posted on June 29, 2001 03:03:00 PM new
Who cares? I recently sold 2 items that I relisted on Yahoo for over a year and on BidVille since January. All of my items are paid for and when they sell the money is nice. I am not selling on ebay because I do not need this money to live on. I have closed successfully about 30 transactions on BidVille and 2 on Epier. I wish it were more, but I am pleased that I sold stuff. These sites aren't ebay nor are they trying to be except for the colors on the un-named site sure look like ebay's. I think the sell-thru rates are skewed and really do not matter, anyway. Many people have sold items including me and several of them are quite successful on BidVille (and no I am not talking about cards).
posted on June 29, 2001 03:20:40 PM new
I am both a buyer and a seller on eBay and three alternative auctionsites.
As a buyer I had bid on several dozen items at the alternative auctionsites during April and May, but last month it really, really became quite boring to click on items to find that they were ad nauseum relistings that I'd already seen numerous times.
So I pretty much stayed at eBay, bidding on eight items in June, winning six, with zero bidding at the other auction sites.
Wonder how many other buyers are tired of the same stuff over and over again?
As a seller, I think what few buyers there are at these other auctionsites are tired of it.
My items rotate on these other auction sites for months with few pageview and even fewer bids. Then along comes a free listing day on eBay, I cancel about forty Bidville auctions and move them over to eBay. Within two hours the bids start showing up.
Two bids on two items totalling $12 at eBay in two hours, against three bids on three items totalling $3 at Bidville in five months.
There's few buyers at the other auction sites to be sure, but what's worse is having them curtail their browsing because they're tired of the same old, same old.
(As a side note, my bidding on auctions at eBay that I did not win saw sellers benefit from the multiple bidding on their auctions; most auctions at these other auctionsites, if they close successfully, do so with a single bid.)
posted on June 30, 2001 06:17:15 AM new
I agree with Dim's views on the relisting syndromes on ePier and the other free sites. That brings up the topic of a solution to this syndrome. Can these free sites be turned into Half.com-like fixed priced sites? There are a lot of auctions running at these sites with 'Take It Now' type one price setups anyway. There is virtually no serious competition for 1/2.com . Why take on the darling of the internet, eBay with its' near monopoly, when the fixed price venue field is wide open? I know that the founder of Bidville tried it with beanie babies at his NoBidding.com website and that site failed but he really put all of his eggs in a single basket.
posted on June 30, 2001 07:38:58 AM new
Bidsbids,
You have a very good idea. I have all of my auctions set at a take it now price, 1st bid wins. I realize that if I get one bid, that will most likely be the only bid I get. I did the same thing on Yahoo for several years and it always workded for me.
posted on June 30, 2001 10:12:41 AM new
bidsbids >
That brings up the topic of a solution to this syndrome.
Unfortunately, I don't think any of these auctionsites understands the problem, therefore I don't expect any solution to be forthcoming.
These auctionsites wanted lots of listings early on in the hopes that the number of listings would attract buyers, so they quickly became "inventory warehouses". Now that only one in ten listings are new items they are hard pressed to have folks browsing on a regular basis.
I can think of some ways to limit/reduce/restrict incessant relistings, but, oh boy, what a response they would get.
posted on June 30, 2001 11:16:41 AM new
I for one would be very interested in hearing your ideas for restricting relists. If you don't want to post them publically I'd sure appreciate an e-mail at [email protected]
I agree that relisted auctions are a problem on these smaller sites. Shortly after I started using ePier I did a search for some books that belong in a series by a particular author. I bought every one of the books I was interested in. Subsequent searches (for the past 4-5 months) yield the exact search results from the auctions I didn't buy, and never any new listings for the ones I still need. I've done the same exact thing at BidVille with a couple of different types of items. Now when I do a search I see the same results re-listed with no new merchandise.
I realize that many sellers list in the hopes that an item will sell eventually and are basically warehousing their items. Indeed this doesn't help an auction site in the least, and in fact hinders its growth.
Part of the problem is that quite simply listing on these smaller sites is time-consuming. If your items aren't moving it's much easier to select auto-relist and let them go on forever than to go back ever once in a while and start fresh listings.
I have a certain amount of merchandise of which I have multiples. I don't recall right now how many unique items I have but I try to keep my stock 'fresh' on whatever site I'm listing. I run the auctions with a couple of auto-relists. If they haven't sold by then those particular items are rotated out and replaced with fresh items (at least fresh to that particular auction site).
Sure, I always have the option of going back to eBay. But I really don't want to do that. I don't agree with what eBay is doing and feel that if I list there I'm showing support of exactly what I don't want to support.
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