Silvertraders topics ( European enterprise centers promoting online shops/business)

[Silvertrader]

Hi guys,
Firstly Let me give you all the link to my central thread ( Silvertrader’s Investigation & Plug Thread )

http://www.ebid.net/forums/showthrea...mp-Plug-Thread

Now on with this investigation story

A few of you might remember me mentioning in a previous thread how i was walking past one of these centers on my high street and saw a sign in the window saying " do you have cash in your attic" maybe sell your items on Ebay "
At the time i walked in and told one of the gentlemen about ebid and he promised to look into it an then post a sign with ebid as well
Basically he just added Ebid to the same sign so now it says ebay or ebid !
this is their site:

http://www.entrust.co.uk/fin

Moving on:
Apart from the lunacy of a European initiative / business start up enterprise center having to resort to telling the masses to flog there worldly possessions in the hope of turning the economy around!( wtf )
I went back in and spoke to them again and got some interesting info from one of the bosses which i think leaves a few questions !

I'm going to post the email exchange here but it is still ongoing so i will update as reply's come in

Questions i will try to get answer's to:
1, who is this outside consultant and where does this consultant come from ?
2, can i get them to plug Ebid instead of ebay ?

I sent this quick email to him yesterday:

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Dear Andy,
I spoke to you briefly earlier today regarding Ebid and why it might be better to promote this site than ebay!
I recently started my own little business and had the option of either setting up on ebay or ebid and decided for ebid for a variety of reasons, link to my shop selling bullion and collectable coins.

http://uk.ebid.net/perl/main.cgi?mo=...e=silvertrader

Setting up a shop on ebay £19.99 a month
setting up a shop or even up to 5 shops on ebid after buying a lifetime membership deal £42.00

ebay listing fee= £0.40
ebid listing fee = free

final sales fee ebay = 10%
final sales fee ebid = 3% but if your a seller plus shop owner 2%

To cut a long story short if your selling an item on ebay and using paypal your routinely lose about 15% of your total sale price and if it does not sell your still pay for the privilege of placing an add on ebay.

on ebid your lose 0% if add is with a thumbnail to 3% if your a free member add then 3.4% for pay pal your a lot better off

Now i understand that ebay has a lot more members however especially due to the new postal prices a lot of sellers of low priced larger items are now moving over to ebid and with over 3,366,416 listings on its site and millions of members worldwide it is by far the second biggest auction site online.
also the community is a lot more active and helpful on ebid then on ebay
links:
http://uk.ebid.net/
http://www.ebid.net/forums/

I live locally so if you would like me to come in and tell you more! feel free to let me know
but there's no point in telling people to start a small business on ebay when most of the profit margins will only go to ebay
Its a complete joke !

Sincerely Martin
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[Silvertrader]

His first response:

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Martin,

Thank you for the information.

The Ebay workshops were set up in January of this year with agreement from the City Council who oversee this project.

The workshop is delivered by an external consultant and I’ll discuss your points raised with regard to the benefits of Ebid with when he is next in the office.

As we are contracted to deliver the workshops until November we are unable to change the workshop programme at this late a date but I will ask the consultant to incorporate Ebid as an alternative into his content.

Regards

Andy Brown
Enterprise Specialist
Enterprise Support Centre

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I just sent this reply :
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No problem mate,
As you can see from my link i started up my little online shop end of April so i know how much of a difference a few pounds can make, i also post on eBay sometimes but only in small amounts to drum up new contacts & business
However apart from the free listing weekends I've noticed that eBay is losing a lot of business over the last few months
Mostly due to the economy and people buying less but also for the reasons that i mentioned.
At the moment the only thing holding me back from having a higher turnover is not having enough money for stock!
Starting a business selling silver bullion coins on £3.000 was not easy
Any finance available ?
But sincerely you should add ebid to your program its growing fast especially now with more and more ebay shop owners coming over and bringing their customers with them
its the long term solution! give it another 6 months and I'm sure your see what i mean.
Sincerely Martin
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[kreativebargains]

Unfortunately it is not just cases like this. I have just read an article in the Daily Mail money section, the heading, We want to raise some cash for a holiday, where can we sell old gadgets other than eBay and car boot sales?. So a big plug for eBay even though it is about alternatives. In the body of the article alternatives are mentioned, but not alternative auction sites.

Full article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/exp...oot-sales.html

The problem is that eBid has not yet got into the vocabulary of the general public or businesses. We did get a mention on Superscrimpers, and for the following couple of hours the number of visitors rocketed. We need more mentions like this to get eBid known.

As for the Daily Mail article, I have added a comment that mentions eBid and the lower fees, along with a response to a comment that said There's nothing wrong with ebay. Feel free to give the thumbs up to my comments, and a thumbs down for the other.

[Silvertrader]

Nice catch Kreative,
I've added my thumbs up to your comments and registered with the daily mail sob
and made my own statement
lets bump and plug this !
everyone follow kreatives lead and charge......

[cerealmunkee]

Great thread by the way....it seems more and apparent that those who are handed the job of offering advice as to the merits of internet selling and the actual job of steering people in the direction of the sites where this activity can be carried out are by and large guilty of failing to carry out proper research.
Why is it automatically assumed that Ebay is the only outlet?......failing Ebay being viable the next widely held assumption is that you will find it necessary to stand in a rain sodden field or public House Car park hoping to sell your unwanted items.

Have you noticed how even Amazon fail to receive mention when the same old queries arise?

Now....i understand Martin that you had hoped for more of a push for Ebid from your local Business enterprise centre, but to be fair to them they have added Ebid to their notice and this is an awareness raiser for us over here.
t is unfortunate and unforgivable that the outside consultancy agency have not taken the time to investigate all of the many options that internet sellers can call upon.
I suppose it begs the question ....in which other ways is their advice falling short?

[kreativebargains]

Nice catch Kreative,
I've added my thumbs up to your comments and registered with the daily mail sob
and made my own statement
lets bump and plug this !
everyone follow kreatives lead and charge......

Looks like my reply to the pro eBay quote has been removed. All I said was there's nothing wrong with eBay, apart from the extortionate fees, ridiculous terms and conditions and assumption that the buyer is always right. Maybe the truth has hurt somebody. I have submitted a different reply that takes a different form, I have simply said to take a look at the eBay forums to see what users have to say about eBay.

[kreativebargains]

It would be great to attend one of these workshops to see exactly what advice is given, and to find out what experience those delivering them actually have in selling online. Might see if there are jobs going doing it, I should imagine it pays pretty well.

[sherlock07]

Looks like my reply to the pro eBay quote has been removed. All I said was there's nothing wrong with eBay, apart from the extortionate fees, ridiculous terms and conditions and assumption that the buyer is always right. Maybe the truth has hurt somebody. I have submitted a different reply that takes a different form, I have simply said to take a look at the eBay forums to see what users have to say about eBay.

Just been back on the Daily Mail site, is this the post, because it is still there at the moment.

There's nothing wrong with ebay - bobio , Telford, 13/6/2013 12:58 Well apart from the extortionate fees, ridiculous terms and conditions and the 'buyer is always right' attitude.

- andy , rochdale, United Kingdom, 13/6/2013 13:33
Click to rate Rating 14

[kreativebargains]

Just been back on the Daily Mail site, is this the post, because it is still there at the moment.

Yes, it seemed to disappear for 5 or 10 minutes for some reason. Hope you gave us all the thumbs up, and the eBay lover the thumbs down.

[sherlock07]

Yes, it seemed to disappear for 5 or 10 minutes for some reason. Hope you gave us all the thumbs up, and the eBay lover the thumbs down.

Most certainly did, if you could vote more than once, I would have