Why does ebid not have main stream advertising

[adruml]

Excellent post.
The new influx from TOS should read it before staring their listings on here.

Tremendous post by Peter.

Indeed the influx should read. Some will choose the leather and air. If it's totally outrageous I could understand why someone would not choose the air/leather seats but if reasonable, why not?

[sheffieldtony]

Very well written and true. Best I have read on here/

[JanetB]

Attachment 44820
Splendid! Well Done!

Whereas there are some good points made here... I feel it's important not to lose sight of the fact that the "issue" at hand is that there's a distinct lack of BUYERS on Ebid.

To be perfectly honest, marketing (or advertising, whatever) Ebid on the premise that it has "low fees" looks great to sellers but doesn't amount to a hill of beans to a shopper, that's only meaningful if you're a seller. Buyers don't care what the fees here are. Sure, we can engage in the circular argument that if seller fees are lower, prices will be lower, so sales will be better... but again, that doesn't amount to a hill of beans if buyers don't even know the site is HERE. This is a 15 year old site with 3.5 MILLION items for sale... that's not exactly "some new and obscure also-ran among FeeBay 'alt' sites."

I am really tired of the whole "look at our low fees!" jargon as the backbone of what makes Ebid so great. It's a really weak rationale, in a practical sense.

"Because we have lower fees, items for sale will be priced lower." There is NO functional logic in that statement-- price is typically the single weakest determinant in commerce, except in the VERY short term. That's why having things "on SALE" is used so widely, because people are driven by the (perceived) urgency of "limited time." When you have stuff at "sale prices" all the time, the "urgency" advantage goes out the window-- instead, you've turned the lower price advantage into some kind of "new normal." What's more, you risk that people will start wondering if your items are "lower quality" because they are always cheaper... that works if you're Wal-Mart, but we are NOT Wal-Mart.

Now, consider this: If you have 1000 items for sale "over there" and price them at £10 each because your selling costs are high, let's say, 20%... and you come to Ebid and price your 1000 items at £8 each because fees here are only 2% you end up with the exact same amount of money, after expenses. What's the benefit of that? Perhaps a boost to your ego that you're being "shrewd about expenses," but if we add into our consideration that at the end of a year you will have sold 800 of your 1000 items "over there" putting £6400 net in your pocket (even after higher expenses), while "here" you will only have sold 80 of your 1000 items gaining you £640 net then the equation really doesn't make sense. Now, if you're going to pitch the argument that your gross profit margin is only 20% to begin with... then the "problem" isn't fees, but the fact that you're even ON a 3rd party ecommerce site (that adds to your expenses), rather than on your own web site where you control every penny. The "site" isn't wrong, your business model is wrong...

Ebid seems to be home to a lot of "fee refugees," and whereas I can appreciate the underlying motivation for feeling like you've been "fleeced by FeeBay" the pervasive and myopic focus on "look mum, I'm paying low fees!" tends to overshadow the "functional reality" that it doesn't matter whether your products are FREE and you're giving away a shiny new £1 coin with every purchase IF NOBODY KNOWS YOU'RE DOING IT! (sorry for "shouting," but let's get real here). Besides, when you're standing in line at the supermarket, they will expect money, not your assurance that you're paying the lowest fees on the Internet... "Yes, that's nice. Your groceries are still £17.92."

So where does that leave us?

Nobody really seems to know where Ebid "stands" on all this. It's public information that "the other place" has in excess of 25,000 employees and is driven by the need to make enough profit to feed them and keep investors happy, on top of it. And they have a team of economists and marketers with MBAs and £1000 Armani suits working 24/7 to see to that being a reality. Ebid? We just don't know. I've always found it both noteworthy and a little puzzling that there doesn't appear to be ANY kind of "About" or "Company Information" page here on Ebid... not even a brief "Ebid was started in 1998 by Gary and Mark in a fertile kitchen garden in Surrey" page. Have you ever noticed that? For all we know, the entire company may still be "Gary and Mark in a garage" and they are perfectly content with how things are going because the site is 15 years old and hums along doing well enough to afford them to live comfortably and take a couple of holidays a year in Ibiza... and if that's the sum-total of their ambition, then I totally honor that.

My point being, they are under NO obligation to make our ambitions their ambitions.

It's easy to point fingers at Ebid and talk about what they "should" be doing... but maybe we should remember that old saying "When you point the finger at someone, don't forget that THREE fingers are pointing back towards YOU." Instead of what we "should" have, what "DO" we have?

From where I am sitting, what we HAVE is an inexpensive and highly reliable ecommerce platform, user friendly and with stores (MULTIPLE stores, even!) that are easy to use and highly customizable-- you can create all your own headings and categories on the planet. For less than £100 (worst case) + 2% of sales you basically get a "turnkey" sales venue it would take you 100s of hours and possibly cost £1000s to build on your own web site (coding, testing, shopping baskets, databases, image hosting, yadda, yadda)... and THEN you would have to constantly maintain the above, at your expense and effort. On Ebid? One-time fee, and you're done.

Maybe one thing we might start doing is STOP comparing so much to "FeeBay," and instead start comparing to ecommerce sites like ProStores, Shopify or BigCommerce. Whoa! Wow! All of a sudden, you can pay as much per MONTH as you pay LIFETIME on Ebid. And all the "extra services" (like marketing) cost extra!

What "should" we do? Take some of all those "fees we're saving" and advertise our shops and listings. Create our own Facebook pages, set up a free web page/Blogger/Wordpress to use as a "splash page" for our businesses... where we have our OWN "About My Business" pages and maybe ADVERTISE those pages... either for free, through social media, or at cost through something like Google Adwords or banners on niche web sites. Instead of waiting for "them" (Ebid) to hand us success on a plate, maybe we should spend a little less time bickering, and a little more time developing our own businesses. And-- in time-- maybe (just maybe) the effect of enough sellers doing that will lead to there being more BUYERS here on Ebid.

