posted on February 25, 2005 06:31:30 PM new
Just received this, anyone else...interesting...
MOMENT TO STRIKE. HELP US.
Dear Overstock.com Auctions Users,
On Friday, February 18, eBay raised their fees. Our fees were already more than 30 0.000000e+00ss than eBay's, but against their new fees we drop to about 40-5010044675750ff. As a bonus, we dropped fees another 520n February 18, for one month, and are giving listing credits. Also on Friday, February 18, we went live with ChannelAdvisor. For 60 days, anyone listing on our site using ChannelAdvisor's tool will see free postings (the "big thing brewing" we referred to last week on the message board). As a result of these dynamics, our listings have soared from 50,000 to 106,000 in a week. The quality of listings is excellent.
When we launched Overstock.com Auctions, we thought it was going to take us a while to show eBay PowerSellers that their interests aligned with ours: "You will not get a fair shake from eBay until a legitimate competitor develops, and we want to be that competitor, so help us." As a result, our TV commercial promoting auctions, and our radio commercial, were designed to convince eBay sellers to give us a shot. In fact, of course, it took the community of eBay PowerSellers about 48 hours to figure out why they should try us out.
Thus, we have been rewriting our radio and TV ads to focus more on drawing eBay buyers to our site. We sought and received excellent advice from posters on our message board, advice we incorporated into our new buyer-oriented radio ad, and the new TV ad that is being arranged. Starting on Monday, February 21, 600f our advertising will be focused on auctions. All radio ads are the new, buyer-oriented ad our message board members helped us write. We switched all TV advertising to the auction ad as well (on cable stations: we are still fighting to get the networks to play it). For the next several weeks, advertising will be focused on auctions, to try to make this catch fire.
We (you and Overstock.com Auctions) have one chance to make this work. You gain, we gain. Given the confluence of eBay's fee hike, our fee drop, our integration with ChannelAdvisor, and our focusing advertising on auctions, now is that chance.
Each of you knows thousands of eBay buyers. Now is the time to contact them and tell them to try Overstock.com Auctions. Let them know that:
Our listings are respectable in quantity (about 100,000) and quality.
Our technology is working smoothly.
Our auctions customer service department is staffed, trained, and broken in.
In sum, if there were ever a time to strike, now is that time.
We are doing our part. We built and tuned the site, staffed customer service, cut fees, made a deal with ChannelAdvisor to get good listings, and devoted a six figure budget to auctions advertising.
Please do your part by telling thousands of eBay buyers to try us now. You'd be doing us a favor, we know, but you are doing yourselves a favor too.
Your humble servants,
Patrick Byrne - Chairman & President
Holly MacDonald-Korth - VP of Auctions
Sam Peterson - CTO of Auctions
posted on February 25, 2005 07:04:20 PM new
"Each of you knows thousands of eBay buyers. Now is the time to contact them and tell them to try Overstock.com Auctions."
So I guess they want us to take care of the spam emails for them?
posted on February 25, 2005 09:17:51 PM new
Overstock is slow to respond to critical features needed in order to compete in the online auction marketplace.
Here are my suggestions for Overstock:
- Fix the non-secure warning. Make site fully secure (https) or serve site from non-secure pages (http). Only the login actually needs to be secure.
- Overstock Storefronts needed (important to compete with other auction sites)
- Item upload by .csv file needed (important to compete with other auction sites)
- Ability to list prefilled information via UPC or ISBN (important to compete with other auction sites)
- Import auctions from other auction sites function needed (important to compete with other auction sites)
- Login by username would be nice
- Sell similar item link on curent auctions needed (important)
- Ability to delete sold and unsold items needed
- Leave feedback link on closed items pages needed (otherwise it is a 4+ page process)
- Batch delete on inactive invites would be nice to have
- Active stats on contest promotions would be nice to have
- Single page listing function would be nice.
- Revise item link on current auction needed (to make things easier for sellers)
- Much more sub-catagories (sooner the better...)
- Ability to offer 2nd chance offers would be nice
- A reference to the Auction Site on Overstock national TV advertising
- Save favorite searches function and item notification function
- Homepages should have usernames in URL not user id #s.
- Auction checkout function (very important)
- Invoices need seller's payment instructions & return policy to be automatically included
- Make site fully Macintosh compatible (feedback forms won't work, etc)
- ALT tages on all Overstock served images.
- Accurate time/date stamps when relisting items (doesn't affect listing, but is rather annoying)
- Remove image preview step when uploading images (is it realy an unneccessary step that consumes time)
posted on February 26, 2005 04:11:23 AM new
Wow, something has definitely changed at the Big O. I actually sold items this week and the ones that did not sell had hits. All are something that I never had happen there before.
I am so HAPPY they finally patched the search. It is still not perfect, but it is much better.
And yes, sthoemke, they need to address your list before I do much volume with them.
I think they are going to be a good place to sell new merchandise. Jury is still out on their other markets though.
posted on February 26, 2005 05:42:57 AM new
I have had success at O/S either in sales or in hits.
I will support them because I believe in competition.
http://lwright.biz/index.html
posted on February 26, 2005 11:50:38 AM new
If Overstock thinks their listings are respectable in quantity (about 100,000 for their all time high), then they are simply missing the boat.
eBay had 19 MILLION listings last week (thanks to the 5 cent listing day), and average listing count average is over 12 MILLION.
posted on March 2, 2005 06:58:11 PM new
I dont understand why Overstock bothers with auction??
