Sales or no sales that is the question

[theElench]

@ Johnwash.

Still chaos and confusion over there. The boards are getting quieter as protest dies down and the usual suspects are out in force again telling everyone how great obay's latest plan is. How much better for everyone it will be once the 'wrinkles'( more like yawning chasms IMO) are ironed out. How it will get rid of un-desirable sellers and that the reason so many are against it is because they are either one of the un-desirables themselves, just don't like change or are reacting hysterically because anti-obay sentiment is being whipped-up by trouble makers.

The 28th came and went still without any sign that the new system is anything like perfect, or even reliably usable. Some are fully engulfed, some are still listing without any sign of SD. Others are somewhere in between. Most are confused to a greater or lesser degree.

[theElench]

@andha.

Hi, good to see you. No sign of Parsley yet, if she's here she may be wrestling with setting-up shops or just getting to know the different layout.

[theElench]

@ calicotoys

How many items have you listed. I can't see any in the UK.

[theElench]

@ Sheffielduk

I totally agree. It was collectors/ hobbyist private sellers that made Obay and we can do it again here. Making ebid the 'place to go' for collectables as obay is now doing its best to get rid of them.

Years ago ebay tried separating the 'new in a box' type of stuff from the Boot Fair Collectables as Obay Express. It failed miserably and had to be re-attached to the boot fair to survive. The boot fair had carried on thriving without turning a hair.

The real problem for Obay is that they have far too many businesses trying to live off a shrinking number of collectors. They've left as the search is inexorably biased against slower selling items making it next to impossible to find the rare or unusual items collectors are after.

My advice to The Management here is: Don't mess with the search and don't let un-limited numbers of businesses join.

[mark4740]

I have listed a few items again over their on my second account and have sold a few items with some bids on others and watchers on others, it felt nice going to post stuff out again as its been a while since i sold anything on here, i'm trying not to be negative but items i have on here 100+ views i have listed back over there and got bids on day one and quite a few watchers on the video mags, i post links everywhere i can but what else can you do, it gets boring coming on here everyday and nothing has happened just end up here checking for new comments, so far for me selling is working over there as long as i can use royal mail which i have only selected as a courier, with all the crap that is going on over there in my opinion ebay is still better well for me anyway

[andha21]

@BigKidsAttic

I still start all my new listings with both an auction price and a BIN price, the reason is this.

Google Shopping requires that an item has a BIN price to be seen in its search results. Auction only won't be shown.

Auctions work their way up page 1 of the Ebid search results as the count down, so, if nothing else they help to make P.1 more interesting for anyone browsing and if what you're listing has a lot of competition, it gives your listing a boost in visibility near the end of the auction.

I've been doing that for several years, never had a bid on any auction. In fact once or twice, I've had a buyer pay the extra 50p/£1 to buy BIN rather than bid and wait for the end. I always set my auction start price at the lowest price I want to accept and depending on the interest each item generates either re-list at the higher or lower price when I get no bids.

Do you know, roughly, how long it takes Google to link to BIN listings here?
& also although I have a platinum account I just used "gallery" for my first listing. The logo and background bits put me off the store. Seems aimed more at business sellers.
I just wanted the ability to add lots of photos and use BIN.

[BordersBargains]

After reading the posts recently there are a few things to note

Yes eBid does not advertise which is the main reason the site has never grown and in its day when they had branded tape, the site saw growth. It does boggle the mind that they just don't take some of their profits and have a little advertising push but most of us have played with that dead horse for years

Lets not hope we get certain sellers from eBay who do nothing but create division in the forums and I'm sure some of you know those names

If the site did grow by 1000% I would hope they stop the spam of Chinese sellers but I doubt the site will grow much since there are other options people are going too and yes we will get people coming from *bay to try this site but most will move on to other places after 3 months

Its all good sellers coming here adding to the listing amounts but what we really need is buyers who have not been arriving as per the traffic numbers which as per march went down 22% which is sad but understandable when other smaller platforms have made changes to take advantage of *Bay's silly changes

Reviews have not been beneficial for the site which are mostly from sellers not buyers and its the usual theme of no sales

Any person can search google and basically never see an eBid listing because all other platforms now pay to get seen on google, even items from charities are showing now but there are some items that will show now and then just not very often because its all now pay to be seen

I just can't see this site growing well until it see's a massive influx of other category items apart from Stamps and Postcards

There's only one thing needed for this site to see a growth spurt and that's branded Tape which is how many sellers here found this site in the old days. You sell on *bay, *tsy etc you use eBid tape, you see traffic to this site grow incredibly but again we've been down this road

The one good thing about this site is listing not taking ages, its short and its simple and if we could just see the sales numbers, this site would grow so fast - So owners please provide some branded tape or maybe someone here to create it because I would buy a few rolls and get this site known to the world which it most certainly isn't right now

[johnwash1]

After reading the posts recently there are a few things to note

Yes eBid does not advertise which is the main reason the site has never grown and in its day when they had branded tape, the site saw growth. It does boggle the mind that they just don't take some of their profits and have a little advertising push but most of us have played with that dead horse for years

