posted on July 19, 2008 10:16:48 AM
We sellers pay eBay to bring us fresh potential buyers, but there's no reason why we should have to keep paying for repeat buyers.
Right now when you find a seller you like and will sell to you off-eBay, you have to save their email address. It's a little cumbersome. Plus, every time you want something new, you have to buy from a seller on eBay first.
How about a list somewhere on the Web of eBay sellers who will sell directly and have been recommended by buyers? You browse their eBay store and email them with your order.
fLufF
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The Fourth is over but we've still got Fireworks...
posted on July 19, 2008 04:52:59 PM
I have a favorite jewelry seller I buy from. I see something I like - I email her - she ends the auction - I buy it directly from her. She saves money - I save money - we're all happy.
posted on July 19, 2008 05:00:22 PM
I have many buyers that ask me to get them items and I sell it off auction. I keep a list of emails addresses and email them when I get new items.
Not illegal per Ebay rules, these are non Ebay inventory items.
posted on July 19, 2008 05:19:37 PM
eBay knows they can't stop this activity. That's why soon you will not be allowed to have phone numbers or email addresses in your auctions.
But you can put them any darn other place you feel like, along with your eBay ID. The power of T&S extends only to the boundaries of eBayLand. We can stand outside the gates and jeer.
I've got to think of a snappy domain name. It can't have the word "eBay" in it.
You know what would be cool? Put ads on the pages and share the revenue out to every seller that signs up.
fLufF
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The Fourth is over but we've still got Fireworks...
posted on July 19, 2008 09:25:21 PM
Be warned that eBay is trying to belatedly cut off sellers from using buyer's emails (obtained from eBay sales) for off-eBay sales purposes. The latest UK eBay Privacy Policy says this below which is identical to the USA and other international ones.
You agree to use user information only for: * eBay transaction-related purposes that are not unsolicited commercial messages; * using services offered through eBay (e.g. escrow, insurance, shipping and fraud complaints), or * other purposes that a user expressly chooses.
You are not licensed to add other eBay users, even a user who has purchased an item from you, to your mailing list (email or physical mail) without their express consent.
I doubt it is retrospective, but I'm tempted to add a line to our eBay listings such as If you don't wish to be added to our mailing list, send us an email with the subject Opt Out. That way you will never receive valuable discount coupons and super special sale prices only available to our valued customers... We will never share your details with third parties. This wording complies with the CAN-SPAM Act so you can spam people unless they explicitly opt out as provided for under pro-business USAian law. Note that most countries mandate the reverse in that business emailing lists be "opt in" and make everything else unlawful, with hefty fines and terms of imprisonment depending on jurisdiction.
posted on July 19, 2008 09:38:52 PM
Even though eBay may have the RULES, what about "getting" and using the email addresses through PAYPAL. eBay owns Paypal, but are the same rules set up in Paypal also?
The only thing I see is;
******************************
If you are buying goods or services and pay through PayPal, we may also provide the seller with your confirmed credit card BILLING ADDRESS to help complete your transaction with the seller. The seller is not allowed to use this information to market their services to you unless you have agreed to it.
We work with merchants to enable them to accept payments from you using PayPal. In doing so, a merchant may share information about you with us, such as your email address, when you attempt to pay that merchant. We use this information to confirm to that merchant that you are a PayPal customer and that the merchant should enable PayPal as a form of payment for your purchase.
****************************************
States billing address CAN NOT be used for other business, but does not say that about email address........
posted on July 20, 2008 05:22:22 AM
These are the problems I see with cutting Ebay off the loop-
.price discrepancy between your 'store' versus your Ebay 'auction',say aren't we supposed to start the item lower than the listed price to get the auction fever going?
.some bidders have been brainwashed not to buy from Ebay seller off Ebay.
.it just aint fun plain buying ,bidding is more fun and cheaper too!
.if I spend too much time off Ebay,how do I know what is available on Ebay?
.old dogs are tired of learning new tricks,many Ebay bidders have been programmed to log on to Ebay,know how to navigate the site and find,watch,bid and pay and leave feedback.
Why waste time learning how to navigate another site when the frst site offers so much more variety?
.non Ebay sales does not build up your feedback.
.as a bidder,what do I care if you have to pay Ebay a fee?
Feel free to add more.
.
.
