, we can always up the type of account and get the lifetime thing….if they sell. If they do not then I’ve wasted a whole 15p [3 listings] and bankruptcy looms.
Maybe that’s the way to try it out….
I signed up to the £49-99 Lifetime thing a year ago. I tried to list and found that even though I had paid I was still blocked. I tried to get an answer from ebid as to what the problems was. Their answer was to stay with ebay. Since then I have tried most months to try to get an answer to the basic question. “Why if I have paid my £49-99 am I still unable to list on ebid” and every month the answer is total silence.
Just recently I found a stray charge on my account for £54-99 quoting ebid. Now I have a very simple rule. If I want to buy anything I use the monies from my sales to buy it. So if I buy on ebay I use monies from my sales on ebay. So as I have not been able to sell on ebid I have not bought anything on ebid. So this charge cannot be for any selling activities of mine on ebid. So I once again emailed ebid as to a) why I cannot list on ebid and b) what is the justification for the £54-99. To date you will not be surprised to learn, No Answer.
If I do not get an answer soon I shsll be looking at other measures as it does look like ebid is generally a “rip off site”.
I am more of a buyer than a seller but two years ago when I had something to sell I looked at eBid but ebay seemed the obvious choice. Since then I have sold a few things on ebay and bought a lot more.
Since the recent culling of good sellers on ebay there is no longer the choice of products and whats left is easier and cheaper to buy on the high street. I am now looking on eBid first as there is a lot more choice than there was and have already bought several things and got some good deals. I did ask someone at ebay on Friday what the combined price would be if I bought five of his items, his reply was that it would be five times the cost of one, no discount on carriage because, I suppose, they cant afford to give a discount as well as paying the high fees.
I have spent a few thousand pounds on ebay over the last couple of years and I would dearly love some of those sellers to give me the chance to buy from them on eBid at a more reasonable price, which they could afford to do on eBid.
Why is every one slating eBid? I have been a member for almost a year now and NEVER had a problem.
I moved from ebay because my monthly fees were reaching £200, I have regular sales on eBid and my monthly fees are a fraction of that.
Plus when ebay started talking about seller “privileges” that was it.
Ebid is easy to use, very few or no problems and like everything else you only get out of it what you put in.
Finally, talking of hats, I take mine off to Kreativebargains
Why is everyone slating eBid? Mainly because they make unsubstantiated claims that they are a great place to run a business when quite frankly they don’t appear to be. Andy is the biggest seller we’ve ever found and massive respect to him but it’s hardly enough to excite most businesses and is at best a nice little add on.
Would love eBid to a) get serious about being a marketplace that businesses could use or b) come clean about what sales levels are realistic.
Frankly I think with a one off fifty quid life time payment (less than a month for a featured eBay shop) they’ll always be useless for businesses as they simply don’t have any revenue to invest.
Dawson is a buffoon and a charlatan just wanting to line his pockets with the crap he spouts. Obviously he is the pockets of ebay
I use eBay, eBid, BidStart, Delcampe and direct sales (via my website) selling on-line is how I make my living, that’s it, nothing else.
eBay = 85%
direct = 10%
Delcampe = 3%
BidStart = 1.9%
eBid = 0.1%
I dislike eBay and it’s treatment of sellers with a passion, but the truth is that it pays the bills…
I have been using ebid for over 5 years now and am happy with the results compared to other sites.
It does take a while to get your head round the selling practice on ebid compared to ebay though and a lot of sellers need to come to the site with a fresh approach to selling online.
I used to have a store on ebay to sell comic books and comic related toys and found the cost okay at the time (£6.00 a month and 0.10P per listing with FVF) sales were good for a hobbyist which I class myself as. about a sale per day. then ebay deiced that the little guy was no longer needed so I looked around and found ebid.
I took the time to learn how to do things on the site much to what Andy has already told you but the thing is a lot people have come from ebay where you don’t have to do much to sell well and can’t understand why there sometimes poor selling practice doesn’t bring them sales. The mall thingus that Andy mention is a good point to bring up and if people came to ebid and used it as a platform to sell via rather then an all sing and dancing auction site they may get on better there.
I also see your point about why not just open a your own website rather the use ebid? but for myself I wouldn’t be happy with the cost of up keep on my own site and to be honest not everyone that sells online is a computer wizz that would know how to look after one. However I have seen some ebiders use the site as there inventory with a web page or font page attached to it.
Don’t get me wrong I am nowhere near you £1000 a mouth target but I do get reasonable sales per month for which i am happy with for a hobbyist.
I am not a ebid loyalist and there are things that bug me about the site but I would rather work for the greater good then moan about them on forums be it ebid or any other.
Regards to your post being deleted from the ebid forum not to sure that it is ebid itself deleting them of a loyalist ebidder that has take it upon themselves to delete post and treads that he/she does not see as a benefit to the site I myself have fell foul to this.