Let me offer up a metaphor here. You just chose the bargain basement, bare-bones car hire. Don't show up all butt-hurt because you now don't get free fill-ups, GPS, Satellite radio, heated leather seats and roadside assistance. If that was what you wanted, you should have opted for the FULL SERVICE car hire. Oh? "It was more expensive??" Sorry, that's "LIfe 101." You get what you pay for...

Sometimes the truth is really annoying... I'll be the first to admit that. In fact, it caused me to initially abandon my efforts here on Ebid, after putting a ton of effort into it, back in 2011. The truth is that there really was nothing "wrong" with Ebid, just something "wrong" with my expectations of what Ebid "should" do for me.

Sorry about the long screed. I just think we be better served by focusing on things we can actually DO to make things better, not things that "should" be done by others... who may (or may not) care what we think.

~Peter

[Juliebabe25]

Peter
A very refreshing read.

But your final summary is that people should do their own promoting.
But the fact is that most new sellers just want to come here, list some items and see them sell.

And how are all those new Facebook pages promoting ebid going to be seen ?

[tony41]

Peter. A tremendous post.
I agree that it is time we stop comparing eBid with Ebay. There is no point. Most eBid sellers are here BECAUSE eBid is not Ebay.
I think it is obvious that the eBid management are not going to spend large sums on advertising. So, yes, perhaps we should spend more time developing our own stores and far less time telling Gary and Mark what we think they should be doing. As things stand why would they spend anything on advertising when there are so many people posting negative comments and comments criticising eBid on eBid's own forum.

[tony41]

Peter
A very refreshing read.

But your final summary is that people should do their own promoting.
But the fact is that most new sellers just want to come here, list some items and see them sell.

And how are all those new Facebook pages promoting ebid going to be seen ?

Yet another post from you , damning with faint praise. If it is a refreshing read why use "but". Perhaps new sellers should not expect to list "some" things and see them sell. I didn't.

[adruml]

Yet another post from you , damning with faint praise. If it is a refreshing read why use "but". Perhaps new sellers should not expect to list "some" things and see them sell. I didn't.

Perhaps we shouldn't assume what sellers expect. I'm pretty sure if you look at the numbers (facts) not a wish, you will see sellers expect to come here list some things and sell.
I mean it is an auction site so a seller should really make that assumption instead of finding out much later that assumption was incorrect.

[Posbear]

Perhaps we shouldn't assume what sellers expect. I'm pretty sure if you look at the numbers (facts) not a wish, you will see sellers expect to come here list some things and sell.
I mean it is an auction site so a seller should really make that assumption instead of finding out much later that assumption was incorrect.

Al, that is why I said new members should read Cancel's post, If they are aware of the major difference between the 2 sites (advertising) then maybe it could stop a lot of future posts about not making lots of sales because they listed, sat back and waited.
At the moment the fact is that the majority of items listed will not sell but just go into the merry-go-round of countless re-lists or buried as run-until-sold.

Even if eBid did advertise, sellers should also self-promote wherever they can from day one, even if it's just telling customers from TOS about their move here.

TOS is the giant impersonal supermarket, eBid is the friendly corner shop.
Somewhere in between the two would be good

[baconbuttyman]

Perhaps we shouldn't assume what sellers expect. I'm pretty sure if you look at the numbers (facts) not a wish, you will see sellers expect to come here list some things and sell.
I mean it is an auction site so a seller should really make that assumption instead of finding out much later that assumption was incorrect.

i afree completely, i came here as an alternate auction site from Ebay, so why should i not expect things to sell "ON AUCTION", when i first came on ebid over 10 years ago things were different, the focus was on action item, then google was pushed forward as a way of advancing sales, I am a small private seller, Google means nothing to me with what i am selling, i dont buy boxes of 100 items for selling, its bits i pick up from boot sales and collectors fairs etc, what i am being lead to think is akin to Feebay, that Ebid is no place for people like me, Ebay has pushed small sellers out of the running, now i get the feeling that Ebid is not a viable place for small sellers

[Cancelcollector]

But your final summary is that people should do their own promoting.
But the fact is that most new sellers just want to come here, list some items and see them sell.

Well, in a manner of speaking. My final summary is that sellers who come here and simply want to "list some items and see them sell" will be very disappointed. That's what I tried to do, back in 2011. EPIC fail.

This time around I intend to build each of my (3) Ebid shops to maybe 500 items, much like I were building a shop on my own web site, and then I will promote my shop, as an adjunct to TOS. I can do this because no listing fees allows me to (a) build a substantial stock without having to worry about a "fee clock" ticking and (b) I can list all those lower priced items that are not financially viable "over there," and (c) I can list viable but "thinly traded" stock (something stamp sellers often face) again without having to worry about a "fee clock" ticking.

Julie, it's conscious choice. You choose the low fees/no frills site (Ebid) you have to bring your own traffic. You choose the high fees/built-in traffic site (TOS) you pay dearly but make lots of sales without having to do much. Choices have consequences. But don't look under the hood of your Ford Fiesta and start complaining because there's not a Mercedes engine in there... why WOULD there be? Did you PAY for a Mercedes engine?

And how are all those new Facebook pages promoting ebid going to be seen ?

Depends on who has them. I deal with collectibles, so I can generate "likes" through twitter, niche blogs, forums and more. How someone else does something will depend on the degree to which they have-- and participate in-- a "community" related to what they sell. If you sell camping gear, are you a member of any camping/hiking groups online? If you sell vintage dolls, are you part of collectors' associations for doll collectors? And so forth, and so on.

Cheers,
Peter