eBay down 33% - eBid up 22%

[baconsdozen]

99% may not have heard of ebid but 99% also know ebay is a haven for fraudsters,con artists,fakes and rip offs.
You can prove anything with statistics.

[darklisruthven]

ebay is a haven for fraudsters,con artists,fakes and rip offs.

ebay brought that on themselves by thier own rules

[TonyBridger]

99% may not have heard of ebid but 99% also know ebay is a haven for fraudsters,con artists,fakes and rip offs.
You can prove anything with statistics.

LOL Yes you can

99% of eBid members whom I regularly PM on here also trade on the Bay and are honest

[deltadelta48]

Hi All,
I recently conducted market research to assist me with developing my business plan. 99% of the people (mainly business's) had not heard of Ebid. Why is there not more advertising campaigns? I absolutely agree with the comments regarding ebay. There fees are incredible, as are paypal. If anyone knows of an alternative way to collect money with less fees, I would love to hear.
Suzy

Hi Suzy,

Smart of you to research and get together a solid marketing plan. The only thing that you have not considered is that selling on ebid does NOT rely on people knowing the name. In the old days feebay worked very hard to make feebay a household name via catchy singing ads "I bought it on feebay" etc. That is the way it was done then, everyone man, woman and child knows that name. I suspect that worked well for many years, but over the last few years that kind of advertising got to be a problem for us sellers. We got very very inexperienced buyers in, who did not pay, gave us negatives if mail was a day late, etc. and we even begged feebay to cut out the holiday advertising because of the poor buyers it was attracting. They never did, although the economy has forced them to cut back now. That is how advertising/marketing was done before there were lots of alternate auction/shopping sites.

Selling on line is changing, we see it now with the buyers coming off of google and other search engines. They are NOT the old feebay people, thank goodness, they are very sharp shoppers, a bit demanding, but if a seller caters to them, you make sales. Does not seem to matter they don't recognize the ebid name, they dive in after a tasty item and buy it. Does not seem to bother them in the least that they don't recognize the ebid name! They see the professional looking site, see most buyers use the familiar, PayPal as payment, and they do not hesitate to buy here once they look around.

I believe that shopping on ebid does not trouble any new buyers because of the professional appearance, it looks much better than the tired looking feebay site, and just the attitude of the owners comes thru. Fair, clear,supportive of buyers and sellers. Definitely a case of happy owners, happy sellers, happy buyers.

The second component that breaks down the barrier of "gee I don't recognize the ebid name" is for the seller to knock the potential buyer's socks off. That is done with a sharp, informative listing, with stong keywords in both title and description, and all the info necessary to sell the item. Most of the time that includes a discount, a sale, a further discount for buying multiple items etc. All the busy sellers also have good photos, a stylish way of presenting the items and the sale is made. Again, without the buyer "knowing" the ebid name. They came in on google search (who they trust), they found items they liked (ebid looked attractive), they liked the terms (listings/terms attractive and professional) and they bought). It happens daily here to many sellers. I just had a lady yesterday, cold off of google who bought almost 20 items, paid the invoice within an hour of my sending it, but did not hesitate for a moment. She loved the idea of having so many choices (this is another huge selling point, for collectors we have packed our stores full because we do not have listing/relist fees- more temptation for the buyer too - I don't list 10 tablecloths, I list 100, so my buyers end up taking 20 of them- different selling concept).

So that is the scenerio of how selling/buying on line goes now. Gone are the days when sites had to advertise on TV to get buyers to look. Buyers use search engines to find items, check out the site, and then buy. Often they move on to another site and do same thing. You never see any advertising off line for the other sites either, mostly they advertise as ebid does, thru web ads etc. This is the new way of selling, and funny thing, if you look at feebay's falling sales, you will notice that they failed to understand this. They do NOT appear on search engines (unless sellers puts items on), their site is tired looking, and the listings are now so buyer unfriendly with smaller photos, odd wording required by their numerous rules, their unhappy sellers, etc that they are not tempting anymore.

So a good way to do market research is to set up a situation where potential buyers view a search engine's results, and sample what other sites have to offer compared to ebid. I would venture to say that a very high percentage of those coming into ebid would buy without hesitation here based upon professional appearance of the site, professional appearance and information offered in listings, professional behavior of both sellers and owners, and because most sellers here accept PayPal!

To go further, what the above means to sellers on ebid is that they will have daily sales if they stop tailoring their listings, return policies, etc on what they did on feebay. That is NO LONGER the standard for selling on line. We see that time and again, some new sellers believe that all on line selling is in the feebay mold. They just bring their listings over, keep same postage, return policies etc and those sharp google buyers do not like it. Some insist ebid is at fault, and have us look at their listings, and we see inflated shipping, or shipping included (which our buyers HATE, they want to know cost of item, cost of shipping, AND want to get a discount for buying more than one).

But if a new seller reads the forums, researches how the busy sellers have tuned their listings, prices, shipping policies, etc, makes changes to suit these new google buyers, they start out selling in very short order. If they keep tweeking and making changes, adding new fresh items day, using stronger and stronger keywords, bring in old feebay buyers, etc, they start off smoking as sellers. In other words, they learn how to market their items. Those who do not make changes, don't. Their items sit.

So while my research is unofficial, I think the leading cause of no sales for those who have a variety of goods, variety of prices, etc, is that they have not updated the listings/prices/shipping/photos/etc to attract new online sellers (Of course the exception is those selling very specialized items, that is harder to do, and needs different techniques). But if you do a bit of research on the forums, you will see that in almost always the case, google brings in the potential buyers, many many times a day, the seller does not attract them (no keywords to search on, poor or no photos, no description, etc), and the buyers chose items from other sellers. This is always blamed on ebid not advertising enough, not the seller not knowing what a keyword is, or how to run a sale, discount for multiple items, etc.

Good luck on ebid, if you need any help, someone is always here to answer your questions.

[Pendipity]

Deltadelta, excellent post I wholeheartedly agree.

[jane6905]

i still buy and sell on ebay.. primarily because there appears to be more buyers there! or more people willing to part with their money there, most don't understand the ebid concept so when they come here expecting this to mirror ebay they don't like it...!

I would love for all the little ones on ebay to come over here, they would be so much better off!

Also i would love for more people to accept pppay here, i have money waiting to be spent! lol

happy ebidding peoples, ebid I loveya!
janey

[baconsdozen]

Judging by some of the comments re pppay on this forum I don't think I'd worry about it too much.

[Saturdayat3]

Good luck on ebid, if you need any help, someone is always here to answer your questions.

And provide valuable information like this post. Thank you for that.