I hate that I’ve got 4 items for sale right now, all starting at $0.99, 41 views among them, and only one bid.
Frakking looky-loos.
Dunno - it’s a nice idea, but I’m not sure it can happen now - eBay doesn’t want the small sellers, but doesn’t want anyone else to have them either - that’s my impression based on a number of subtle bits and pieces I’ve picked up from pinks on the message board and from the way some of their ads have been targeted and marketed.
It’s a bit like trees in the rainforest - the big ones are the same species as the little ones, but they create an environment in which the little specimens can’t really flourish.
Good metaphor, but it projects a certain natural inevitability I’m not ready to settle for.
Wonder what the percentages are of non-shop vs. shop sellers, and whether the 'Bay hasn’t simply become too big to deal profitably with the non-shoppers.
My experience with ebay is this: If I have something to sell, and I price it right, it always sells.
I see people trying to sell lots of crap that they think way to much of, when really it’s just crap.
The problem, as I see it, is that a fledgling site needs sellers in order to attract buyers and needs buyers in order to make it worthwhile for sellers. This wasn’t an issue for eBay, because it grew organically without being overshadowed.
I’m not saying it’s impossible, I’m just not sure it’s possible, or how.
Maybe if an established ‘big player’ like Google or Amazon (or one of the social networks, perhas) decided to take it on as a long-view project, it might go somewhere.
Here in Australia we have Oztion http://www.oztion.com.au/
It has been growing well because of ebay’s dickishness
How is Oztion pronounced?
Like Auction with the auc replaced with Oz
we’ve got eBid in the UK, which deserves to be more popular (it’s possible to list without fees), but it suffers from lack of buyers/bidders.
It’s also been directly targeted by advertising/trademark dishonesty from eBay - if you googled ‘eBid’, you used to see ads that purported to be about eBid, but actually went to eBay when clicked. (I’ll try to find documentary evidence for this claim - it was clear and obvious when it was happening, but it doesn’t seem to have left much trail)
When my eBay searches began turning up predominantly brand new items (out of a Chinese shipping container), I abandoned eBay. In addition, there was no discipline over the categories that people used to sell their items. I grew tired of seeing ads for automobile parts when searching for books and music.
Several of the people I used to buy from on ebay have switched to ePier. The interface is crude but they say that it is much more seller-friendly.
I think there are many on both sides of the transaction that hate eBay. They are all waiting for someone to tell them what the alternative is and then they will flock by the thousands.
I can just speak to my experience on Yahoo’s auctions way back when (had to be ages/7 years ago) ---------- failed deals. Ebay jumps pretty hard on sellers or buyers who fail to complete a deal; Yahoo not so much so. As a result probably half the stuff I tried to sell on Yahoo never got “picked up” and a lot of stuff I was able to buy cheap never got delivered. Being able to hardball that “a deal is a deal” and still build up a base is, imho, the biggest barrier to beat.
I’m a casual seller on eBay and I have to think long and hard about each item I’m putting up to determine if it’s even worth my time to do so.
To start, I have two options. I can place it in an Auction or Buy It Now (BIN). An auction is free if I put it under $1 to start, but I run the risk that it’s not going to get more than one bidder (whereas that one particular bidder would have paid, say, $5 or $10 but due to lack of competition got it for 99 cents).
I can put it as a BIN, which costs 50 cents off the top regardless of whether it sells. Now i’ve got to research the current market as well as past sales. This isn’t terribly difficult but it is time consuming for multiple items and the past sales only goes back 2 weeks so you really get no feel for a market history.
So let’s say I’ve put it up on BIN at $4.99 and it sells. Let’s also assume I’m honest with my mailing costs (and can precisely determine them ahead of time) and I’m not using it as an alternative profit center. I’ll be charged somewhere between 8-15% of the final sale price. Let’s say 12%.
Now they pay by PayPal. It’s 2.9% + a base 30 cent fee per payment.
So all told, what profit do I see from my $4.99 sale?
