posted on November 6, 2001 06:24:53 PM new
I was wondering if Amazon.com could be a viable alternative to eBay? I just checked a few listings on Amazon (linens and hankies) and it seems as if it might work for a those things although it doesn't get the traffic eBay does...I don't see anyway I can continue with eBay sales as bad as they are and I hate to give up on line auctions altogether. Have any other eBayers found some success at Amazon.com Auctions?
posted on November 6, 2001 07:43:25 PM new
sales is depressed every where,cyber or land.
hopping to amzn is not a solution to your ebay problem,hardly anyone buy there oustide books !!
you can try epier ,bidville or yahoo.
or take them to live auction
posted on November 6, 2001 09:06:52 PM new
You're probably right. I've spent the last hour cruising the net looking for a viable auction alternative to eBay and I can't find a single one that has any kind of traffic but I do keep running into other disgruntled eBayers looking for an alternative. Too bad we can't get it together and all go the the same site and let our buyers know which site that is....Without Auction 4 America Competition and the Checkout fiasco, we still might be able to do a little business.
posted on November 7, 2001 05:49:19 AM new
i think the auction fever is passing,most ebay bidders wish they have not bot all that junk in the past years at such ridiculous high prices.
brick and mortar dealers use to put their best on ebay,now they are saving them for their shops as ebay is becoming more and more of a quick way to raise cash by selling to other dealers.
ebay is not invincible,the great colllection & butterfield purchase,auction for america are flops,now this controversy around check out.
a lot of features ebay come up have to do with protecting its turf and enhancing its bottom line,nothing wrong with that,but sellers are finding it more and more difficult to operate in ebay environment.
how much does ebay really know of its sellers?
making a promise of raising 100 millions dolllars in 100 days for september 11 disaster shows how little it knows of its sellers??
how many sellers can afford to donate time,merchandise and shipping fee?
ebay must think we are all grand dame of america doing this for fun,when we are not at the country club or shopping at saks fifth avenue or crusing around the world,we are selling for fun??
posted on November 8, 2001 04:27:49 PM new
I'm not trying to take advantage of "Auction Fever"?. I'm only trying to offer top notch items from my part of the country (Philadelphia Main Line) at a fair price on Line. I've been incredibly successful on eBay until the last week or so.
(I have a shop and I sell at shows so I am not totally dependent on online sales although I LOVE them...Auctions are so much fun!)... I'm concerned about the drop off of business from eBay becaucse I feel that eBay is destructing from within..Meg's desire to impress corporate America With "Auction for America" etc....That's why I posted this message. I just wanted to know if there were alternatives to eBay and I think now that probably there are not.
posted on November 8, 2001 06:30:59 PM new
one week does not mean much,if you have done well until last week,then you are doing better than many of us,why not just stay with ebay ,folks have started xmas shopping.
you can list on amzn and yahoo just to get more orders around xmas,there are folks who like shopping in a shop,not auction,amzn has zshop and yahoo has yahoo shopping,both reasonably priced,diversify and you get more sales.
each of these sites has a niche,amzn is strong in books,yahoo in new items (shops i mean) and ebay for vintage and antique collectibles.
last xmas many ebayers buy xmas gifts using buy it now,dont know how happy they are as ebay has more worn,used,rejected,refurbished,misrepresented items than the other sites
posted on November 28, 2001 03:00:34 PM new
Yes, and Ebays buyers are not too savy anymore. I was losing money there till now...I quit. Anyway, I am sure another will survive somewhere. I am planting my stuff on Bargainand Haggle for awhile.
posted on November 29, 2001 02:25:30 PM new
I have never tried out the bargin and haggle. You say it is more active and better than ebay? Are you finding it more successful profit wise than ebay? I tried to check it out but couldn't find any counters or "bidders" so I couldn't really get an idea of the traffic going through there. Please advise.
posted on December 15, 2001 11:25:04 AM new
there is really one auction venue which produces results and that is ebay.
other sites may be free but why waste time,no one looks,no one bids?
if you sell enough books,then open a pro merchant account with amzn and list non books in your z shop,up to 40,000 for 39.99 a month,commission applies when item sells.
posted on December 29, 2001 11:09:30 PM new
Alice -
You seem to have experimented with different venues. I got a 14 day suspension from Ebay for supposed adult material on my auction pages so I was exploring other venues. I usually run about 300 auctions a week so this is a hufe fine for Kirk Douglas kissing Jean Simmons in Spartacus (I sell DVDs).
