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[fieldarchy]

I would like to see an option to list eBid auctions on facebook. I can do that with eBay right now along with sharing my auctions on other websites as well.

I've also asked Coolminiornot.com if they would have the ability to link eBid auctions to their site as they can do that with eBay now and that is my main source for advertising my auctions. This was what the response was:

eBay provides a service that eBid is trying to compete with. To put it into perspective, before eBay came along, traditional auction houses typically charged 15% to 25% commission on final selling prices. They still do in most cases due to their overhead.

eBay reduced costs significantly so that even very low value items (anything less than $50k) could be economically auctioned. You might not realize it, but eBay does spend a considerable amount of money marketing, which accounts for why an eBay auction will probably fetch a higher final price than eBids. Of course, if you already have a firm following, why bother with eBid at all? Lots of pro painters just sell straight from their sites and maintain a mailing list, and merely use eBay to create awareness of their talent.

eBid also does not have an API or any other method for integrating with them; they just don't seem very interested in marketing right now which is a problem. I personally feel a lot of new business people make the mistake in under-valuing the contribution of others in the supply chain, specifically:

Why should "insert company name here" take such a big cut? I could have made the whole 100% instead of giving them XX%.

While the newbies are griping about that and putting auctionable stuff up on Criagslist, someone else will be getting a much higher price for their work on eBay.

It is much better to take a smaller piece of a bigger pie, than all of a cookie. If you have the resources to do marketing, have a solid mailing list then eBay doesn't represent good value to you. Also, if your stuff isn't really auction material as it is a commodity and has no scarcity value, eBay is not a good idea if you have other forms of marketing. Selling a box of unpainted Space Marines on eBay is probably not a good idea.

At the end of the day, it's business 101. Know who your market is, and then make sure they know about your product (pay eBay to do it, do it yourself, whatever). It is a complete exercise in futility to "wish" a cheaper market alternative exists; eBid needs to prove they can do it, and make it super simple for us to support them.


I would use eBid a lot more if I had a surefire way of advertising my auctions as much as I'm able to advertise eBay auctions. While ebay charges more I can pretty much guarantee a sale. CMoN has indicated that they are willing to support eBid auctions but there is a certain amount of information needed so we can share the auctions. I know plenty of people on CMoN who have signed up for eBid and plenty more who would gladly switch.

The thing that is holding a lot of people back from using eBid is not being able to share the information on other websites.

I love eBid, y'all are so much better than eBay.

[bykimbo]

Have you noticed the buttons for sharing with facebook, twitter and diggit at the foot of every page?

[deltadelta48]

It is funny that this little company has the poor judgement to actually write down its anti-ebid comments to you. The remarks are very elementary, inaccurate, and show they do not understand alternate auction sites in general, and ebid in particular.

They do business with feebay and will never do business with the #1 competitor of feebay. Never. So why make remarks like they did?

And so obvious they know which side of the bread the butter is on: feebay "keeps prices down". Oh please. Ask any powerseller how much fees were. Ebid "doesn't seem interested in advertising at the moment". Yeah, 24/7 ebid downloads 3 million listings to google (with more traffic, unique users, than feebay), and that is not advertising? Duh, that generates our greatest source of buyers. Successful advertising, but I guess it is not tv ads like feebay does.Plus you will see ebid ads all over the web, but that does not count either.

Guess they forgot to mention feebay manipulating smaller seller's listings so they show up far down the listings, or don't seem to come up on searches at all, so get few sales while bigger sellers go on top. Pay similiar fees too. So fair to smaller sellers.

And this company says that ebid should "make is super simple for us to support them". Some little crackerjack company we never heard of is going to rescue/support ebid? Give us a break! Get out of the way we are coming thru.

A small part of what we do for our own marketing is finding venues like this one that you found. How many buyers do they propose to bring in to your listings? Google is bringing in daily buyers for our listings. Daily buyers, not just traffic. What is little cool what's its name, going to do (if feebay let them help us)?

I am careful who I listen to, especially companies like this who are in feebay's pocket. When I need marketing advice or have questions, I tend to go to my godaddy rep, because that company has been in business a heck of a long time, and have their fingers on the pulse of the net. Have always gotten good marketing advice there, not like you got from these jokers.

The real shame about these inaccurate remarks is that new sellers who don't understand how alternate sites get their traffic, go away feeling hopeless in the face of feebay's perfection. Those of us who have weathered the feebay storm know it was far from perfect and does not even set trends anymore. Its old and tired.

[fieldarchy]

I have not seen any sharing buttons on pages--am I missing them somewhere? Are they at the very bottom of the page or something? What I did see on the homepage was to promote eBid but I hadn't seen anything to promote specific auctions.

As for CMoN--I didn't write the comments--the owner of the site did.

This site, while it might not be something you are aware of it has 38,000 users on it. It is a hobby specific site. If you are not a wargame player or roleplaying gamer then you probably won't know about it. CMoN is where miniature figurine artists post their work and are able to feature their auctions that are on ebay. I would like to see the same capability for eBid auctions--the owner needs it to be easier to work with the auctions.

Talking with him I got the distinct impression that if he had the same information as he does with eBay then he would be willing to link the auctions. I am not the only one who has requested this capability but that was the first response to the issue.

I just wanted to pass it along to eBid since this could generate some more business for them. 38,000 users--that's a fairly large number in my opinion, not just a small cracker jack business.

[florida33549]

I have not seen any sharing buttons on pages--am I missing them somewhere? Are they at the very bottom of the page or something? What I did see on the homepage was to promote eBid but I hadn't seen anything to promote specific auctions.

Go to one of my items: http://us.ebid.net/for-sale/marcasit...y-27462907.htm

Scroll down to bottom of page and you will see tweet, FB, and submit to Digg buttons.

[bykimbo]

I have not seen any sharing buttons on pages--am I missing them somewhere? Are they at the very bottom of the page or something?

Yes. Why not just look?

[darklisruthven]

you can also paste the URLs of auction listings on your Facebook wall, and they will show up as links.

[florida33549]

you can also paste the URLs of auction listings on your Facebook wall, and they will show up as links.

Yep, I do that all the time.

[fieldarchy]

Thanks Florida. )

I have had my ebid account for a while yes but I haven't used it all that much so I'm sorry that I am not aware of things that have been added since my last listing on here. That hadn't been an option then.

I'm used to the sharing buttons being easier to see, not at the bottom of the page. It seems to me they would be easily overlooked there. I'd rather like to see them moved to the top of the page myself. I don't usually scroll to the bottom of pages. Now I know they are there that helps.

Now if I can just get the option to advertise my auctions at CMoN I'd be a happy camper!

[florida33549]

Thanks Florida. )

I have had my ebid account for a while yes but I haven't used it all that much so I'm sorry that I am not aware of things that have been added since my last listing on here. That hadn't been an option then.

I'm used to the sharing buttons being easier to see, not at the bottom of the page. It seems to me they would be easily overlooked there. I'd rather like to see them moved to the top of the page myself. I don't usually scroll to the bottom of pages. Now I know they are there that helps.

Now if I can just get the option to advertise my auctions at CMoN I'd be a happy camper!

All sites are different and it just takes some time to find where things are. If you would like links moved to top of page, why not make a suggestion on the suggestion forum. I have found ebid admin very willing to listen to their users.

As for CMoN, why can't you just post a link to your items on that venue. I'm not familiar with it, but I would think it's possible since most sites let you do that.

I hope you have many sales here. The site is growing larger each day and word is spreading.