An Opportunity.....

[leapingcat]

Ebay have announced that from October all media sellers, which effectively means books, must offer 'free' p&p as their first choice. Of course there is no such thing as free p&p, it will be added on to the price and they will get an even bigger cut on their already rip-off fees, both for listing and FVFs. Booksellers will be leaving in droves, and even if they stay there they will be listing less.
This leaves the door wide open for Ebid, so how do we exploit this opportunity as we can offer a better deal for both buyers and sellers (eg 10p fees against £1.00 for a £5 book; the saving can be shared with buyers) At present there are only 124,000 books listed, which is low by the standards of any purely bookselling site, so the challenge is to come up with ideas that would make Ebid the number one choice for books. I'm not too well up on social networking sites, are they the best means of promotion?

[leadhillsonline]

I've never used a social networking site, they don't appeal to me at all. How much the new rules will cause sellers to leave I don't know, most of the books I look at over there are well over priced anyway.
Getting buyers to switch to eBid will only happen when more items are listed. As you say the book total is low, it is not often I find any of the ones I want.

[hush77hush]

how about an add campain base in Libraries stating the fact that feebay sellers ether over charge to cover fees or soon will be????

[klj]

Invite any sellers you buy from to join us here, and let your buyers know to look here. Use any sites you enjoy (that allow it) to promote eBid. List more books!
If we each continue to do those things, we will see more buyers and sellers on eBid.
Keep in mind that with books, we are competing with many selling sites, not just feebay, so letting buyers and sellers elsewhere know helps too.

[leadhillsonline]

Invite any sellers you buy from to join us here, and let your buyers know to look here. Use any sites you enjoy (that allow it) to promote eBid. List more books!
If we each continue to do those things, we will see more buyers and sellers on eBid.
Keep in mind that with books, we are competing with many selling sites, not just feebay, so letting buyers and sellers elsewhere know helps too.

I do that all the time but have only had one buyer come across (that I know of) although another one was going to check it out.

[gyronny]

I did an email shot a few weeks back, and have posted on greedbay forums about ebid and I have had some replies from interested and disgruntled greedbay sellers. Some should make their way over here I hope.
The mood over there is bad, but that's been the case every time one of the monkies makes an alteration to the evil empire's policies, it usually dissipates into occasional moaning. I don't think that many booksellers/buyers make the jump across here.
Fingers crossed this is the final straw for them! I think greedbay are trying to rid themselves of small sellers.

[wolfsheadbooks]

I've only been using *bay for books under 99p [and £2.75 maximum P&P], which of course will no longer be worth it come September.

I'd like to be able to dump *bay altogether [as opposed to being forced off !] but the problem is that stuff sells there - so far this year sales beat sales on eBid by about 75 - 1 !

Here's what each of my *bay customers get...

1. On the back of the sales note I thank them for their custom, but add that all my really good books are in my EBid store, here's the adress, and by the way, you can buy from me using your existing PayPal account.

If there ever is an exodus of customers from *bay, they're all going to have PayPal accounts, so much as I'd like to dump that too, it'd be a stupid move. Sometimes you have to compromise.

2. I print my own bookmarks on card and enclose one with each sale. It has my ebid store adress on it.

3. When the book is posted, I email them to tell them its on its way. I then add " but all my really good books..." as per [1] above, but with the addition of a link direct to my store.

For all that, no *bay customer has yet crossed the lines and bought from me on eBid.

Thing is, the *bid changes hit sellers. What it really needs is for them to do something to alienate those who are purely buyers. Judging by their past efforts, they're quite likely manage that eventually, but untill then...

[wolfsheadbooks]

Oh... and I forgot - I post a link to my eBid shop in each of my *bay listings !

How do I manage that ? Well, I naturally have a page on my personal website with a link to the eBid store.

The link on the *bay listing invites viewers to check out my other stock and sends them to that page. Another click and they're on eBid, [which of course isn't mentioned by name in the link].

No way of telling how many people may have followed the links, but again, no sales from it as yet. All you can do is keep trying.

[mrobertsandbooks]

I have 2974 items on greedbay and I am seriously looking at ebid now.If I keep with greedbay I will have to add the postage on the price of the item.That to me is not the way to sell honestly.As soon as I can afford I will register as a seller.Greedbay have become as bad as my local council who want business rates of such large amounts it is unbearable and impossible-greedbay have become the same.All I want is to make aliving but all I seem to be doing is not making enough to pay everyone else's fees,rates etc.

[bykimbo]

The more booksellers, the better! I'd love to see ebid become the first place people look for a hard-to-find book. If you're thinking of joining us, maybe have a read of my FAQ selling section (in my sig) for a few ideas.