They are really hurting us!

[luvintage]

[QUOTEThat was my thought. Most of us come on each day to check for sales, do housekeeping etc, but others may be doing something different to monitor sales. We may have people who appear to have abandoned the listings/stores, but really handle everything thru their outside emails. Someone buys, seller gets the email, clicks on link, gets info on address etc, and mails item out. Or goes thru Paypal to check for sales, print postage etc. Will using a different procedure to handle sales penalize these sellers? Will it look like they never log in? How dependable is the log in procedure for catching people who never come back to check their stores? ][/QUOTE]

I'm still new and don't quite understand that yet. But, I'd think if you were an active seller, you'd be interested in adding new stock, promoting your listings through the forums, maybe tweeking a few things here and there, etc. Also, some of the stores I browsed only had one listing and had not been "seen" in years! . Wouldn't an active seller at least add some new stock now and again? That would require logging in. Also, I like to see how many viewers I've had, -is there any interest in what I have posted? Do I need to change key words, etc.

[luvintage]

Delta Delta,

How do you make a quote. Haven't figured it out yet!

[deltadelta48]

Morning folks , I see there is not a lot of people on this thread , and only one ( me ) who wants to vote ....perhaps , eBid would take a little more notice if they were to see members voting ???? but saying this we know there have been things voted on or ranted about in the past and nothing has been done....maybe this time we can get eBid to do something....the only problem I see is how long to give the store before closure......so why not have a vote , even if it only shows how some members feel.....Papa.

Well it is 1:30 am here, so Vintage and I may be the only ones awake on this side of the Atlantic. You won't get many US opinions until the morning which has already arrived for you. Give everyone a few more hours to mull it over.

[deltadelta48]

Delta Delta,

How do you make a quote. Haven't figured it out yet!

That is down where you add the links, there is a box with a slightly different name, its right on the bottom of that page.

Opps I found it, go up to MY PROFILE and that is where you add it.

Wrong, its now under Settings in upper right.

[deltadelta48]

[QUOTEThat was my thought. Most of us come on each day to check for sales, do housekeeping etc, but others may be doing something different to monitor sales. We may have people who appear to have abandoned the listings/stores, but really handle everything thru their outside emails. Someone buys, seller gets the email, clicks on link, gets info on address etc, and mails item out. Or goes thru Paypal to check for sales, print postage etc. Will using a different procedure to handle sales penalize these sellers? Will it look like they never log in? How dependable is the log in procedure for catching people who never come back to check their stores? ]

I'm still new and don't quite understand that yet. But, I'd think if you were an active seller, you'd be interested in adding new stock, promoting your listings through the forums, maybe tweeking a few things here and there, etc. Also, some of the stores I browsed only had one listing and had not been "seen" in years! . Wouldn't an active seller at least add some new stock now and again? That would require logging in. Also, I like to see how many viewers I've had, -is there any interest in what I have posted? Do I need to change key words, etc.[/QUOTE]


You would think so, but there are so many ways to run a business, some people might think the tweeking is a waste of time.

We were just wondering outloud if there was any way for an active seller to appear to be inactive? Because we are talking about using the log in to determine if they have abandoned shop. Could someone run their ebid business without logging in? Maybe checking their PP daily and just printing labels and mailing items out without coming on ebid and doing the log in, bookkeeping etc? So could ebid actually close down active sellers that did not log in often but still sold and mailed?

[bykimbo]

bykimbo,

when I was looking for a new place to post, I wanted one that I perceived to be successful-that's where the numbers come in. I didn't even consider some of the sites that have a low number of listings.(I used the power sellers list)

I realize now that numbers don't mean everything. But, I still think it's human nature to want to go with the sites with the bigger numbers. It at least give the illusion it's the most successful.

I agree with you that fewer stores with quality dealers would be wonderful but would new members be atrracted by small numbers?

This has probably already been covered in the ensuing discussion after I went to bed, but I'm just catching up. Good morning, by the way. :-)) What you've said there is a seller's perspective, and I was taking about buyers. More sellers would be nice. More buyers are essential. Buyers look for *an item* and follow it. If when they find it they can't buy it, that's a poor experience - next time they find an item and it says "ebid" they are less likely to follow the link.

[bykimbo]

I don't think it matters if you call them normal, locked, inactive or whatever, if you put them in a different category or hang them from the kitchen ceiling - if you have a huge number of listings that won't work you laying up a truly terrible experience for all the buyers who try to buy and can't, and then tell all their friends about how "you can't buy anything on ebid, half of it's not really for sale". This is already a problem - making them officially unavailable and sanctioning dump-and-run sellers by giving them their own annexe does not solve that problem in any way, in my opinion.

I'm surprised that anybody sees this forest of deadwood as good for sellers. It could be *your* tree the buyer can't see next time they look.

Searching and browsing here would just get more and more pointless if the abandoned listings were allowed to grow forever - the whole place would turn into a museum not a marketplace.

[crafters_corner]

Good morning

I'm new here so don't have a wealth of experience. But it does occur to me that the problem is partly brought about by the 'List until sold' option. As Newbies are frequently advised that this isn't the best way to sell, would it not be better to do away with it all together or, at least, shorten to, say, three months or so?

[luvintage]

Am I missing something?

"We were just wondering outloud if there was any way for an active seller to appear to be inactive?"

I guess I have to ask how active can a seller appear to be if they are not adding new stock, or checking to see how many watchers they are getting or if they can make improvements. In the brick and mortar world you don't just plop things on a shelf and hope they will sell-there's constant evaluation and change. Why would it be different in an internet store.? Parking things in a store and never checking to see how they are doing is not really active. It's just being there. How then does the buyer know who to buy from. They don't see the seller's paypal account or their emails. How do they judge who is active except by how long has it been since you logged in? I'd say that having one item in a store and not logging in for a few years is a no brainer as to whether the store is active or not.

"Could eBid ebid actually close down active sellers that did not log in often but still sold and mailed?"

If a person only has one or two listings and hasn't logged in for two or more years how active exactly can they be?

Whether a person "works" their store or not is their own business but there needs to be some distinction between the seller who works outside of the ebid environment and the seller who doesn't work at all. The only way a buyer can tell which is which is through log in.

[astral276]

Morning folks , I see there is not a lot of people on this thread....

Probably because the subject has been beaten to death so many times before to no avail. Admin cannot be unaware of the users views on the issue of absentee sellers by now but, for reasons known only to themselves, choose to do nothing about it.

There was a brief hope when they introduced the need to log in at least every 24 hours to access seller accounts that that information was going to be used in policing absentee sellers. That hope was short lived though.

By all means keep prodding admin on the subject. You are not telling them anything they don't know though and, based on past experience, they will not act until they are ready (if ever).