posted on July 20, 2006 09:05:19 PM new
I may be wrong, but I believe if you resize your pictures through Vendio when you set up the auction, an ad will show up at the top for your store each time a person clicks on an image to enlarge it. The enlarged image complies with the 2 click rule.
If Murphy's law is correct, everything East of the San Andreas Fault will slide into the Atlantic
posted on July 20, 2006 09:09:30 PM new
Oh what the hell,,,I just did a search,,with all this E bay ripping us off and such,,,,I was wondering about a pulse.
Hmmmm,,, is e bay the SAME as it USE to be? All the tattle tales and such for the benefit of our COMMUNITY....our loving little WW Community..are the self appointed PROTECTORS still caring?
Well, I think NOT.....I believe many NOW see E bay for what it really is, Business.....Just search one of the most, well I thought it was anyway,,A real TABOO item.... There are NOW two thousand two hundred and twenty eight NAZI items for sale on ebay as of 5 mins ago....
Do you thinks MONEY in E bays POCKETS has ANYTHING to do with THAT many STILL running????
I thought anything NAZI was an INSTANT killed auction??? hahahaha.....$$$$$$$$$$. rules.....
posted on July 20, 2006 10:02:40 PM new
Not all NAZI items are banned. I have sold quite a few NAZI philatelic items before and they completly comply with ebay policy.
1 out of 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Take a look at your 3 closest friends. If they seem alright, you're the one! - Kyle Stubbins, CMS
posted on July 21, 2006 07:06:10 AM new
The bottom line is -you get what you pay for.
The landlord has raised its fee,you want more exposure,you have to pay.
I have a Yahoo shop for years,Yahoo has revised its pricing several times,first it was 300 a month and I did fine,then it was like fixed price plus 10 cents an item and I did okay,then it becomes 39.95 for 40,000 items with pay per click .
I opt out of pay per click as Nigerians and the rest of the world are clicking me to the poor house.
My sales have dropped,these days it is easier to find my items thru GOOGLE than Yahoo .
Do I blame Yahoo??No,Yahoo,Ebay,AMZN of the world are not charity,they are here to make a profit for their shareholders just like we are here to make a profit for ourselves.
We dont give our merchandise away free or cheap so why should they ?
The easy money on EBAY is over,long over,for me it was over 6 years ago.
If you dont like the way you are being treated on Ebay,then start your own website and compare how much you have to spend to get the same eyeballs,clicks and sales.
posted on July 21, 2006 07:26:13 AM new
hwahwa - That is exactly the point of this whole debacle!
They are raising our listing and fvf fees in the stores and giving us LESS exposure.
If the services offered (i.e. more exposure in search) were at least kept the same or slightly increased than the fees would at least have some justification.
So we AREN'T getting what we paid for. We are getting less and less of what we pay for.
This isn't a case of wanting to grow the stores and increase sales thereby increasing company profits. This is a case of a business plan go wrong and instead of being honest about wanting the stores gone, they are surreptiously forcing us out by raising fees, reducing exposure and recommending that we increase our business expenses by paying the higher auction and fixed price insertion fees.
I will be slowly moving my inventory into my Vendio store and taking my customers with me also. I will run few auction type listings to "advertise" my Vendio Store as I did to advertise my Ebay store.
I don't think that Ebay will see a huge increase in their auction listings. The only way that will happen is if they lower those fees and I don't see that happening.
posted on July 21, 2006 07:52:00 AM new
As an on/off again ebayer both buyer and seller. I find this objective of creating more fun and profit by going back to auction style unrealistic. Ebay is so well known now, people are "ebay educated." They know that the worst time to bid on something is when it is first listed -- you wait until the end (just watch the item). Therefore, items don't tend to get the price they used to. Many times I forget to go back and bid on things that I watch, and there are tons of people doing it also!! Not only that but they have brought sellers in by the masses -- ebay store in every town. Just bring in you stuff and we will list it! It is like the online garage sale for people. If I miss an item I know another will pop up soon. With the increasing competition on ebay, one is much more likely to make an impulse sale in a store. I like it now! With the constant increasing of web sites and constant improvement in (not ebay) search engines. I can find anything at a lower price off ebay. If they really want people to use auctions they need to cut the listing price, either on gallery BIN. By driving away small sellers with the large increase, they are also driving away the people who purchase on ebay. Many of these sellers are also buyers. Gee if I have to pay more to get something on ebay, is it fun??? Just speaking from the average Joe's point of view!
posted on July 21, 2006 08:15:10 AM new
Tom = there are several techniques to getting exposure for your Vendio store:
1) Put a clickable link IN YOUR DESCRIPTION to your Vendio "GALLERY" (this is not the scrolling Gallery - this is a view of your ebay items in your Vendio store. To the left of the item display is a clickable link to "SEE ALL MY ITEMS" (that's where your Vendio store items are) THis is ebay legal as the links to items for sales are TWO clicks away (or whatever the rule is)
2) Use Vendio checkout and promote your store however you want there - there's a shopping cart so you can combine Vendio purchases with ebay purchases and customer pays once.