Cheers Paul
crikey we wont go near ebid at all ever, if their ethos is to allow any self appointed tom dick or harriet to delete posts they dont find agreeable
With regards to the deleting of posts and threads on eBid. A member cannot delete a post or thread, they can report a post or thread and it is then up to ebid. There does however appear to be little checking of the reported posts and they are frequently removed, sometimes with little or no real reason. This might be due to time as eBid do not have the staff to have somebody acting as a moderator., so it could be that the majority of reported posts are almost automatically deleted. This has been discussed on the forums and the majority of eBidders disagree with it, but there are a couple of people who seem to have taken it upon themselves to report anything they do not like.
quite impressed that Chris Dawson has allowed idiotic and personally insulting comments to stand,
though his case is greatly strengthened by allowing them. we would be very tempted to delete
Just an update on my figures for November. Sales are at 66 and the value is at £2802.61. Still 5 days left to pass the £3000 mark which is my target for making a basic living. Not quite Ferrari buying level but it would earn me well above minimum wage and if I can keep the increases coming will move from a living to a comfortable living. Just need to hit that every month. Next year though we will be rolling out some more of our own designs for t-shirts which hopefully will add a bit more, and I have plans for Spring and Summer.
Hey! Does that mean that Fellah is going to eat his hat?
JUST ASKING! 😉 🙂 🙂
The number that matters most is the net profit.
The factor that affects the net profit most is the sales volume, not the fees, unless your margin is stupidly low.
For the same amount of work, your sales, and hence your profit, will be higher on ebay.
Who visits ebid to buy, who even knows it exists unless they are a disgruntled (former) ebay seller?
Interesting
Dan. The text seems to have been edited over the last few days? Can you point me to the text. Has it been removed?
DAN’s Quote
He said: Aug 28, 2012 – I will happily eat my hat if anyone can say they make their living on eBid. And if we can verify the claim, Chris will film me chewing on a tasty
https://tamebaynew.wpengine.com/2012/08/does-anyone-make-money-on-ebid.html
2:49 pm on 25/11/2013
Just an update on my figures for November. Sales are at 66 and the value is at £2802.61. Still 5 days left to pass the £3000 mark
Who make it living from eBid sales nobody know for exactly but in my opinion not many.
As I know for the person who report higher amount of sales is true but in that amount comes one ”catch” and he don’t tell that in here in own writing, and things is after that amount of sales he make it only 5%-10% profit and after eBid selling fees he makes it a little less of that % too.
He is selling for someone else these items, he doesn’t invest own money in advance in these items he pays own supplier only after each items are sold if not sold he not pay nothing for items which are not sold in time, so not too much risk to list in that way without investing in advance own money.
And that is big differences between that way and other seller’s who has similar items and invest first own money in these items because of simple things: He can list much cheaper selling price versus seller’s who invest own money and can’t go down for price because is going to lost own invested money in the items, already that supplier give to him selling cheaper price vs others seller’s price and he can go down even much less for price and still earn that ”little” profit.
Well, after all is true he selling that amount of the money BUT he doesn’t make it any living from these sales because with that little % from profit he need to sell about 10 times more a minimum from this day monthly sales to make it really living, from 2,000 GBP he need to pay back 90%-95% money to own supplier and keep it rest for self.
In the end it is true he makes that sale but in which way and how much is very different from way he already write and try from that writing to ”recruit” new seller’s to join but from the beginning these all seller’s who join it will be in big disadvantage vs him because like I already write it will be in hole for selling price vs him and for invested own money in first place, in my opinion only seller’s who can find owns supplier like him and DON’T pay in advance nothing for the items can try to compete with selling price for all other I ”doubt”.
Other seller’s I will not mention because many others don’t ell even one item for bigger consumers market in whole world.
Some of is sold but this is ”pocket change” not living.
Zeljko says
Hi Dzambo!
I recognize your writing! 😉 🙂 🙂
You can say whatever you like but if anyone look how much your all items worth (selling price) can figure out very easy and IF you pay for all that in advance you must be very rich man to invest in advance that kind of amount (bought price) or if your supplier sells to you any high priced items for couple GBP and you resell that for couple hundred % of that, I think that or these suppliers have these all items for FREE otherwise all supplier will not make anything from selling to you in advance.
Especially brand name items or expensive market price items, where in world you can find supplier who can sell to you for couple GBP and you resell for couple hundred % of that buying price.
It is not make any sense because any supplier will not make any money or profit from you if sell to you for these prices.
In the end I stay with my statement: You sell all that( my congratulation to you) BUT not in way you trying to explain, you still make profit but that is just ”a margin little profit” not enough for living.
Better to explain to any potential member on eBid how it is for real, otherwise all these new guy’s will be very surprised what will wait for these guy’s what is expectations.
And as usual if explanation is not correct these guy’s will write all around various reply’s for eBid and negative stuff because ”thanks” to unrealistic comments from eBid members.
If anyone don’t figure out that after 15 years will never figure out.
Time is a sellers most valuable commodity. ebay sellers value it. ebid sellers do not.
How do the hourly profit returns on ebid campare with ebay? I would suggest that a company employing staff and paying wages with these fixed costs and listing items exclusively on ebid would soon have cash flow issues.
How many ebid sellers are more than 1 person businesses? Are there any?