*
Gulag-a Soviet era concentration camp is now reincarnated as EBAY with 13,000 rules.
posted on July 20, 2008 06:45:58 AMIn other words once you have managed a successful transaction with someone they become your customer assuming that you are both willing participants.
I agree, I have had many continuing sales after I have listed on ebay. I only list on ebay a few times a year (at this point). I have had some repeat buyers and it isn't thru ebay. I have also "won" something and then asked if they had something else and have purchased that "off ebay".
Some of Ebay's rules are silly and I do not scare easily.
posted on July 20, 2008 07:28:54 AMBe warned that eBay is trying to belatedly cut off sellers from using buyer's emails (obtained from eBay sales) for off-eBay sales purposes.
Who said anything about spamming people? Not me. I would never do that.
Not a bad idea but how will the site (directory) support itself?
A very small one-time registration fee, probably less than $5.
You'd submit your logo (if you have one), eBay ID, email, phone number, eBay store URL, off-eBay store URL, or as much of that info as you want to make known.
I always enclose my business card which has my email, phone, fax and website on it. There is also mention of these on every invoice. In spite of this most of my repeats are through eBay.
Yes, but did you offer them an incentive to order off-eBay? People love discounts and free gifts.
fLufF
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The Fourth is over but we've still got Fireworks...
[ edited by fluffythewondercat on Jul 20, 2008 07:30 AM ]
posted on July 20, 2008 10:33:08 AM
A very small one-time registration fee, probably less than $5,
that will turn off many Ebay sellers,show me the money,dont ask me for 5 unless you can make me 125.
The problem with coupon and free gifts is that there are so many sellers on Ebay and many sell one of a kind item and there is no grouping say this seller specialises in perfume bottle or teddy bears ,by the time you cross path with that seller again,you cant recall where you place the free coupon or do you still remember his seller ID,and the seller sometimes changes his ID.
*
Gulag-a Soviet era concentration camp is now reincarnated as EBAY with 13,000 rules.
posted on July 20, 2008 10:59:26 AM
"A very small one-time registration fee, probably less than $5,
that will turn off many eBay sellers,show me the money,don't ask me for 5 unless you can make me 125."
I do hope you are kidding, I thought the suggestion of a $5.- one time fee to be beyond. minimal. I have some knowledge of running a search engine (I was the webmaster of a popular jewelry search for a couple of years)Without getting too far into the workings of a pay for placement model $5.- doesn't break you even without a huge index. Which translates to lots of work. To run a non static directory which is necessary unless you wish your work to be copied takes a minimal understanding of unix and cgi programming.
posted on July 20, 2008 12:00:30 PM
Considering that many sellers pay more than $5 a day to eBay in fees (some of us pay a LOT more than that), I don't think a one-time $5 fee is unreasonable or likely to cause much fuss. Indeed davebraun is probably correct in that it should be higher. I haven't run the numbers. It's early days yet.
Unfortunately, because there are so many bots out there these days, submissions to the directory will have to be moderated, so that would require one full-time person at the start.
There will have to be forums attached to the site because everyone wants to have their say and while you can get free software for that, moderating and maintaining discussion groups is not free.
I can think of lots of reasons sellers might want to participate. For one thing, you can specify your own payment terms. Hate PayPal? Don't accept it. You can accept cash or Western Union or even unused postage stamps (my personal favorite). Use Google Checkout. Go wild.
fLufF
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The Fourth is over but we've still got Fireworks...
posted on July 20, 2008 12:52:37 PM
Why not just list them on other auction sites which offer free listing and promote these sites thru your emails or coupons ?
There is a FVF ,but you got to pay something.
Why reinvent the wheels,another site with Ebay merchandise?
I know many Ebay sellers park their items at Epier,OLA,Blujay ,Ioffer,Rubylane,Vendio,AMZN,Yahoo .
Some ISP like AOL gives their members enough webspace,and you can use that to set up your own store!
*
Gulag-a Soviet era concentration camp is now reincarnated as EBAY with 13,000 rules.
posted on July 20, 2008 01:46:26 PM
Selling is hard enough work without having to list your stuff on every jerkwater eBay wannabe site. I have 700 items in my eBay store. I'm not listing them again somewhere else.
