May I respectfully enquire?

[kengillam]

We are still seriously lacking items though there are only so many hand made cards etc that people want, eBid does not yet have many items, for example only two Canon DSLR's and a couple of Camera/Lens kits and they are seriously overpriced. I daresay others could point to similar examples. Until these matters are addressed what is there that is going to attract the buyers. If an extensive advertising campaign were implemented the buyers may come, look, leave dissappointed never to return. You normally only get one bite of the cherry at this sort of thing.

[HelenAndGraham]

Alas what you say is true Ken.

I appreciate the enthusiasm of most active eBidders but it doesn't help to make untrue claims like "eBay are going down" and "sellers are easy to attract" as the reality is all too plain to see once a potential new user arrives and the listings in some categories are thin on the ground and a lot of the merchandise on eBid is uncompetitively priced. But these problems aren't unique to eBid and can be tackled.

I completely agree wit the idea of trying to market "virally" but to do that successfully a number of features and unique attributes have to be in place to make it happen. eBid's affiliate scheme could certainly help spread the word if it were easier to work with but I risk sounding like a broken record on that one!

Putting my marketing head on a moment, affiliat emarketing aside, if I were trying to attract some buyers to eBid and generate some sales right now I would first identify the best categories where eBid already has a strong set of sellers and competitive listings. I would then look for websites covering the subject matter of those categories and place targeted CPM Adwords ads where possible or approach the webmasters about some banners or whatever. The aim being to attract people who are less likely to receive a disappointing first impression along the lines you describe Ken.