$4.99 - 50 - 30 - (.124.99) - (.0294.99) = $3.44. Or 69% of my base price. And that’s assuming that my BIN sells the first time I list it or else another 50 cents cuts into my profit.
Bottom line becomes this. If I’m an occassional seller looking to throw a few random things from the house up on eBay it’s a profitable venture IF I assume that anything I put up is worth 0 dollars to me and anything I make is pure profit. Otherwise, those eBay and Paypal fees eat up such a huge chunk I can’t possibly come out ahead on any random transaction.
OK, just what does “out of a Chinese shipping container” mean? That the item ships directly from China? Or something else?
Personally, I will rarely even consider buying a new item from someplace outside of the US. If I want to buy something from China, I can toddle down to WalMart, where at least I can examine the item firsthand.
I assume it means people buying in bulk/wholesale from China at very low cost, then selling on eBay, without themselves really adding or creating any value.
I sell on Bonanzle. Not as much traffic as ebay, but much lower fees. You can import your ebay feedback as a seller, too.
nm. Wrong thread
Low quality items that are spammed across every category by several usernames and drop-shipped from a warehouse. In other words, items that the seller has never touched, has no first-hand knowledge of, and will not warranty.
Ok, so we have ePier.com, Bonanzle, Oztion, eBid.net, uBid.net, CQout.com, Overstock.com, onlineauction.com, webidz.com, bidstart.com and I’m sure there are many others.
As a buyer, I go to eBay because that’s where all the biggest selection is. What it will take for another site to become successful is for sellers to band together and start selling there.
The replacement sites don’t have to become one-stop shops like eBay, they begin to attract clients by specializing in one segment. Computers, ephemera, music, cameras, memorabilia, etc.
The various websites that specialize in these various interests can direct people to this new specialty auction site in return for six months of free banner ads. Word-of-mouth will spread through web forums and it becomes known that this is the place to go.
The problem seems to be payment. I know that PayPal handles transactions for many websites other than eBay. I use them to pay for items that I’ve purchased at other auction sites. I wonder if eBay would continue to allow the use of PayPal when it became apparent that another auction site was sucking up a portion of their business.
Nothin’ much on a big scale. Etsy for handmade stuff. For general merchandise, Bonanzle is, I believe, the fastest growing, but that’s sort of like saying your grass (Bonanzle) is growing faster than your tree (eBay). True, but when you want to sit in the shade, fast growing grass isn’t a real selling point. Bonanzle has oodles of new members every day, but eBay still has exponentially more members over all.
“Could”? Of course. But being as they own PayPal, and PayPal makes them more money than eBay does, I don’t think they have much motivation to.
Buyers. Sellers will sign up for any venue, and multiple venues. But when you have a gazillion sellers and no one to buy…
More specifically, what’s missing is money and a hook. To find buyers, you have to spend money on marketing and advertising, and have something really cool about you that eBay doesn’t, and then convince buyers that you do. So far, no one’s really done that.
The second problem is that the collectible market is just in the toilet. Even those who are still putting Aunt Edna’s treasures up are finding they just can’t make enough on them to keep going. (Source: yesterday’s Chicagoland eBay Sellers Meetup 
) Add to that eBay’s new emphasis on Stores and high volume sellers, rather than individual listings, and you’ve got a conundrum: Doug’s House of Golf is easy to market and work SEO magic on. Doug’s House of Random Crap is much trickier.
Ding ding ding! I think (I hope) Bonanzle is the Great New Hope. Bill Harding (CEO of Bonanzle) just announced a very generous funding increase which might actually help.
What’s your store, lorene? I’d love to check it out.
Excellent point. I am a very casual seller, just hoping to unload a few random items, so the slow traffic to Bonanzle doesn’t cause me much grief. Especially when listings are free and I can keep things up forever. If I was looking to really generate income, I’d probably list on ebay.
I’m not sure if I’m allowed to link to my store (and, as I said, it’s pretty uninteresting—just some handbags and jewelry right now), but I’m happy to PM it to you.