Comics on Ebid

[LuckyTarget]

Hi all,
Like many of you, I moved over from the other side last year and have been putting serious energy into building my Ebid shop, Lucky Target Comics. It does still seem to be the best available option at the moment for online comic selling - there is no profit in having a feebay store, Comic Collector Live did not work out for UK dealers, it would be a lot more hassle to set up a website than to use the Ebid shop as a website in itself.

However, in terms of comic selling it is proving to be an uphill struggle at the moment. To start with LTC and its listings were not showing up through any search engines. With a bit of help from my friends, LTC is now showing up in Google search, though not in other search engines.

Virtually everyone who I have mentioned Ebid to, has said they have never heard of it. I know it is a hard battle when feebay seems to get casually mentioned in half the TV shows and films we see every day. But, still...I am sure that Ebid could do more to increase its visibilty, online at least, without have to spend a huge amount.

I am willing at some point to invest some money into advertising Lucky Target Comics, which in turn will help draw people over to Ebid. Surely Ebid should be able to manage a bit of pay-per-click advertising? If Ebid has hired PR/Marketing people at some point shouldn't they have achieved something by now? Their job is to get newspaper cuttings and just one well written piece in a national would have a huge effect.

Anyway, COMICS! I don't currently have a real-world shop (though I hope to in the future) so I am stuck with selling here (where I expect to potentially face a year of no sales until I can get the right advertising going for LTC) and selling at the marts and any conventions that I can get to. It looks like we are going to have to do some auctions on feebay just to get some sales, unfortunately (though any buyers will get an Ebid flyer).

The big problem with the comic section on Ebid is that most of it is of a low quality. The people that I have convinced to take a look on Ebid have come back to me and said "there is nothing there worth buying". I have had the same problem myself just looking for a few items to buy in order to build up my feedback - in nearly 20,000 listings there is pretty much nothing I want!!

This is not meant to be an insult to the other dealers on Ebid as everyone probably has a few nice items (and thank you to Batfreak for having more than a few as well as excellent service) but it does look a lot like everyone has emptied out their 50p boxes and started listing it all here. We have to remember that there is absolutely no incentive for buyers to switch to Ebid. The only way to get them over is give them something worth looking at and some good value, exciting items to buy.

First impressions count and if we don't catch buyers interest the first time they come and browse, they probably wont be back.

I am listing a lot of scarce sets and high value items on my shop regularly, as well as some cheap stuff. At the same time I have decided to commit to putting some 14 days auctions on and to spending money on having some of those of those listings in the featured or frontpage. So far, this is lost money for me and judging by the current state of Ebid it will continue to be lost money for a good while. However, I consider this to be investment into making Ebid better.

I strongly urge all the other comic sellers to stop filling the comic auctions pages with cheapo items and get some exciting stuff in there if they have it. We really need to work together to make Ebid look like a serious competitor and an interesting place to shop.

Thanks for reading
Sumyra @ LTC

http://uk.ebid.net/stores/Lucky-Target-Comics

[comicsemp]

Lucky Target
The Problem is that most of all the good books that the sellers have are all being listed on FeeBay where they get the best prices on there(unfortunately). Most all my good(more expensive)Comics That I sell are on there because more people know where they are and I get much better prices. Since Ebid is a smaller site more of the bigger buyers don't come here(or haven't heard about it-which is to bad) I list most of my duplicates on here of the cheaper sort, as does everyone else it seems. Comics don't sell as well on here, but I will keep what I've got on here and will be listing a lot more in the future

[LuckyTarget]

Hi
yeah, I understand why people do things that way. Ebay is the safe option if you want to make sales. But in the long term its is quality that will help Ebid grow not quantity or anything else, and I worry that a lot of comic sellers on here don't understand that. I find a lot of people are talking on the forums very positively about Ebid and how we can work together to promote it etc. I believe in that too!

But, I guess I am hoping that there might be more than hobbyists here and that some of them might be willing to put there money where there mouth is and make a commitment to Ebid. It will never be successful if we all put good stuff on Ebay and cheap stuff here (Ebay has the cheap stuff as well). Buyers do not care about who is charging sellers the most in fees, they care about find cool comics easily and in the right price. At the moment Ebay has all the cool stuff and no one has any reason to look here.

I can understand your position, comicsemp, because you have more options in the US and Ebay is an American company. It will be a sad state of affairs if UK dealers don't show a bit more guts and leave Ebay. We have to be in it for the long haul or nothing will change.

[LuckyTarget]

sorry for all the terrible spelling mistakes above - I do feel strongly about this so rushed out an answer.

[hush77hush]

Hi lucky target

not sure if the post is aimed for me or not as i don't class my self as a big dealer or a hobbyist.
I understand what you are saying about high end comics and the lack of on here but here is the reason for my lack of what you say high end comics, I sell what sell's both here and on feebay my comics may not be high priced but the are as advertised and I have not had any unhappy customers as of yet. I'm not saying that i will never list some of my own private collection but not at the min.
to be honest i have never understood why people list comic worth hundreds of pounds on auction site when there are so many fake's about and poor graders to boot.
feebay have done some deals in the past with some of the bigger publishers where customer will only be able to get veriant issue's or exclusive issue on ebay now this was a good idea not sure if anyone here knows anybody at marvel or DC that we could talk to about this it maybe an idea if we put it to Gazza to see if he can get 2000AD to put an add in there mag for eBid with the tag line of the auction site of the future????
I don't think you ment to upset people with this post because we are all in this together and all us comic book sellers from the guy that has his 50p Dandy's listed to the guy that has Amazing Fantasy#15 we all need to pull together and promote ourselves.
If you want to you can do the about me link swap everyone is going on about and me as one of the little guys will point our customers to your high end comics if you would like.
but for the min am gonna stick to quantity that sell's rather than quallity that does not sorry.

