Maximise your eBid Stores

[Stnenopmoc]

I'd just like to point out that having commitment to ebid doesn't only rely on having a shop / shops as I'm sure you would confirm. There are probably thousands of members who, like myself, have been here for years but don't have the numbers or varied types of listings that need shop(s).

But we are still as committed to the site as shop owners, quite likely paying fees regularly to use Platinum Listings, possibly at intervals paying for a shop short-term and paying higher rate FVFs on all our sales.

I'm not saying that the number of shops isn't an indication of membership commitment, just that it isn't the only one there is. Listing, selling and paying fees all support Ebid, probably even better is buying here whenever possible. That supports both the site and its sellers. Even leaving aside the financial support the Activity of members without shops contributes to the site's stats. Adding to the site's visits, listing numbers and sales.

Listings across 5 countries (the apparant highest nations, but the last one [France] fluctuates but remains for consistency, last week it was Australia) is covered. If you can find a simple way to weekly measure the other areas you mention then I will investigate.

At the moment the only avalaible meaningful weekly measurements are 'items listed' and 'numbers of stores'.

Sales numbers per country would be helpful, but not available. Sales value per country could be helpful but not available. Sales by catagory would be helpful, but not available. Member numbers would be helpful, but not available. Members by subscription type would be helpful, but not available. See where I am going with this . . . . .

In the meantime i will run the stats for a while, look for deviations aganst average and see what the external influences are. When that is taken into account then I might see where things are going, based on a very, very, very low spread of stats

[Mandart]

Keep the faith, keep your nerve and give it another try

We need those stores on-line !

Thanks for trying - I wish more would .

Already working on another idea...

[tonnesofstuff]

I got busy this week and did exactly as you suggested. I added all of my store links, at the top of every listing.

Hello! I know this post was from years ago but I saw that you added your stores at the top of the listing page. Can you explain simply how to go about this? It's all a bit confusing. Any help, directions, suggestions would be appreciated.

Also, is this something I could possibly achieve with the bulk edit tool (though I haven't used that yet....)

Cheers.

[Stnenopmoc]

Hello! I know this post was from years ago but I saw that you added your stores at the top of the listing page. Can you explain simply how to go about this? It's all a bit confusing. Any help, directions, suggestions would be appreciated.

Also, is this something I could possibly achieve with the bulk edit tool (though I haven't used that yet....)

Cheers.

Not so hard.

Find your store on the eBid stores page (eBid front page top right eBid stores)

Look at the catagories and look for the section your store is in

Find your store in that catagory and click on it

in the browser (top of the page) is the link to your store ( it will start https://www.ebid.net/uk/stores - - - - )

this is you store web address, copy it

in your listing, use the Advanced Editor option to add the information to your listing, type in details as normal.

Once you have added your details text, find a place on the page to add your link and click on that ( it's a good idea to to tell people this is a link to your store) then at the top of the advance listing page go to the link symbol (see picture below) and paste in the copied link to the text box and apply. You can change the size and colour of the link text once the link is in the document.

That is your link added. Use this page as a template for future listings or bring up the page as a normal buyer would and copy the link and associated text and add that to other listings in edit mode. The copied text will be formatted in the same way as the page it is copied from.

Once you get the hang of this, you can experement and add the link to just a word ie press HERE to see my store.

Never tried this on bulk edit but I am sure it can be done by the copy method as it is, after all, only text


Hope that helps

[tonnesofstuff]

Thank you for the thorough explanation, I shall be trying it. It's very much appreciated getting help with such matters.

[theElench]

Please don't think I'm being critical about you trying to gather some stats. and understand what is going on better. I applaud your attempt especially when there is so little data available and I read all your weekly up-dates with interest. I thought about trying to get a better idea about sales here using the "Recently Sold" stripe on the Home Page down below the Total Listings info. I ran into difficulties pretty quickly so didn't get anything at all meaningful.

But, even from that failed attempt I did learn something that I thought worth mentioning here on the boards. Although the often repeated wisdom is that RUS listings always remain at the bottom of results, after auctions, making them less likely to sell, I found a surprising number of the sales on the stripe were RUS listings.

It was also true of my sales when I thought about them. I usually start a new listing as a 40 day auction, it moves up the results on P.1, adds to its visibility and makes P.1 a bit more interesting to buyers. I've never sold an item on auction, even when I used 7 or 10 days duration. ALL my sales have come from RUS listings on the lower pages. Something I think ties up with google shopping in some way

My only point was to say that commitment to ebid isn't solely demonstrated by opening shops. I'm sure I'm not the only seller who has committed to Ebid long-term, but doesn't have a shop.

[tonnesofstuff]

Not so hard.

Find your store on the eBid stores page (eBid front page top right eBid stores)

Look at the catagories and look for the section your store is in

Find your store in that catagory and click on it

in the browser (top of the page) is the link to your store ( it will start https://www.ebid.net/uk/stores - - - - )

this is you store web address, copy it

in your listing, use the Advanced Editor option to add the information to your listing, type in details as normal.