Amazon auctions look dead. You mentioned something about Bargain & Haggle. What's your rating on these various places? Did you ever give zshops a shot at Amazon?
posted on January 6, 2002 03:24:44 PM new
I have had over 100 sales in 2 years at forthehunt.com (gunbroker.com) i have had about 40 sales in 1 1/2 yr at auctionarms.com
have had a few sales in 5 months at historiclive.com have had several sales in 2 months at tbay.com have had hundreds of sales in 3 years at amazon.com have had several dozen sales at yahoo.com the crowning surprise of them all is epier.com with several hundred sales and a few sales at bidville a few at bidexpo.com a few at bidnazi.com a few at militarybay.com several at eggbay.com several sales at stuff.com out of australia, my suggestion to someone using amazon would be to use a bulk loader there was a point a few months back when they accidentally deleted 3,000 sales on me they were pretty irresponsible about too, not as bad as yahoo but close, gunbroker or auctionarms only will work if it is something relating to their audience
fairmarket which should have been a major pplayer appears to suffer from the old adage 8 lame mne do not equal one gladiator and if there was a gladiator amongst them then he would surely spend all his energy trying to keep the other seven on their feet they need to cut loose the imbeciles at excite which has to be the most incompetant site on the net and the worst generator of spam other than excitew the fairmarket sites network can produce sales. ebang is another gun type site that I have had sales at, [email protected]
posted on January 17, 2002 04:40:43 AM new
I tried amazon was pretty good years ago,not too good last try. i am trying a neat site,small,free nice people & since ebay just raised their fees again it could go..i like the owners support is great. nice chat at oldandsold.com they are a marketplace now too for collectibles..maybe try doing yahoo & another site? many of us have had to do that good luck in your search for an alternative
posted on January 17, 2002 07:42:50 AM new
No auction site is perfect. There are ebbs and flows to the online selling business. Certain times of the year generate certain buyers. The 30 days prior to Christmas is a windfall. Almost everything sells. For 30 days after Christmas, around tax time and August and early September is slow because either all the money was spent on Christmas-people have to pay their taxes and money must be spent on school clothes and supplies. If you adjust your selling to really pound it during the good times and back off during the bad I think you will do well. I do not agree that the online acution buying is a thing of the past. This year was an exception because of September 11th. The President called for Americans to get out there and spend-and spend they did. If you read the business section of any paper or publication you will find that retailers over all are not doing the business they are accustomed to. The reason? The reason is the Internet. More and more people are buying from the comfort of their home and this is only likely to increase. Robert Kiyosaki (an extremely well noted economist) has stated that by the year 2010 more than half of all retailers will no longer exsist. The reason he states is the Internet. The 2nd half of the 20th century was a fluke in the business world. Up until that time most people owned their own businesses and most worked from their homes. The pendulum is swinging back that way. More and more people are now owning their own business and most are working from home. This trend is expected to really balloon in the next 10-15 years. So, don't give up hope on your Internet sales. Keep listing and be mindful of the slow times and I'm sure you will do well.
posted on January 17, 2002 04:55:57 PM new
I started selling at the toy auction site threeoldladies.com and the first month I sold 4 items. It's a small site but they only sell Toys so I hope they will take off one day.
posted on January 18, 2002 08:15:29 AM new
i have a zshop ,it is set up to facilitate sales of books but it allows you to have 40,000 items in the shop,since i do not have 40,000 titles,i put some non books there.
recently i sold some nice items,pleasant surprise.
posted on January 18, 2002 01:48:37 PM new
forceten32.
amzn has changed the rules on listing new books which are still in print and offered by amzn,you cannot even list your book as new,the option is gone,instead you have to list as used,of course they are many choices under used book.
as used book,your new book has to be a certain percentage under amzn new book,since amzn discounts its new book,where is the BEEF for your new book after 15 % commission.
as for zshop,you can name your own price on anything you list there,but there is very poor visibility,notice the book page,zshops listing is way down the page,most people dont scroll all the way down when they see so many marketplace sellers offering this book.