It is a waste of money!!
they are better off having stores instead of auction.
-sig file -------Life is one big happy 'All You Can Eat' buffet .
posted on March 2, 2005 07:27:42 PM new
I must reluctantly agree. They were promising when they first launched, but since they didn't have a very functional site and it still is not user friendly, any hopes of sales there have slipped through the cracks.
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.
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Alive in 2005
posted on March 3, 2005 12:10:13 PM new
I sell a lot more on OVS than I do on Ebay. But OVS needs to have a logo we can paste on our website.
http://lwright.biz/index.html
"Who could have possibly envisioned an erection — an election in Iraq at this point in history?" Prez.Jim Beam, at the White House, Washington, D.C., Jan. 10, 2005
posted on March 7, 2005 06:39:07 PM new
I love overstock! So far so good.
I have moved neirly everything to overstock and away from ebay.
Does anyone know if VENDIO gallery can import my overstock auctions? Or if vendio can't then is there anything similar that works with overstock auctions?
I intend to also start selling on bidville soon. Does anyone know of an auction gallery for that site?
posted on March 8, 2005 04:24:25 AM new"I intend to also start selling on bidville soon. Does anyone know of an auction gallery for that site?"
Yer joking, right?
Whaddya sell? Sportcards?? Used enema bags??
"AARP? Ain't that a bunch of old geezers?"
After attacking the AARP, what next for the GOP?
According to Lester Fudgebucket, RNC Director of Stupidity, MOM and APPLE PIE!
Quote Lester: "Did you know that EVERY SINGLE MOM in history has been the same sex as...LESBIANS? And, all those FRUITS in Apple Pie are either Pinks or downright REDS!"
Original Art made by me. I work in a variety of materials but mostly the classic watercolors, acyrlics and photography.
The thing with ebay's art section is that there is a huge amount and many artists pay an extra 20 bucks each listing to be on top of the list. The major sellers pump plenty of money into their listings. I've watched many of them and they don't always make money. Many feature price their listing over and over selling for less than the materials and marketing costs. My poor little art never makes it to the top and I have no idea how anyone could ever find it. I have sold 1 oil, 2 photos, and 2 watercolors so far.
I've only been selling my art since Feb of this year but I've painted forever and have even been published and won 2 art awards.
I also sell original, very fine pottery. - Navajo mostly. Every customer has left positive feedback. I've sold plenty on ebay, but with all the fees and such I barely make $5 on each piece. So lately I haven't bothered to post any pottery. It just sits in my house.
posted on March 8, 2005 08:03:34 AM new
Yo! Amucus:
REALITY CHECK: "If ya can't sell yer stuff on feeBay, then sure as God made little green republicans, you ain't gonna sell it on Dudsville..."
QUALITY rises to the TOP...
Do you offer yer works WORLDWIDE? I sure would! The US DOLLAR ain't worth a Ralphie-faht, so all dem furrinneers are a'crawling over our goodies!
USE the feeBay GALLERY option ($0.35) and rarely the outrageous BOLD OPTION ($1.00) and yer stuff will either sell or NOT -- if it donna sell, maybe you just plain STINK as an artist
"AARP? Ain't that a bunch of old geezers?"
After attacking the AARP, what next for the GOP?
According to Lester Fudgebucket, RNC Director of Stupidity, MOM and APPLE PIE!
Quote Lester: "Did you know that EVERY SINGLE MOM in history has been the same sex as...LESBIANS? And, all those FRUITS in Apple Pie are either Pinks or downright REDS!"
posted on March 12, 2005 09:46:23 PM new
re-read...
Of all the sites out there. Bidsville has to be the absolute WORSE -- thousands upon thousands of WORTHLESS sports cards & other garbage!
If yer ART is quality, then it WILL sell well on feeBay...WHY? Because millions of folks from all over the world come to feeBay everyday looking for EVERYTHING UNDER DA SUN...
Whereas -- ask the average JOE CAMEL on the street what he thinks of BIDVILLE...GO AHEAD, now! Tomorrow, walk down yer Main Street in Smallville (or wherever you ARE) and walk up to the first COMMON EVERYDAY JOE & say: Hey, Joe! What do ya think of Bidville?"
"There may be some tough times here in America. But this country has gone through tough times before, and we're going to do it again." ~ Prez. George Bush
posted on March 18, 2005 01:55:43 PM new
Hi Bill,
I can't imagine Vendio would be in a rush to support OS yet. There is just not enough volume at OS to justify a company such as Vendio to burn man-hours on something that may not last a year.
Don't get me wrong, I use OS and hope to see it succeed, but they need to invest a whole lot more man-hours in developing their own site, before I spend much of my time trying to sell there. There are way too many site issues that OS needs to address.
See Sthoemke's list above. When OS gets those fixed, I'll be happy to beg Vendio to support the site.
In the mean time, you can write your auction at VD and just "cut/paste" it into OS.
posted on March 18, 2005 05:43:58 PM new
100,000 items on Overstock Auctions is not enough quanity to maintain return buyers to the site.
Overstock Auctions NEEDS to offer the following features to sellers, if there will be any hope of success:
- Seller Storefronts (like eBay)
- Item upload by .csv file (like Yahoo)
- Item import from other sites (like ioffer)
As for buyers, Overstock has yet to intergrate Auction search results from their main homepage. (yeah, they are "working on it", so they state).
Bush