[LuckyTarget]

Hi Hush,
No the post is certainly not directed at anyone in particular so please don't take offense. Generally speaking I am thinking more about the appearance of the the auction page where Ebid browsers are going to look first, rather than shops.

I don't personally sell many comics that are worth hundreds of pounds either and would not suggest that anyone else should.

As I have said above, I appreciate the community spirit on Ebid and the fact that a lot of people are enthusiastic about promoting Ebid and challenging feebay and yet , when it comes to the crunch most people will admit that they are still selling their most attractive stock on the 'dark side'.

It really is an issue of what you want out of selling comics. I understand a lot of people are happy making a couple of quid here and there and I don't have a problem with that personally - those are often the people who I buy comics from myself.

I myself really want Lucky Target Comics to grow and be successful and thats means I need to get strong regular sales. I was getting that on feebay but LTC will not grow if a greedy American corporation is taking all its profits.

I have friends out there who would like to make a go of their comic businesses as well but they are not brave enough to take a risk. So, they turnover stock, gain virtually nothing and feed feebay. If I tell them to think about moving here, they take look and come back saying there is nothing good selling here and no seems to be making many sales.

It is something of a vicious circle. It is a sad thing really because Ebid could really grow comics-wise if a few more people made a go of it. Feebay is busy worrying about Amazon and Amazon are not hot on comics.

So no, I was not trying to upset people by saying all of this. It just seemed to me to be a subject that everyone on the forums was tangibly avoiding and one that is particularly pertinent to the comics pages. I just have a bit of a revolutionary spirit, I'm afraid, always hoping to get people motivated for change. I tried to light a fire up the ass of the flailing marts a few years ago. No one listened to me there either. I keep trying....

[hush77hush]

lucky have you sorted out a sig for you posts yet?
only ask this because i have the same sig and use this to post on comic book fourms on the net of which there a tons. if you can do one of your banner with a clickable link to your store in it that will drive traffic to your store. i also have a shop on feebay and i use this to my advantage to drive traffic to here aswell to do this i stoped sending customer invoices form ebay and start to send them from my email with my sig to here at the bottom. and then send tham a paypal invoice direct for paypal.
I also list items on here cheeper then on feebay so if some one ask me aquestion on there about the item i relpy have a look at it on here and look at the savings.
Regarding high grade and high value comics on here it only has to take one peason to do it and drive people here for it to take off. it is the same as feebay when i started listing comics on there you have ether the million doller comics or the this comic has no cover there was nothing in the middle.
also have you had a look at this site
http://www.comic-trader.co.uk/
it is a search engine for comic books that are listed on the net have been trying to figure out how to get my listings on here as this site has been recomended to me on more than on ocassions this would drive more comic buyers here to.
The way i see it is it is a bit like the chicken and the egg comic sellers keep saying there is nothing here but there will be nothing here unless we all promote ebid and get these buyers and sellers to stay.
p.s. if you a strugling with doing a sig (signature) for you post i will gladly help you with one.

[LuckyTarget]

Hi Hush,
Thanks for the suggestions and I probably could use some help with things such as signatures. I have a lot to learn where websites are concerned. My computer knowledgeable boyfriend is over for the weekend and might be able to help with some of it if he has time.

He is into rpg and spends a lot of time on forums and is like-minded with you in that he believes I should find customers at the grass roots by going on forums talking to people, and having a link for them to click onto. Definitely an intelligent marketing strategy but I am struggling to find the time when I feel like I should be concentrating on getting as many listings on as possible. It is on the list of things to do, though.

Oh he also had the idea that we should go onto the forums at the sites where people download comics (I am not gonna type the address for obvious reasons). He says a lot of them download the kind of stuff I have listed and that they claim they would buy the comics if they enjoy them. He thinks that if I go on I'll get some attention just for being a woman so maybe...

Apart from that I am intending to set up a Google page at some point because this seems to be searchable through any engine, unlike the Ebid shop. That would have a link to the shop and was thinking of adding marts and events info and maybe some other stuff. Maybe it would work if we thought about doing it as a comics collective between a few of us.

Along with that my business partner and I were thinking about using the marts as much as possible to try and bring some traffic (we are already flyering). An obvious thing might be to give people who spend a certain amount at the mart, a discount voucher for the Ebid. I wanted to wait until I get a sale so I can see how the invoicing works.

Also, Stephen suggested a raffle. So customers at the marts who spend over £10 say, get entered in the raffle. They would have to come to the Ebid shop to check whether they have the winning number and then contact us giving the right name in order to claim the prize. I am not rushing into that as want to get it right and get the prize right without wasting too much money.

I also want to be supportive of the small press/ small indie companies as I think they are important to the comic industry as a whole so am saying to them that if they link to the shop and or plug us on their sites I am happy to take on a decent quality publications for both Ebid and the marts.

I will deffo use your suggestion about invoicing for anything I sell on feebay.

At the moment its just about any creative idea to get traffic and build our name but if some of us worked together on any of this I would be very happy to co-operate. All assistance would be welcome and reciprocated.

[hush77hush]

hi lucky have sent you a pm have a read.
also you can put all you BIN listing on google from ebid can help you with that if you would like.

[hush77hush]

oh and have put a link in my about me page to your store check it out.

http://uk.nine.ebid.net/perl/normal....heir-all-about