After lurking on the forums for the last few days quietly reading away I have decided to post a few thoughts.
Now i expect a bit of a backlash for some of my comments froma few of the Ebid faithfull
but before you do I want to make it clear i have watched ebid for some years and really hope that this site works and to be honest I would love to bring my items to Ebid for sale
But after logging on this morning I saw an upgrade to seller+ at just under the £100 mark in reality i can not justify this as with some of the research i have done i can expect to sell a few items a year so will probably get my money back in the first year not worth it really
It seems you have a good amount of sellers and i constantly see notifications of proudly stating how many live auctions there are which i take my hat off to you....
Having said this if you dont have the buyers there is nothing
so my ideas for you to debate or consider
firstly you need to improve visibility of the site I constantly see ebay adverts but never ebid why???
infact the best way to find this site from google is typing alternatives to ebay there are plenty of reasons for a seller to serch this but very few for a buyer
Yes this will cost money but carry on reading i have an idea later on in this post for this.
second
You need to focus on what makes you better than ebay with you reduced fees i see no reason why sellers could be slightly cheaper selling here than there in a world where money is tight this would be great.
find ebays weaknesses as expose and improve yes fees for a seller are a big downside but you could also give greater flexibility to sellers yes you already have but maybe for payment options I for one Have my own merchant account and sage pay gateway for my own site which costs me money is there anyway this could be integrated with ebid if so this would make you the only one that does and that could be a way of enticing sellers that do not currently sell on auction sites
ok back to paying for greater site exposure
you have a very good faithful following if you had a drive to recruit more sellers maybe offering a 6 month free trial with a final value fee (but keep an enticing level below ebay or you defeat the object) to boost the range found
but also ask members to commit to a fund for advertising and im not talking adwords you need your brand out there maybe sponsorship or tv adverts
I for one would pay the 100 seller fee if i could see there was a plan but not if ebid as a company is happy with slow growth
so what do you think of my ideas