I thought of more possibilities with a CEOOTL site. You can finally work on your own brand instead of being forced to promote eBay's on everything from invoices to email to packaging. You can run your own contests and promotions. You can build opt-in mailing lists. You can have links to off-eBay sites where your eBay-verboten goods are sold. There are people out there actually looking for lawn darts, you know.
fLufF
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The Fourth is over but we've still got Fireworks...
posted on July 20, 2008 02:40:44 PM
The problem with an Ebay store is that it is too close to Ebay auction,the problem with having any internet store is that it is too close to Ebay auction.
Ebay auction is the internet 800 lb. gorilla everyone loathes,fears,love and cant live without !
Since Ebay is not going to self destroy any time soon,we hardcore sellers can only wish Ebay is some kind of club not open to all 'sellers' kind of like the plumber,electrician,medical doctor ,you have to apply to get in .
There is just not enough buyers for every seller and worse,buyer can also become seller and every reseller knows one must buy low and sell high,in this case,75 cents more than what he paid for!
There was a time the lowest starting bid would be 9.99 ,but now there are plenty of items starting at less than 5 and end at less than 5.
Once the trend of spirallig down starts,where does it end?
No one knows but one thing for sure,it is not going to turn around and start trending up any time soon.
There will be pain if pain has not arrived already,how long does it take for a seller to realise he is losing money every time he lists an item?
Many of us are in denial,and one day we will wake up that we just cant pay that credit card minimum amount anymore,thats when we will be forced to admit failure and quit selling on Ebay.
*
Gulag-a Soviet era concentration camp is now reincarnated as EBAY with 13,000 rules.
posted on July 20, 2008 04:50:43 PM
Do you pay cash with your paypal fund?
If you have the Paypal debit card,you can make a one time payment using that card to pay EBAY and get 1 1/2% refund,someone here pays 1k each month and thats 15 dollars .
You can treat yourself and your hubby to a smoothie or latte .
*
Gulag-a Soviet era concentration camp is now reincarnated as EBAY with 13,000 rules.
posted on July 20, 2008 08:20:25 PM
Fluff, I really value your opinion and stuck in there when you advised that eBay was still the best market around. I've had an unexpected summer which resulted in relists, reduced selling fees, reduced income. My seller discount is zero, although my search rating is raised (kiss of death?) I'm going to revitalize my efforts to find off-eBay income but what should I do with my eBay store listings? Move them to an Off-Ebay site?
posted on July 20, 2008 09:58:26 PM
pixiamom: I think the summer has been tough for all of us. The weeks bracketing the Fourth of July were killer, and while my business has picked up some since then, many of my 99 centers are going for 99 cents or aren't getting any bids at all, which is very unusual.
You postcard sellers are in a special pickle, I think, because your business model is attuned to the serendipitous nature of eBay traffic. It would be one thing if your customers were primarily collectors, but I take it that is not the case. I know that Neglus noticed when the change was made in feedback to count multiples from the same buyer and my high percentage of return buyers boosted my feedback number past hers. So I'm guessing that buyers (collectors or not) are not particularly loyal and if they buy again it will be from the person who has the card they want.
In that case (and any of my assumptions may be wrong, feel free to correct me) postcard sellers may do well to band together on one unified site and design it well so it gets indexed by search engines. A Google search on "postcard (my home town)" brought up mostly eBay auctions on the first page. There's no reason it couldn't feature results from PostcardSellersUnited.com instead if you had the cards. I was pretty amazed that my two-weeks-old earrings site is already ranking high in search engine results pages. It doesn't take long at all.
Email me privately if you think you might want to go with a Yahoo store, which is what http://jcearrings.com is. I'm on Gmail.
fLufF
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The Fourth is over but we've still got Fireworks...
[ edited by fluffythewondercat on Jul 20, 2008 10:18 PM ]
posted on July 20, 2008 11:10:19 PM
Some postcards sell well on Etsy. Digital scans of groupings of similar cards sell well too. People like to cut them up for collage, etc. Things don't move as fast as they do on eBay but it's cheap to list and it's a friendly place.
posted on July 21, 2008 05:53:56 AM
IMHHO, much of the lack of sales this summer is due to the economy and high price of food and gasoline. It is difficult to buy trinkets and lovely collectibles when you are struggling to put food on the table and gas in your tank.
Ebay's new stupid rules and match techniques certain add into the mix, but in my categories I am very visible and still sales are very, very slow.
