posted on February 7, 2001 08:32:39 AM
I know some of you don't like to read how sellers complain about fees, and go with the old song and dance that it is a part of doing business, but for the small seller, it is the kiss of death bit by bit every time a new fee is imposed. The big sellers don't complain, because the more small sellers that go under, means more business for them. Well there are things the small seller can do. For those that would not put up with PayPal and their changes sellers quit taking them and went back to the old way of doing business, with checks and money orders etc. Well if AW starts charging for image hosting etc. small sellers can go to any free hosting site, (geocities, 50 megs.com etc.) and slap up a website of your family pictures, anything of interest to you, and store your images there on the reserve space you are issued. You would have to use HTML in your acutions to post your images, which is a bit more time consuming, but you do not have to roll over and play dead and go along with the fees. Right now, alot of the pics I take with Photo Deluxe are stored in a folder and I just FTP them up to our site and use them from there. I can always launch from the Ebay site, which is a part of the service I am paying for anyway through their fees. If PayPal adds one more fee, I will dump them too. With the increased costs in listing at Ebay and the postal increases, which are threatening to up again I will even do away with Priorty Mail and let my customers know that to save a bit of money by sending regular mail is to offset their shipping costs. They many have to wait a few more days for their parcel, but that saving on not having Priority, and PayPal fees, will offset anything new our venue decides to throw at us. There are hundreds of places to go and get any sized, clean boxes you might need. You can make your own lables or what is wrong with using a black marker for the addresses? You will pay for sealing tape and that is it! Also, do an About Me page and explain to your customers why you are making these changes. Any reasonable bidder will understand and it just might increase sales, and at the same time, you do not have to raise your opening bid on your item to cover these ever-rising costs. MHO
posted on February 7, 2001 09:20:14 AM
I pay the fees I feel are good business sense and I don't pay the fees that I feel are a waste of money. That's a pretty standard reaction and business know that.
[ edited by uaru on Feb 7, 2001 09:24 AM ]
posted on February 7, 2001 09:36:18 AM
We're on the same page, furkidmom! I just made a similar post in the GoTo thread.
But I'm preparing for the day ---beyond fees--- when many of the services no longer exist. The internet business shakeout has only begun. How many of these auction services sites will survive?
posted on February 7, 2001 10:05:00 AM
I agree with you totally furkidmom!! Especially now that the economy is showing signs of slowing down (I think the word "recession" is premature), the added expenses seem to be coming out of left field.
I've thought about the same thing and am always thinking about ways to cut back. The only solution I can come up with, is to spend some money on a web page, and have it linked to all of your auctions and anywhere else you can think of.
If people like what you sell on eBay, they'll go to your web page.
eBay's not the only venue on the internet. We need to sell ourselves (our small business) USING eBay, not the other way around.
Look for web page designing software that you can learn & control yourself & go crazy....it might open up a whole new way of thinking!!
posted on February 7, 2001 10:18:03 AM
I'm sure AW will start to charge for their services. The question is, how much and for what.
Image hosting - I already have enough room on from my ISP and have all my pictures on disk so it's no problem to FTP them. Don't think I'd pay for that.
Bulk loading - I don't know how to do that other than from AW - I'd probably pay a little for that if there was no other option with the same benefits.
Auction Management - there's software out there that I'd have to look at to see to at least do a cost comparison. Might pay AW for that, might not.
These message boards - so far, to me, have been instrumental in my very small, soon to get bigger, part time "job". That, I definitely would have to consider the cost/value benefits.
Edited trying to figure out the <> or [] thingies.
Edited again since I didn't figure the thingies out
[ edited by anothertreasure on Feb 7, 2001 10:19 AM ]
[ edited by anothertreasure on Feb 7, 2001 10:22 AM ]
posted on February 7, 2001 10:34:06 AM
kraftdinner> You do not have to pay to do a website. There are tons of places that offer free space and Geocities is one of them. We presently have 2 websites there, so there is space on both of them. I wouldn't suggest angelfire, as they have had problems, and big ones, with images stored there, but there are many sites that walk you through putting up a simple page. I will do some research later on tonight as I cannot remember them off the top of my hat, but I know I have them in bookmarks somewhere. (Just have to weed through the hundreds I have and find them.)
anothertreasure> I don't know of any message board that charges for using them, and if that charge came into being, another board like this could be opened on ezeboards without a problem with a couple of moderators. Not tough to do at all. And there is no charge for ezeboards. There is always a way to get around someone putting their hand into your pocket, and that is to sew the pocket shut! Sometimes a person has got to take a stand and say NO! ENOUGH! With each new fee at Ebay, that is one more diamond in Megs Tiara and enough is enough. Again, MHO.
FYI - Before you send everyone running off to the likes of Geocities, you might want to read their TOS, that you agreed to.
Here's a small sampling:
You agree to not use the Service to:
(o) use your home page (or directory) as storage for remote loading or as a door or signpost to another home page, whether inside or beyond Yahoo GeoCities;
(p) have multiple Yahoo GeoCities addresses that are within the same Yahoo
GeoCities neighborhood or that have the same theme; or
(q) engage in commercial activities without enrolling in Yahoo-approved affiliate
programs. This includes, but is not limited to, the following activities:
offering for sale any products or services;
etc-etc-etc
FYI - Angelfire is no different.
