we are being talked about again!!!!

[kengillam]

The real question is about buyers, whilst many small sellers may be leaving in droves, and indeed bring their customers with them, how many buyers only are there, or who just perhaps do the odd sale from time to time. All these swinging changes don't really affect them (yet) unless they are supplied by the myriad of small sellers. Lets face facts all the time they can find what they want they are unlikely to look elsewhere. There are still serious gaps in what is on offer on eBid, for instance Digital camera lenses, not one available, until items like that are being sold many buyers may visit and leave dissapointed. Ebid probably only gets one chance if a buyer cannot find what they want will they return, unlikely. Whilst every new seller is welcome, there is a limit to how many hand crafted card sellers are needed for example, it is the breadth of items that needs addressing, and perhaps where eBid should be providing some incentives to those sellers.

[frollick]

the dark side forums are depressing,I have never seen such anger,and I have been witht them since 1996, it is like visiting Hell, now the forums here are the exact opposite,everyone is pleasant and very helpful, night & day

[rethreads]

The real question is about buyers, whilst many small sellers may be leaving in droves, and indeed bring their customers with them, how many buyers only are there, or who just perhaps do the odd sale from time to time. All these swinging changes don't really affect them (yet) unless they are supplied by the myriad of small sellers. Lets face facts all the time they can find what they want they are unlikely to look elsewhere. There are still serious gaps in what is on offer on eBid, for instance Digital camera lenses, not one available, until items like that are being sold many buyers may visit and leave dissapointed. Ebid probably only gets one chance if a buyer cannot find what they want will they return, unlikely. Whilst every new seller is welcome, there is a limit to how many hand crafted card sellers are needed for example, it is the breadth of items that needs addressing, and perhaps where eBid should be providing some incentives to those sellers.

Ken, I so agree with you that eBid will have one shot at a new buyer, and what you say about breadth of products makes so much sense in the larger view.

We've been told to drag our customers over here with us. I HAVE no regular customers because I don't specialize in anything that a buyer has to come back to me for. The woman who bought a Michael Simon lobster sweater is not going to be looking for another one. She may be looking for another Michael Simon sweater, which I don't have, so she will go where she can find one, and buy from whoever has got it. The feedback that reads "Would buy from again" does not imply loyalty to me as a seller. It means "If she had something I wanted, I would buy it." End of story.

We hear that the small sellers of collectables will be among the hardest hit over there, prompting them to move over here. Let's look at that. Many of these people buy at local sales whatever they can find that they think is good. So Seller X may have one piece of Rookwood pottery, one 1967 Mustang gas cap, a small group of old comic books, etc. Good stuff for the right buyers. But suppose someone has in the past bought some antique Christmas ornaments from him and comes here looking for more, and there aren't any. Are we so naive as to think he'll just stop buying old Christmas ornaments? Or will he go where he can find them?

Buyers couldn't care less if this is a haven for small, abused ex-feebay sellers. It's about the choice between buying paint from Home Depot or the tiny 70 year-old family owned hardware store that stocks one shelf of one brand. There has to be an incentive for the customer to choose the little guy. By the same token, there has to be an incentive for the seller who is doing well with his digital camera lenses elsewhere to move to a smaller venue with less exposure. In both cases, what's the incentive going to be?

I don't have a crystal ball and prefer to deal in the here and now. If Goliath is going to fall, it won't be today. Or tomorrow. There are still plenty of Powersellers willing to toe the increasingly narrow line for the greater exposure. That, combined with a policy that so completely favors buyers, is going to make it much harder to bring buyers here. So I think you hit the nail on the head: until buyers stand a better chance of finding what they want, it will be hard to get and KEEP them.

[theretrotrader]

Copy and paste the url below into your browser. Any mention of eBid i put onto an eBay forum gets taken down immediately. However the url below is eBid information i have posted onto my eBay auction. It's been on for about a week now along with my other auctions and none of my listings have been taken down. Check it out.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...STRK:MESELX:IT

[tjsprinting]

take it you plan on going out with a bang!!

[theretrotrader]

Ha yeah you could say that. eBay have already kicked me off twice and in both circumstances it was completely unjust. And trying to rationalise with them over the phone.......it's like talking to a bunch of robots reading from a script.

I guess eBay have never really done me any favours so i don't see why i should do any for them in return.

I definately don't think eBid will bring eBay to it's knee's but it is an excellent alternative that is growing in popularity all the time.

Plus a little bit of free advertising has never harmed anyone. ;p

Ric

[Carl_Robertson]

Hi All,

another newbie here although been registered here for a few weeks not yet listed anything for sale.

I am also a business seller on the darkside only just recently started my business and as my username suggests I sell a range of various different things as deal with a liquidisation/bankrupt stock supplier.

I will be expanding my business over here in the very near future as cant take the risk of feebay basically closing my business down totally just because a buyer decides to leave a neg to see what happens and I will be listing between 30 and 100 items per month once i get up and running properly.

also ebid looks to be the cheaper option for listing not sure about the fvf's and shop subscription prices yet but will be looking into that soon.

as for feebay protecting their buyers and not the seller it is getting to be a joke especially when a lot of sellers over there stick to the rules and regs of the dsrs.

as for the dsrs left by the buyer if an item doesnt arrive fast enough and we dispatched ontime then we are the ones that are going to suffer from it not the buyer and inturn feebay will eventually start losing out untill they turn it into the large high street mall they want.

[buckhysen]

The real question is about buyers, whilst many small sellers may be leaving in droves, and indeed bring their customers with them, how many buyers only are there, or who just perhaps do the odd sale from time to time. All these swinging changes don't really affect them (yet) unless they are supplied by the myriad of small sellers. Lets face facts all the time they can find what they want they are unlikely to look elsewhere. There are still serious gaps in what is on offer on eBid, for instance Digital camera lenses, not one available, until items like that are being sold many buyers may visit and leave dissapointed. Ebid probably only gets one chance if a buyer cannot find what they want will they return, unlikely. Whilst every new seller is welcome, there is a limit to how many hand crafted card sellers are needed for example, it is the breadth of items that needs addressing, and perhaps where eBid should be providing some incentives to those sellers.

I totally agree with this that it's about the buyers.
I've been monitoring my items on Ebid over the last week and found that I am getting almost double (And up to 4 times) the views on here for a lot of items compared to on Eb*y. Yet no sales as yet. Compared to a growing number on Eb*y before I stopped. And a steady flow from my Facebook fan page, which only has 91 fans (Although a lot more visitors).

So from that it seems to me that my listings seem to be getting as much (If not more) exposure than on Eb*y, yet no sales at all. Proving that as yet there are still a lot of people out there that do look on Ebid but don't buy. This needs to change just as much as getting in more sellers.

[theretrotrader]

Well i've been registered on here for a about 7 months. For the first 6 months i hadn't sold a bean and have now sold 8 items within the the past month. And it is this which has given me the incentive to list many more items. Also the seller member 'kedo' has the right attitude. They are constatntly listing 100's of diverse items as it is the diversity and volume that will attract new buyers. For example if a buyer comes over from eB*y looking for a particular item and there is no sign of it on here it is unlikely they will return to the site for some time if at all. And to hell with it, i've already paid my £49.99 which i've made back in sales and it's not going to cost me any more to list as many auctions as i want. And with savings i make i can sell items on here cheaper so buyers are feeling the benefits too.

[CrazyJay]

I've decided to start off a few auctions of some interesting bits, rather than list only with a BUY IT NOW. At least here I can start my auction off with a price I would accept, rather than just list at a really low price and hope for the best.

That used to work well on the other side, but now seems just as risky as anywhere else.