eBid Marketing Challenge!!

[*artsbanquet*]

Yup, let's blow it all on a once-in-a-lifetime Christmas party for Ebidders, which will be talked about for years to come! lol

[ToyCrazyUK]

Thinking about Christmas Parties, just reminded me about 'The Armstrongs' - UFit Double glazing when he was pouring beer in the water cooler so he could dispense it! How about a fly-on-the-wall documentary following Gazza and Mark??? Apparently the Armstrongs were run off their feet with double glazing orders after their series was on! or.....................get them to apply for Big Brother .

Viral videos are very popular - can anyone make a 'spoof' fly-on-the-wall video of 'Gazza' and 'Mark'? If we make a hit viral, it gets seen in loads of places.

[HannaHolly]

Thinking about Christmas Parties, just reminded me about 'The Armstrongs' - UFit Double glazing when he was pouring beer in the water cooler so he could dispense it! How about a fly-on-the-wall documentary following Gazza and Mark??? Apparently the Armstrongs were run off their feet with double glazing orders after their series was on! or.....................get them to apply for Big Brother .

Viral videos are very popular - can anyone make a 'spoof' fly-on-the-wall video of 'Gazza' and 'Mark'? If we make a hit viral, it gets seen in loads of places.

How about a fly on the wall G & M documentary on Youtube

[HannaHolly]

I tend to agree Ken but, in fairness, don't have experience on all product types here on eBid. I would have thought the kind of sellers that need bulk facilities could easily work offline and create all the html themselves etc. but I'm not sufficiently experienced on eBid to argue the point.

I still wonder if talking 'bulk listers' is relevant to this thread?

If the bulk listing facility is an issue here then surely that's nothing to do with this £2k earmarked for off site advertising and should be prioritised and paid for from an alternative budget that is specifically for site improvements. Now that is a responsibility for them upstairs in the plush eBid offices!

I think getting the bulk uploader functioning is very relevant to this thread - it was your first post which focussed the issue for me.
To give ebid a wider range of 'stock' and give potentual buyers a better buying experience we need to encourage new sellers to give us a try. There are regular posts from new sellers asking where the bulk uploader can be found and commenting on how difficult and time consuming the excel uploader is ( especially for adding pictures). Many of the sellers we are trying to encourage don't have time to individually list hundreds of items ( and that's what they'll need to list to get noticed) so we loose them. I know that's one of the main reasons why I only have a handful of items on tazbar. they didn't have a bulk uploader and i didn't have time to spend doing it the long way!

[*artsbanquet*]

I think getting the bulk uploader functioning is very relevant to this thread - it was your first post which focussed the issue for me.
To give ebid a wider range of 'stock' and give potentual buyers a better buying experience we need to encourage new sellers to give us a try. There are regular posts from new sellers asking where the bulk uploader can be found and commenting on how difficult and time consuming the excel uploader is ( especially for adding pictures). Many of the sellers we are trying to encourage don't have time to individually list hundreds of items ( and that's what they'll need to list to get noticed) so we loose them. I know that's one of the main reasons why I only have a handful of items on tazbar. they didn't have a bulk uploader and i didn't have time to spend doing it the long way!

From a personal point of view, I would definitely list a lot more if there were a bulk lister. I know how to use the spreadsheet, but a bulk lister makes things easier to organize.

[alyak46141414]

I like the idea of the RSS feed so that we could show some of our items on our web site and blogs. I currently use iframe to display my store items on my website. This works but it not the best choice, search engines don't like frames so eBid isn't getting all that it could from it. I maybe wrong but I think that RSS is much more SEO friendly.

Some of the other ideas are good also but I think that RSS needs to be on the top of the list.

[HelenAndGraham]

I will pass on the bulk lister discussion.

If that means more of the same then I'm fairly cold on the thought. But if it means lots more INDIVIDUAL listings with decent, detailed descriptions, all different photos and the items themselves are going to be interesting, wide ranging and competitively priced then great.

But experience tells me many bulk listers want the means to upload loads of identical one line description, often repetitive items with stock photos and leave them there for ages at a lousy sell thru rate because it costs nothing to do it. Little regard is given to the awful experience it creates for somoene browsing page after page trying to find just one interesting item for sale at a sensible price.

Great for the listing count but, even if listings doubled tomorrow, if no more sales are generated then what's the point?

I may be wrong - obviously - and I'm sure there are some bulk listers that would be putting good competitive items up. But I will bet a pound to a penny they are in the minority.

Next someone wil tell me they need a bulk lister because of their marvellous drop shipping arrangements......

[kedo]

But experience tells me many bulk listers want the means to upload loads of identical one line description, often repetitive items with stock photos and leave them there for ages at a lousy sell thru rate because it costs nothing to do it. Little regard is given to the awful experience it creates for somoene browsing page after page trying to find just one interesting item for sale at a sensible price.

Great for the listing count but, even if listings doubled tomorrow, if no more sales are generated then what's the point?

I may be wrong - obviously - and I'm sure there are some bulk listers that would be putting good competitive items up. But I will bet a pound to a penny they are in the minority.

No you're right, one of my carefully nurtured categories has just been invaded. All the hundreds of offending items were loaded at exactly the same time presumably with the current bulk uploader.

[HannaHolly]

I will pass on the bulk lister discussion.

If that means more of the same then I'm fairly cold on the thought. But if it means lots more INDIVIDUAL listings with decent, detailed descriptions, all different photos and the items themselves are going to be interesting, wide ranging and competitively priced then great.

But experience tells me many bulk listers want the means to upload loads of identical one line description, often repetitive items with stock photos and leave them there for ages at a lousy sell thru rate because it costs nothing to do it. Little regard is given to the awful experience it creates for somoene browsing page after page trying to find just one interesting item for sale at a sensible price.

Great for the listing count but, even if listings doubled tomorrow, if no more sales are generated then what's the point?

I may be wrong - obviously - and I'm sure there are some bulk listers that would be putting good competitive items up. But I will bet a pound to a penny they are in the minority.

Next someone wil tell me they need a bulk lister because of their marvellous drop shipping arrangements......

The drop ship types already have the ideal bulk lister- ebids current excel version.
The excel lister makes writing individual descriptions difficult- therefor encouraging the one line descriptions.
The excel lister makes it difficult to list items in the right individual categories- encouraging users to place lost of items in inappropriate categories
The excel lister requires online urls for photos. encouraging users to have one generic photo and copy/paste the url.

What most users want is a lister which makes selecting the right calegory a user friendly process- not having to look up from a very long list on a separate sheet (which goes out of date very quickly). they want to be able to add photos they have on their PC. the want to be able to see the description they are entering- not just lots of html code.

Would a much improved bulk lister encourage drop shippers to list in bulk here? possibly - but if they were breaking ebids rules on multiple listings, they wouldn't be here for long.
In my opinion the majority of users taking advantage of an improved lister would be genuine sellers with a wide range of interesting products- i'll take on your bet and bet a pound to a penny they will be in the majority

[kedo]

What most users want is a lister which makes selecting the right calegory a user friendly process- not having to look up from a very long list on a separate sheet (which goes out of date very quickly). they want to be able to add photos they have on their PC. the want to be able to see the description they are entering- not just lots of html code.

Why? I don't quite understand. I list a lot here but I don't feel any need for a bulk uploader. I used turbolister for feebay but that was mainly because I wanted to control start times/end times.