3) Use click to enlarge images with links to Vendio Gallery (this is same ebay item view described in 1 above)...
Maybe Beth will come back with more ideas. I haven't tried any of these yet and have not set up my free Vendio store with more than my ebay items except for some postcard sleeves (and I did have one sale from there without promotion)...
They are supposed to feed the store to Froogle/Google but I don't know that that is working right...
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posted on July 21, 2006 10:17:50 AM new
may be Ebay should look at the Yahoo format-there is Yahoo Auction and there is Yahoo shopping.
If you want to buy it now,go to yahoo shopping ,if you like auction,then bid on Yahoo auction.
But the problems with Ebay stores is that many are 'dumps' or parking lot for items which do not sell in auction,
talk about exposure,these items have been exposed once or more than once as auction items and get no bids,so they stay in the store until someone buys it,and how much does it cost to keep an item in store,2 cents!!
So soon it will be 5 cents,and Ebay can keep raising it from 5 to 7 to 10 cents as a way to force us to clean house.
posted on July 21, 2006 11:26:16 AM new
Ok I ran the numbers - this will increase my ebay bill by about 20%..not good but still better than spending hours setting up a website that will attract no where near the number of buyers I get from ebay. I need to work on SEO for my store and move some items to my Vendio store...develop a little different business plan...and who knows..if they REALLY have a prominent "Buy-IT-Now" tab set up, I MIGHT see increased sales to compensate. I am not closing my store.
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posted on July 21, 2006 12:50:12 PM new
My ebay bill will increase 15%. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I am also staying. As I also mentioned in another thread, three of my categories dominate the first three search pages of gbase (ebay, Vendio store), and Froogle (Vendio store). And, the pictorial postmark category ranks at the top of the page for a regular google search. The problem is that many of the items are seasonal.
So ... I have to bring in other items to pick up the mix. Strange, while many are thinking of trimming inventory, I'm planning on increasing inventory in other new categories. I need the mix to cover the seasonal sales of the main categories.
Auctions aren't helpful as I selling to the same captive audience at lower prices.
I have planned to advertise both sites in the trade magazines and journals. I'm sure that there are many, many collectors who don't even know my store exists.
posted on July 21, 2006 01:06:49 PM new
If everyone will re-read Bill Cobb's message, especially the fee increase portion, it becomes quite apparent what Ebay wants to do. They originally wanted to get Stores up and running, so they made it convenient and financially attractive to anyone who wanted to open one. They have since become a monster that has overwhelmed them and their resources. They no longer want quantity in listings, they have way too much now. They now want QUALITY. they want to get rid of the yard sale junk and the $5.00 Chineese imports that clog up the site. Look at the new listing and FVF schedule. The sellers who are selling items for $100.00 and above are not impacted by the new fees. These are the types of stores Ebay wants to retain. Simply put, Ebay will no longer provide cheap warehouse space to park the stuff that won't sell at auction. If it's not worth at least $100.00, they don't want it in a store.
If Murphy's law is correct, everything East of the San Andreas Fault will slide into the Atlantic
posted on July 21, 2006 02:54:13 PM new
well said,Sparkz.
A florda seller I know regularly packs up her ebay stuff and sent them to local auctions,she does not get much,under 100 dollars but at least they are gone,gone for good.
posted on July 21, 2006 03:41:16 PM new
one of these web hosting sites has a rather nasty tracking device called "true sword" or aka "eSellerateEngine" according to spybot.
I haven't been anywhere else online today so if you have visited any of the web hosting sites mentioned on VD check your computer. Let me know if you find out which website has it.
you can find it under start -> my computer -> Local Disk (C -> Windows -> eSellerateEngine
Thanks for your e-mail. Yes, occasionally people contact us regarding
cases like this. We can assure you that these are false positives and
we try to work with the various companies to correct these things. But
the .dll is completely inert and is used only to connect to our servers
in a purchase attempt. It encrypts the data the user enters and sends
it to our servers. After the purchase, the credit card data is
discarded. We do not store card numbers anywhere in our system. So
this .dll is completely safe. Let us know if you have any further
questions/concerns.
posted on July 22, 2006 10:42:25 AM new
Hwahwa - you asked what I sell on my website. I sell bedding, bath, throw blankets, home decor items, etc. I have contacts with mostly manufacturers and some distributors that sell in light bulk quantities or drop ship for me. I've spent five years making the connections, going to the Dallas Market Center, building and optimizing the site, and selecting products that have a niche market. Just about everything I sell can be sold in quantity.
However, I do see your point that sellers who specialize in selling a variety of one-of-a-kind items might have difficulty translating that to their own website. However, it can be done if you keep on top of it or automate it. If your website is backed up by a database that tracks inventory levels, it can be set up to automatically remove the item from available stock as soon as it is sold.
