Top rating on Google after 3 days on Ebid

[PatThePirate]

Hi Folks

Regarding those missing auctions, I found I missed out a comma at the end of each cell in column S of the Excel spreadsheet, the shipping column. I've deleted and reloaded the whole lot of auctions.

This would probably stop anyone outside Ireland (which is where I live) from seeing the auctions (I think Ebid only displays auctions on other Ebid sites if you state that you are prepared to ship there).

Thank goodness there are eager beavers out there with enough interest to warn me that things were not going according to plan!

I'll be glued to this thread to see if I've fixed the problem.

Regards

Pat

[HobbyHabitat]

pat, i still can,t see them on uk site...it says 40 auctions listed, but i am not seeing any

[PatThePirate]

Hi Hobbyhabitat,

You were right. In the bulk upload spreadsheeet, Ebid give you "eu" as a shipping destination, and because I thought the UK, Italy etc etc were in Europe, I only had "eu" for shipping to the European Union (EU).

It seems you have to add in every country separately. Heaven only knows which countries are considered to be in Europe, and I'm sorry for the Swiss, Greeks etc because I can't see how to add them in.

I checked the UK site this morning, and finally see my 40-odd auctions. Woo Hoo!

Thanks to you, and also to all the other observant folk out there who were kind enough to put me wise.

PS You probably all knew this, but you only need to change the "ie" or the "uk" at the front of any Ebid URL and you immediately get into the corresponding page in that country. Must go and brush up my Italian . . .

Regards

Pat

[sidthelamp]

im getting all 40 items showing in uk site now and the french site is showing 40 too,

[HobbyHabitat]

yep they are showing now....good luck......i,m not sure if all eu countries can access ebid yet. i,m sure someone will know.

[deltadelta48]

Same ole story... gangbusters then a beginning soft whine. Tis a never ending story.
feebay is 15-25 times larger than here, simple as that.

Sorry, but you are compariing apples to oranges and telling us that apples taste better! Ebid does NOT get traffic from only members and outside advertising for ebid. feebay does it like that. For feebay it does depend on feebay being "larger" in terms of membership or listings. . Ebid's traffic is from downloads of OUR LISTINGS to google (largest search engine on web) and those unique buyers/traffic following our items into ebid. That is the way traffic comes in. The better the items/listing, the more buyers who come over. In addition we get traffic from ebid members, old feebay members and our own marketing. So it appears that google's potential for creating traffic, unique traffic, is much much greater than feebay's ever will be, and ebid has that covered for us.

We forget so soon that feebay used to have 100 million items A DAY listed and was the only auction site on the web. Not near that now, and more importantly, it has been leaking money like a sieve and having all time low monthly sales for months now. PP keeps them afloat. Feebay ain't a good eatin' apple any more. ebid gains sales every month and has been showing positive growth each month!

New sellers can have good daily sales here, but must change their techniques. Forum tips show them how, members are all willing to help them do it. But just running feebay listings, terms etc, does not appeal to google customers, our largest group of customers. Smart sellers do anything to tap into the huge group of unique buyers on google. It expands their customer base.

[deltadelta48]

This going to be hard, but I have to say that since August 18th I've sold NOTHiNG on Ebid, despite having revised all my prices and P&P downwards twice in a row, and despite all the auctions being automatically re-posted. By contrast, I sold seven items last week on Ebay whilst on holiday which are also listed on Ebid . . . what's not happening, lads? You've got an excellent website, far easier to use than Ebay, but where's the traffic? Ahem!

Setup is not the same here. We create the traffic when our items attract buyers on google and follow the items in. We also sell to ebid members, feebay members, and get buyers from our own marketing. Once sellers realize that they have to make some changes, and make them, the sales come here. If they increase their stock, it increases the sales.

You used the wrong technique to try to get sales here, changing the prices. That does not work as you found out. Best way to attract those google people is by having polished and professional listings, variety of goods, variety of prices, good terms, discount for multples and lots of stock to show them and google (google works best with more listings). People do NOT open the listing and decide to buy because the price is rock bottom. They look at the photos, the terms of sale, if the seller is friendly and professional, if there is a solid description etc. The buyers we get are NOT FEEBAY buyers, so you must learn to appeal to them, just as you learned to appeal to your feebay buyers. Make a change, make a sale.

As for your not selling here but selling 7 items last week on feebay, lordy, I sold 55 items last week on this site using these techniques!! And it was a very slow month because of the US holiday, school starting etc. You explain your lack of sales as being ebid's fault, but if that were true, I would not have sales, and no one else would either. Yet we have DAILY sales.

So the site has to be working well if many members get daily sales.. Those without sales need seriously to look at the forum tips and follow them to the letter. Sorry, there is no forum tip about doing nothing but reducing your prices.

If you need help making the changes, the members will be happy to help you polish things up.

[PatThePirate]

Yes, I seem to need to do SOMETHING about my listings, & will trawl through the Forums to see what people recommend. But the Ebay sales I made were word-for-word the same as the ones I set up on Ebid; with Meccano there isn't much scope for creativity in descriptions!

My own experience was of never having heard of Ebid until I got totally fed up with Feebays fees, and in pure desperation I asked Google "Is there an alternative to Ebay?" and found a site called "Squidoo" in which there was an article about Ebid. My point is that i found Ebid but not because Ebid was trying to attract my attention

I'm quite sure that Ebid will eventually reach as many people as Ebay; the Ebay software seems very clunky to me, probably written years ago, whereas Ebid pages are slick and very much to the point, and the site is far and away easier to use.

Regarding Google, I am selling vintage Meccano parts, and if you type "vintage meccano" into Google as I did just now, the VERY FIRST RESULT is one of my Ebid auction pages! Hence the title I gave this thread initially. No, I'm just wondering why my buyers so far haven't reached me through Ebid.

Must open Ebid using my son's account and test out the system by seeing if I could buy something from myself. Maybe I'm blacklisted . . . or insane . . .

[Maxx]

Must open Ebid using my son's account and test out the system by seeing if I could buy something from myself. Maybe I'm blacklisted . . . or insane . . .

A friendly word of caution; don't buy from yourself via your son's account, even if its for testing purposes! That is not allowed and you very well may get both you and your son's account blacklisted.

[PatThePirate]

Ouch. Thanks for that, Maxx. I'll have to remain paranoid & insane, unless I can find some other way of testing the system. I've got used to sitting staring at PC screens over the years and wondering "What the crap's not happening this time?"