Once you have added your details text, find a place on the page to add your link and click on that ( it's a good idea to to tell people this is a link to your store) then at the top of the advance listing page go to the link symbol (see picture below) and paste in the copied link to the text box and apply. You can change the size and colour of the link text once the link is in the document.

That is your link added. Use this page as a template for future listings or bring up the page as a normal buyer would and copy the link and associated text and add that to other listings in edit mode. The copied text will be formatted in the same way as the page it is copied from.

Once you get the hang of this, you can experement and add the link to just a word ie press HERE to see my store.

Never tried this on bulk edit but I am sure it can be done by the copy method as it is, after all, only text


Hope that helps

Thank you! I managed to do it. I am wondering how much harder or involved is it to do it so that it shows your store banner as you have it, rather than a url?

Cheers

[Stnenopmoc]

Thank you! I managed to do it. I am wondering how much harder or involved is it to do it so that it shows your store banner as you have it, rather than a url?

Cheers

You should be able to use the banner as a button to access the store, never tried though.

However, it seems like a good idea but people need to know to click there. It's a lot easer to used a linked web address so that people can copy and paste as well as click.

Don't assume that people will do what you expect them to do, or are in any way logical.

[Stnenopmoc]

1 But, even from that failed attempt I did learn something that I thought worth mentioning here on the boards. Although the often repeated wisdom is that RUS listings always remain at the bottom of results, after auctions, making them less likely to sell, I found a surprising number of the sales on the stripe were RUS listings.


2 My only point was to say that commitment to ebid isn't solely demonstrated by opening shops. I'm sure I'm not the only seller who has committed to Ebid long-term, but doesn't have a shop.

On point 1, unsure about this. I think there may be a peak dwell time for the listing to remain active. Not a quick auction (ebay) as there are just not enough people visting the site to see goods on fast turnover. I think a listing takes time to arrive on an external search pages, so some measure of perminancey is needed. I have had some 'Run Untill Sold' and the odd one did. I have experemented with listing renewal durations and I have settled on about 85 days (90 days max is available). I do get sales that way, but frustratingly I usually don't find out how people arrived at the listing, despite asking. My things are not run-of-the-mill stuff, so my guess is they arrive via a search engine on a specific search; that would need the longer duration listing. For those people looking at 'what's new' listings, the 85 day turnover covers that off.



Point 2 I think that people who take out a Platinum listing show committment to a longer term view of using the site. Others will come on the site to try it and stay for a few years. Others will have specific amount of things to get rid off and so not think they need that longer term committment of paying the relativly small amount of £70 for a Platinum option. In reality even in a short term relationship with the site, the Platinum option is the best deal (oh how I have grown to hate that word), especially with the free stores that allows you to list items by your own catagory, making them easier to find. Even if people feel they have a longer term committment to the site anything other than Platinum is a toe half in the water, not quite fully committed.


There is a saying 'if you are going to put your hand in the pickle jar, put it in all the way up to the elbow' Lovejoy.


My thinking is that if you go for Platinum, you would be missing out a bit by not having at least one store.


As a Platinum subscriber is indicative of a longer term committment to the site, then an increasing number of stores indicates, rather haphazardly, an increasing user comittment to the site.


So we need a few waverers on Gold and Silver accounts to put their hand futher into the 'pickle jar'.

[theElench]

@ Stenenopmoc.

Point 1.

I don'think there is any limitation on dwell time, if there is it must be very long indeed. If I search Ebid I can find all my RUS listings going back to almost when I started listing here. So can others, last year I was amazed to sell "3 salvaged bakelite stair carpet runners". Checking the Listing Lifetime They ran from 14/1/15 RUS to 23/2/2024. That was just the first example I found on my FB, I joined in 2013 so there could be others with longer durations if I looked further back.

I agree there is some lead-in time until listings get any chance of visibility on external search results, which is why I've speculated that the regular re-lists that many sellers do is constantly putting their listings at the back of the queue for re-indexing and contributing to the surprising number of RUS items to be seen on the Recently Sold stripe.

I too experimented with auction listing durations, starting with 7 days and gradually extending them to their present 40 day duration. My main reason for doing so was to get the maximum number of my listings moving up the Auctions portion of P.1 of ebid's search results to improve the look of of the page for browsers. The fact still is that all my sales have come from pages 2 - 5 of RUS listings, some of them years old. I've also noticed that when GS showed some of my listings every day, very few of them were less than a year old and I only noticed one that was as recently up-loaded as a couple of months old.

Point 2.

I can see that the number of shops is one of the few published indicators of increase / decrease in interest and even a measure commitment to Ebid in some circumstances. But I don't agree that it's the only measure, which will be different for members depending on their circumstances, the number and type of items they have to list and the number of other sellers and their listings in that category.

Someone selling stamps has a greater need for shops and a Platinum subscription than another seller (like myself) selling in an under-used category in which all the items are very similar in nature.
I think that with 3.7M items for sale and only 652 shops on ebid.uk perhaps the majority of sellers feel the same? That breaking down their items into a shop or shops is just an un-necessary complication. Not any sort of wavering or lack of commitment.