Even sellers who sell an eclectic variety of items can still niche market. It just means they have to set up their website into clearly defined sections and optimize each page or section of the site separately. Advertising can point directly to the niche product page, rather than to the home page. The other thing that can be done (and something I'm planning to do over the next year) is to create a set of niche sites, each focusing on one product subset.
Hope that gives some people some ideas of what can be done. I would refer anyone interested in going independent to subscribe to Internet Retail (better for large sellers and those who want to be) and Practice ECommerce (really good for smaller website owners).
posted on July 22, 2006 11:05:34 AM new
How are you guys figuring 15 and 20% increases? The listing fees are going from 2 cents to 5 cents..a 250% increase and 2 cents to 10 cents..a 500% increase.
posted on July 23, 2006 12:32:51 PM new
I have a store and it makes about 5 sells each week. I run auctions and my sell through is now lower than 40 per cent.
Many of us have complained about the lower final selling prices of items that are collectable, one of a kind or brand new.
I think that all sellers should write ebay and tell them that the most important thing we need is higher closing sell prices.
The only way I see that happening is if ebay gets their programers to makie a measure change in the closing minutes of our auctions.
If a bid comes is placed in the last two minutes then an additional minute should be added to the auction to give watchers a chance to bid and continue an auction in "real" auction fashion.
I have added a water mark to my pictures and it includes my off ebay website address....IT IS NOT A LINK SO IT IS EBAY LEGAL.
posted on July 23, 2006 01:26:41 PM new
think that all sellers should write ebay and tell them that the most important thing we need is higher closing sell prices.
///////////////////////////////////////////
You know what Ebay is going to tell us-higher open bid or use reserve.
The thrill is truly gone,bidders know there is no need to bid high,another similar or identical item will show up soon!
posted on July 23, 2006 01:40:28 PM new
Someone asked: How are you guys figuring 15 and 20% increases? The listing fees are going from 2 cents to 5 cents..a 250% increase and 2 cents to 10 cents..a 500% increase.
Jake, these people already give ebay 50% of the fees for auction listings. They are taking the total fees they pay now and getting a % including the auction listings. This is how BC came up with the 6% figure.
I list very few auctions because my sell through for the store remains 5% of total inventory regardless, and auction fees eat up the profits very quickly.
So, my increase is 150%+ the FVF increase. I am letting my store items end naturally and not relisting at this time. I'm tired of playing the Ebay game. I have a game plan that will involve getting all my items on my own website, then using Ebay to drive customers there. Once my website is up and running at full capacity I will resume listing some of them on ebay each month.
Since I don't depend on .01 to .99 cent sales with $6 or higher shipping and no combination for multiple items even when many weigh only a couple of ounces (in other words making all my profit from shipping like many people do) then I have to find other options.
[ edited by myfavorites4u on Jul 23, 2006 01:41 PM ]
posted on July 23, 2006 02:02:53 PM newIT IS NOT A LINK SO IT IS EBAY LEGAL.
Wrong. eBay's Links Policy encompasses both active (clickable) links and static (non-clickable) links.
And I quote:
"Prohibited links include, but are not limited to: Links to Web pages that offer to trade, sell or purchase goods or services outside of eBay. This applies whether it is a static URL or an active link."
In case there's you are still unclear on this, putting your URL or PART of your URL (i.e. mystuffforsale.com) in your pictures or anywhere else on your auction page is a no-no.
posted on July 23, 2006 02:04:25 PM new
What happens if -instead of sellers each starting her own website,why not drive ebay buyers to vendio ,then vendio will become Ebay stores??
I recall this is how Ebay started the store concept,several auction services such as Vendio and Ansdale were going to have stores.
posted on July 23, 2006 02:15:45 PM new
I've seen Vendio Stores. They're boring.
Wait a minute. I read something in the WSJ the other day that's truly apropos.
On the Web, a consumer can spend as much time as he likes, get more information than any traditional ad could possibly supply, and even make a purchase. But like cats, consumers now have to be cajoled, coddled and tempted. They must choose to pay a visit and once they have arrived at a site, they must be lured to stay, since they can leave at any moment.
THAT is the challenge for Stores sellers. Can you make your Store interesting and intriguing enough that people will go there voluntarily to learn, be amused, or entertained? I have seen precious few Stores (of the eBay or Vendio variety) that meet this criteria.
posted on July 23, 2006 02:25:44 PM new
Fluff's right about boring Vendio stores - got to find a way to make them more interesting or compel buyers to shop there somehow - SEE MY NEW ITEMS FIRST ON VENDIO messages WBN, inside shipped packages, at Vendio checkout..or LOWEST PRICES ON MY STOCK FOUND IN MY VENDIO STORE _ TAKE A LOOK...
1 out of 4 people are mentally unbalanced. Take a look at your 3 closest friends. If they seem alright, you're the one! - Kyle Stubbins, CMS