Half.com is gaining popularity,and since half.com does not have its own inventory,you may get make more money with half.com
as for non books,i listed some items there not really expecting fireworks,but i did manage to sell a few which is nice ,as i use it to pay for zshop fee.
watch for intl buyers,if you say item is available to overseas buyers,and you charge domestic shipping,you have to ask them to send you more fund if you dont think it is enough.
i did that once,and buyer gladly sent more via paypal,sometimes i just send by parcel post without asking for more money.of course if i stand to make a fat profit,i just subsidise the shipping.
but these days ,you just cant count on just one venue like ebay,and 39.99 is not too bad.
posted on January 18, 2002 06:22:40 PM new
I would have to say that Amazon is in the number two spot they need to do a little work but ebay with their new pricing is more vulnerable than ever
posted on January 18, 2002 09:49:37 PM new
amzn is the premier internet site for books,no bone about it.
but the whole design is geared towards books,unlike ebay where you find individual sellers showing off their items with much fanfare-multiple pictures and interesting description,amzn non book item is just poorly presented.
since a shop can have 40,000 item,there is just a lot of junk in zshop.
posted on January 23, 2002 10:41:10 PM new
I usually keep my auctions down to a minimum, and have a store with auctionwatch.com. I've been able to keep my costs down and keep my sales up. I figure for every time I list my auction I pick up two to three sales through my store front. I am looking for a better way to sell my goods through another store front. I've advertised through a search engine wich made my 6 sales out of 45 hits. That are just a few things I've tried.
posted on January 24, 2002 07:07:25 AM new
Sorry, I see there was a message on this link about Bargain & Haggle and I did not a I had not answered it, although it was adressed to me. I have found B&H easy to use. It is NOT an auction. So there are no bidders. I offer an item, put a price on it, and buyers make offers on it. It is like going to an antique store and quibbling over the price. It does not have the traffic that Ebay has, but is picking up. And is not costing me as much. I read somewhere in a new article, that it was one of the most (percentage wise) imporved by number of hits last year.
posted on January 28, 2002 08:39:48 PM new
newly annouced in the wild is the toys r us virus worm combination which infects george bush dolls by deleting the enron file then the tequila worm penetrates the speech file where it infects the doll making it speak spanish to audiences opposed to illegal immigration and nafta then its email component attempts to reach every paper shredder in the world with the ignore my social secuirty wall street investment idea while viewing any remaining enron files. The drive can be cleaned with ventura.2004 anti virus program
posted on February 12, 2002 07:24:46 AM new
I have used ebay's Half.com. Its more then just books and music now. I sell cd players, car seats and all types of merchandise ever since they have added the "everything else" catagory. They dont charge you to list and your items are listed until they are sold. They only take a small comission on each sale and they do all the credit card processing. The only bad thing is that they will only deposit the money you make every two weeks, so your upfront cost can get high.
posted on February 16, 2002 06:53:14 PM new
Ditto. I have never ever used auctions to sell my goods. Half.com and Amazon's Z shops are good bets. I move a lot of merchandise. I think the average consumer doesn't want to be in a "bid" position, they just want the bottom line, how much is this going to cost?
posted on February 17, 2002 07:28:08 AM new
why is a dvd on kirk douglas kissing jean simmons TABOO on ebay??
i saw the movie spartacus many times,i dont see any x rated scenes,i wonder if the non usa version is different??
i swear that i saw lawrence of arabia once where there was a scene which shown peter o'toole in a room with a turkish officer assaulting him,that scene was cut for tv viewing?
posted on February 17, 2002 09:59:36 AM new
Hi stopwining:
The pix that was nixed was a still where a inute part of Jean Simmon's aureola could be seen, or be interpreted as being seen.
Reading between the lines of Ebay's subsequent e-mails to me was they respond to a complaint, possibly from a competitor, or the thousands of "net police" that surf Ebay looking for the slightest flaws so they can complain and feel important - the saviors of the unwashed masses that don't know any better.
My strategy for a lot of reasons is to be graphic heavy. It has its drawbacks. This is one of them.
Ebay needs a certain number of suspensions to point to when they are accused of exposing young surfers to the evils of an actress's breast.