They also have the right to change those TOS, at the drop of a hat, so don't get too comfortable.
YahooGeocities is already charging a monthly fee of $2.50 for an extra 5 MB, and $4.95 for a 25 MB's.
The days of FREE are going to end very soon.
Sure, you can keep scrambling around from one site to the next, until they all eventually go broke, or start charging like the rest of them already are now, or you can plan for the future.
My ISP [cable] is great for speed, but their personal website sux.
I've tried them all, and so far AW has been not only the most reliable, but also the best in regards to the various tools they offer online sellers.
I'll reluctantly pay a monthly fee for those services, but I'll pay them just the same. I can't be bothered constantly moving my business from one site to another. If AW gets too greedy, I'll reluctantly use my ISP's web site, at least it will be free.
Mark has already made it quite clear [in other threads] that the fees are indeed on their way.
posted on February 7, 2001 11:01:54 AM
AW is nice but its not a necessity!
Using auctionwatch has not increased my sales or hurt them.
A good camera, a reliable ISP with a little web space and a spell checker is everything a seller needs.
Essentially I use AW sometimes to provide image hosting, counters and launching. I prefer my own templates. I cant launch at all or put counters on the international Amazon sites. The after sale services are useless to me and the inventory (what the heck is that!?!).
I am much happier to continue paying my ISP for web space (that the whole family can use for their own purposes) to store my pics, showcase my items, and to pay eBay to actually bring customers to my products and enable the transactions.
Many paid and free services dealing with auctions (excluding credit card services which obviously enable transactions) are simply bells and whistles and for the average seller probably have little to no actual cost benefit and continue to hurt profits.
posted on February 7, 2001 02:22:55 PM
reddear> Point well taken but:
(0) Our home pages have nothing to do with Ebaying at this time. Some images are there sitting in our files and we have not had a problem until now, and many of the files are used on our homepages as well. My main point was that we do not have to be pushed into a corner and just sit around and be *YES PERSON* to anyone who feels the greed to put their hands into our pockets.
(p)Both of our sites ahave different themes, and reside in different Geo neighborhoods because of their differences.
(q) Our pages are personal pages and offer nothing for sale on them, nor do we link to them in our Ebay Auctions. The idea is to reaffirm to smaller sellers that they have options, and I for one will continue to keep on looking for them to keep the small seller alive and growing.
And yes, using the space our isp offers is another good alternative.
posted on February 7, 2001 02:37:18 PM
I like AW and if they would start charging I might pay for their services. I will not pay for goto. I will be taking my stuff off the site goto isn't worth it.
Actually if there arleady isn't one it would be that hard to write a program that does most of what these programs do. Some computer geek friends of mine were talking about it. I am sure one of the will have a mock up at least the next time we get together.
It would be a lot better then being at someone else mercy. The only re hitch would be the scheduling. You could schedule them ahead of time but you would have to contect the computer to a line on the internet to load them. Even so, I would rather do that and just pay for the software instead of paying again and again.
I will have to look around and see if there is any software like auctionwatch or goto that you run on your own hardwear and if now I guess me and my computer geek friends have a new project. Hand we might just do it anyway some of them are pretty go programmers.
Anyone know of any off line programs like the on line ones?
posted on February 7, 2001 02:48:02 PM
OTOH...I, for one, have been delighted with the services AW has provided...being a relative computer illiterate, I require EASY...and consistent services. I'm especially happy with the image hosting. AW has filled the bill as far as I'm concerned. While I wouldn't jump up and down with glee if I had to pay a fee, I wouldn't complain either(as long as the fees were reasonable) because the value I receive is worth it. I, too, am a small-time seller and fees definitely eat into my miniscule profit. But, I have neither the time nor the expertise to jump from site to site looking for that golden grail.
posted on February 7, 2001 02:55:04 PM
Here is another thing. Now, I am not all that crazy about goto. I will not be paying the fee. I use it as a back up when it is slow over here etc. . . but if we want to keep auctionwatch free we need to be clicking on the ads etc. and actually they have some good one. They had a diabetics one last week that I clicked on that had a lot of good information for my aunt and even for me (not diabetic). I saw that they had an add here for overstock.com went and checked out the site. Some very good stuff. I need a knew computer all three of mine are getting pretty slow the last one is about 3 years old. So I will go to overstock to get it because they have great prices. If the add is still her I will go through AW to get the computer. I know on my sites I get a click though rate on the ads. On some like .05-2.00 a click and on some I get a click through rate (means the person clicked on the ad and at least looked at the first page) and a commission if they buy anything. Then on most actually I get a commission of the customer buys something that went through my site. Like if they go to webrx I get I think it is 10% of what they buy. That helps to keep sites free, but it is hard to get people to click through to the adds. So think about that when you see the adds here. Aw can't say it, it would be wel whatever. But advertisors are paying less people are bombard with ads less click through etc. . . but if you don't want to pay out of your pocket someone has to play let the ads do it but there is only one way that will happen if people click on them.
posted on February 7, 2001 02:56:55 PM
Funkimom...great topic.
I agree. sew the pocket shut.
I didn't know anything about HTML, but I've learned enough to put together my own design, and now I'm preparing for a web page.
My telephone company offers 10MB of free space. Plenty of room - delete weekly.
If AW starts to charge for the chat room - move on.
The listing packages appear just as template and easily identified. I don't think they're worth it...
thanks...