Lets not hope we get certain sellers from eBay who do nothing but create division in the forums and I'm sure some of you know those names

If the site did grow by 1000% I would hope they stop the spam of Chinese sellers but I doubt the site will grow much since there are other options people are going too and yes we will get people coming from *bay to try this site but most will move on to other places after 3 months

Its all good sellers coming here adding to the listing amounts but what we really need is buyers who have not been arriving as per the traffic numbers which as per march went down 22% which is sad but understandable when other smaller platforms have made changes to take advantage of *Bay's silly changes

Reviews have not been beneficial for the site which are mostly from sellers not buyers and its the usual theme of no sales

Any person can search google and basically never see an eBid listing because all other platforms now pay to get seen on google, even items from charities are showing now but there are some items that will show now and then just not very often because its all now pay to be seen

I just can't see this site growing well until it see's a massive influx of other category items apart from Stamps and Postcards

There's only one thing needed for this site to see a growth spurt and that's branded Tape which is how many sellers here found this site in the old days. You sell on *bay, *tsy etc you use eBid tape, you see traffic to this site grow incredibly but again we've been down this road

The one good thing about this site is listing not taking ages, its short and its simple and if we could just see the sales numbers, this site would grow so fast - So owners please provide some branded tape or maybe someone here to create it because I would buy a few rolls and get this site known to the world which it most certainly isn't right now

It doesn't boggle my mind that site doesn't do serious advertising, you only need to go to Companies House (gov.uk site) to see a summary of the accounts and know that the founders won't be launching rockets to Mars any time. Clearly they could have gone the high risk route and got venture capital, done the publicity that we'd all love to see, hiked the fees, added buyer fees, rigged the search, added promotion fees... all those great ideas and more, which make a site so so so popular!

We all have to do our bit with publicity. For the 20+ years I've been on *bay, every sale I made I included a slip of paper, mainly telling the buyer what to do if they were dissatisfied (i.e. contact me!) but also mentioning that eBid has millions of listings. Even though for much of that time I didn't have anything listed here myself, because I no longer had the kind of items that were popular back then (craft related supplies). Those with social media accounts could do much more, e.g. Facebook, Reddit, your local neighbourhood groups. Even *bay's own community forums if you do it discreetly enough! Time was when any mention of a rival site, ebid or others, would be instantly removed by the mods. Do it again and you'd get a 24 hour ban, rising to 7 days for a regular offender! The badge to wear with pride, instead of those silly badges their forum has! But in recent months it seems like the mods have been overwhelmed and I've seen ebid explicitly mentioned, along with many alternatives.

I don't see why branded tape would be better than a flyer inside the parcel. Indeed, I would imagine there are buyers who hate to have any form of identification on their parcels. When I book postage on the RM site (as I always do, rather than *bay) I never include that funny string that is an immediate giveaway that the item has been bought there.

[johnwash1]

I have listed a few items again over their on my second account and have sold a few items with some bids on others and watchers on others, it felt nice going to post stuff out again as its been a while since i sold anything on here, i'm trying not to be negative but items i have on here 100+ views i have listed back over there and got bids on day one and quite a few watchers on the video mags, i post links everywhere i can but what else can you do, it gets boring coming on here everyday and nothing has happened just end up here checking for new comments, so far for me selling is working over there as long as i can use royal mail which i have only selected as a courier, with all the crap that is going on over there in my opinion ebay is still better well for me anyway

I'm glad you've managed to sell, even if over there. I used to send out up to a dozen parcels a week from my sales on *bay, then October brought in the stupid changes that have just kept on coming and my sales sank and sank.

I completely gave up when Simple Delivery was to be enforced... first by the end of March, then it was to be April 15, and this week I've been finding I still seem to be able to list without it. It's utter chaos. I'm not going to list the same things in both places (that would be bad for search visibility) but I'm slowly migrating. I'll keep an open mind, but I very much hope ebid gets enough bargain listings that it becomes attractive to buyers.

[johnwash1]

@andha.

Hi, good to see you. No sign of Parsley yet, if she's here she may be wrestling with setting-up shops or just getting to know the different layout.

I do recall, before I was banned from the forum over there, she was saying she had already joined here, but with a different moniker.

@ calicotoys

How many items have you listed. I can't see any in the UK.

Your search produced this:
No listings available currently to UK from this seller. They may have listings available only to their home country on eBid US.

Now click on the link it gave you. The answer is 34. My feeling is that people don't really start seeing sales until the have 100's or even 1000's of listings, and at ATTRACTIVE PRICES. It's insane the number of times I look at listings here and think: wow, I'm sure that would be cheaper elsewhere, rather than: wow, that looks like a bargain I'd better snap up. Specifically Funko Pop 'collectibles' sound to me like a trend that's past its sell by date. You can buy them on AliExpress. Though with the Chi-nah import tariffs, perhaps those will become a lot more expensive!