posted on December 22, 2005 06:49:59 AM
It seems that some sellers are so discouraged and feeling downtrodden by eBay this holiday season that they are indulging in elaborate flights of wishful thinking.
Take this comment from another board where people are talking up alternative auction sites, e-commerce malls and setting up their own (yawn) web sites:
"Getting traffic is a problem but the growing use of search engines for shopping is providing an expanding opportunity to reach potential customers."
Uh, no. Not unless you're selling monogrammed Albanian tummy reducers. Let's look at the results on eBay vs. the results from Google on some items I've shopped for lately.
Plate stands (easels)
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54 results on eBay, 2 pages
12,600 results on Google, 1260 pages
Tropical print scrub top
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1 result on eBay
20,900 results on Google, 2090 pages
24 season 4 dvd
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83 results on eBay, 2 pages
1,030,000 results on Google, 103,000 pages
I don't know about you, but I'd be shopping on eBay.
Friends, unless your item for sale appears on the first page of Google results (or maybe second), you are unlikely to be making sales that way. If you are selling one of the items I am looking for, you can see that I will probably never find you using a search engine *unless you are a sponsored link*.
There are (IMHO) two problems with shopping on search-engines-as-we-know-them:
1) Natural language. The set of keywords you can use is restricted by the number of words in the language, in this case English. Even the experienced searcher runs out of English words that will narrow the results to a manageable number, say about 100. I added the UPC for 24 season 4 dvd (024543217800) to the Google search and got 226 results instead of 1,030,000. Much, much better. But how many potential shoppers are gonna have the UPC in hand? I went to eBay to find it!
2) The data set is beyond huge, with pitfalls and land mines plentifully strewn along the way. There are just too many pages on the Web to search now, and so many of them are false results set up by people who just want your clicks.
I think most of us are sick to death of eBay, but do carefully evaluate alternatives before taking the plunge. I would hate to see anyone waste money out of anger and frustration.
posted on December 22, 2005 06:59:36 AM
I agree Fluff and it isn't just the money ...it's the TIME that could be more productively spent listing on ebay. I have seen sellers on that same board (I think) bite the dust as they dabbled in web design etc etc and neglected their ebay businesses.
I have however seen promotions that MIGHT work using existing ebay customers and that is to offer a discount for website purchases with packaging of ebay merchandise. If you can channel your repeat customers to a website where they can purchase the same merchandise at a lower price it MIGHT be worth the time and effort.
posted on December 22, 2005 07:01:58 AM
Maybe, Mary Ann. If you already do most of your sales through an eBay Store, that might work. I've found that my ladies (and the occasional gent) want the thrill of the auction.
But everyone's customer base is different, and if you are surveying your customers at all or gathering feedback some other way, that's something you definitely want to find out.
posted on December 22, 2005 07:12:52 AM
I don't think St Elsewhere is for me (at least not yet) - one look at Playle's website (a consortium of postcard sellers) and the prices realized there makes me KNOW ebay is where "it" (no pun intended) is at.
But for someone selling something (books, toys, kids clothing, collectibles like Boyds Bears etc) consistently to the same buyers it might be the way to go.
I know you CAN'T combine items Fluff but for those who do, the Vendio and Works stores are also a good option if you can get away with making your customers go through checkout. I am too chicken to try it because I HATE CHECKOUTS and just assume everyone else does too.
Fenix, beth and others who use the other Stores...are they worth it?
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Me & Ralphie would be DEAD if it twern't for our STORE!
Even with the disasterous fee increase (8% FVF on STORES items ~ OUCH), it's still a good deal, & we use regular listings mainly to drive the sheep (whoopssie! Ralphie means CUSTOMERS) to our store...
"We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job. That's what I'm telling you." —George W. Bush, Gulfport, Miss., Sept. 20, 2005
posted on December 22, 2005 08:35:39 AM
No I mean the Vendio or Marketworks stores (VD comes free with my subscription for example otherwise costs $4.95) You can have more of same items listed as ebay and upsell to customers at checkout -( FVF is about 1.25% here at VD anyway ) and offer discounts and/or combined shipping. The advantage to this over website would be the opportunity to upsell at checkout redirect and the relative ease in setting up a site free of ebay FVF's with shopping cart etc.
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posted on December 22, 2005 08:44:56 AMMaaaavelousMummy:
Ralphie had a VD STORE for 2.5 years with a PERFECT record, unmarred by ANY sales what-so-ever...
"We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job. That's what I'm telling you." —George W. Bush, Gulfport, Miss., Sept. 20, 2005
posted on December 22, 2005 09:59:11 AM
Here's the other side of the coin. Most of my sales come through my website, which I've worked very hard over the past four years to optimize and is still a work in progress. Right now, I only use eBay to get rid of return products and to experiment with.
The reasons are three-fold:
For some of the merchandise I sell, customers on eBay will not pay a price that allows me to make a profit.
For other items I sell, the manufacturers set minimum pricing points (that eBay customers will not pay) or do not allow the items to be sold on auction sites.
A few items are custom or special order taking between 3-8 weeks to ship - eBay customers don't seem to understand that.
eBay customers, I have found, have a "garage sale" mentality and want to get brand new items at well below the wholesale price. Many eBay sellers have found a way to do this with particular types of merchandise, but I have found that website is the way to go for my products for the time being.
I do come up in the first 1-2 pages on Google for many of my search terms, so have done quite well this holiday season.
So I think it depends quite a lot on the type of product you sell, your customer base, and how well you know your business.
posted on December 22, 2005 11:48:24 AM
I tried froogle. The results I got were eBay listings. Please don't forget that froogle is beta. For those who don't know:
Q:
What does it mean when software is a "beta" version?
A:
A beta version is basically a test version of a software program. The program has been written and the author(s) think that it is probably bug free, but they aren't 100% sure. So they release a test version. Sometimes the test version is open to the public, sometimes just to a select group.
In any event, if you download a pre-release or beta version of a program, keep in mind that, since it is a test version, you may encounter problems. These problems are generally isolated to the program, but it may accidentally cause damage to other software on your machine (especially shared files). So, beta test at your own risk!
Many, many seemingly great ideas have died in beta testing.
"For sale" doesn't work. You get results like "Not for sale to persons under 18." It doesn't mean you'll find a copy of 24's fourth season on DVD on that site.
One of the big problems I have with Google is that it doesn't allow you to search by proximity. Professional subscriber pay-to-play databases like Lexis/Nexis do. You could craft your query to say something like "search on '24 season 4 dvd' near 'for sale' but only if 'for sale' is not within 10 words of 'persons under 18'".
posted on December 25, 2005 01:45:33 PM
For no more time than I wish to dedicate to internet sales, E-Bay is the only way for me to go. The store is easy to list in and I can do auctions when I have the time. I store everything on Vendio so it works well for me. The only two places I buy from is E-Bay and Amazon. I would say most people check those two places first.
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Two men sit behind bars,one sees mud the other sees stars.
posted on December 25, 2005 02:51:41 PM
At work, we completely dropped Ebay. Our website sales were so overwhelmingly higher on the website that it didn't make sense to pay Ebay for a 10% STR. Buyers are being turned off by the poor powersellers of ebay and looking to the trust and security of an established web site.
It is to the point where I am considering a web site for my personal items as well.
Ebay had it's run. Now it simply has become a haven of complex and very difficult pages to navigate, plus a high element of, lets say, not exactly legite items. Ebay has lost the trust of many buyers and many legite sellers.
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Alive in 2005
