posted on February 28, 2001 01:30:38 AM new
I sell mostly Computer\Network\Servers & related equipment. Ive been looking at the other auction sites, but they dont have the catagorys that ebay does for my items.
I been doing pertty good on ebay , but the new rates are high once you add them all up.
So my question is, Is there any other auction sites that can fetch a high bid like ebay for my items ? is there other sites on the net that let you sell the type of item that i do with lower fees ?
posted on February 28, 2001 03:10:09 AM new
You can post any item on any auction site with a minimum bid and buy price equal to the going rate on eBay and save yourself the fees.
posted on February 28, 2001 06:10:19 AM new
Luck has nothing to do with it. You can do the work and make money or follow the eBay sheep. I'll take the money.
posted on February 28, 2001 06:42:13 AM new
Macalley: My guess is that posters selling the same types of items as you do would be rather "coy" about telling you about good auction site alternatives. In your place, I would check out any web sites listed by my competitors on eBay to see if they are listing auctions elsewhere as well.
posted on February 28, 2001 06:47:14 AM new
That what it is work. I've tried four other sites. Here's the way it goes list, list, list....Check for bids..no bids or reserve not met...Same procedure for 7-10-14-or 30 days..yes some of these sites let you list for 30 days..One great feature they all have in common is auto relist...so if you got time and the merchadise and can meet your expenses without selling..go for it.
By the way I've tried these sites:
Bid Bay only site where I've sold anything.
ePier..30 days 100 items no bids, if fact now no page views as of late.
lowestbids.com...should be nobids.com
AuxPal aka Bidville...Same story as the pier.
Bottom line is if you need to make money it has to be on ebay unfortunately.
posted on February 28, 2001 07:49:37 AM new
There are several fallacies to the simplistic advice sugmoi and the like post here.
They advocate posting items at free sites at the "going" ebay rate and letting them sit (..and sit..and sit..) until you finally get a bid.
The first problem is with items whose value declines over time. This would include computer items, and fad items (on the way out). Clearly this strategy will fail miserably with these items, since the longer an item sits, the more the value declines, and then the seller has to relist with a lower price..and it sits more..and so on. For these items, the fast moving markets like ebay is the way to go - I'd rather pay 7% fees rather than suffer 50% depreciation by waiting (and waiting...).
Second, what is the "going" rate? There are some items that always sell within a narrow range, but others often sell for 2X difference, high to low (if not more). Do we list them on the high end of the price range? That will give a great chance that the item won't sell at all (consumer psychology tells us people want to start at a low price and be "convinced" to increase the bid over time - high prices scare people away from ever making a bid to start with). If we list on the low end, then we could make more money at ebay by taking advantage of "auction fever" from multiple bidders.
and, by the way, how do you establish the "going" rate for unique items?
Their strategy may work fine for low-cost, commodity items like trading cards, romance novels, and the like, where the price is both low and pretty well defined, and profit margins are thin enough such that fees are a big percent of the total profit. In this case, as long as they can find a site with no fees (won't be much longer, as the venture capital funds run out...) they might as well go for it. Buy a big box of romance novels, list a billion on bidville, and wait. It can work in these kinds of cases, but clearly not in the majority of others.
posted on February 28, 2001 09:14:45 AM new
I agree with CaptainKirk. I sell low cost paper items which tend to appreciate in value. I usually have several of the same item in stock but don't want to repeat the same item too frequently on eBay. I can afford to park my "extras" on a low bid site as otherwise they would just be sitting in inventory.
I currently have over 200 items listed on Yahoo Canada (I live in Canada) which charges no fees but has almost zero traffic. An item can be listed there for up to 60 days (10 day auctions x 5 automatic relists) without any action on my part. I've actually had some sales.
Whenever an auction winner from eBay or Yahoo U.S. asks about what similar items I have for sale, I just send them the url. All my items are priced in U.S. dollars and are "1st bid wins" auctions. It is a lot easier than maintaining a web site.
posted on February 28, 2001 12:07:28 PM new
"There are several fallacies to the simplistic advice sugmoi and the like post here."
There is one big fallacy to the simplistic advice captainkirk posts here. He has no experience. He states that he uses eBay to sell items around the house he no longer uses and then tries to offer his "expert" advise to full time merchants....LOL
I see you are repeating the childish ramblings from spreeland's yahoo site. Yawn.
As most of the people here know, I've got years and years of general business experience (currently I manage product costing for a $7B division), more years of internet auction experience, multiple business degrees, etc., etc, and an extensive history of contributing analysis to threads in places like auctionwatch. Heck, I even have a personally-autographed book by Pierre, the founder of ebay, for helping organize the computer section there.
I've forgotten more about this business than you (or spreeland) will ever know, as the saying goes.
But that's fairly obvious from the "contributions" of yours here. Oh well, sorry have to put sugmoi in his/her place, but he/she is starting to get tiresome and boring here, repeating spreeland's sophomoric tirades.
My analysis stands until proven otherwise, which you haven't even begun doing (nor, of course, am I holding my breath in anticipation thereof).
Edited to add that any more time spent in dealing with your silly posts would waste my time and everyone else's, so I'll just leave it be and let everyone judge me on my contributions here (1200 and counting) versus yours (23). Its clear which ones have more overall value and substance. I'll be happy to have with you, like anyone else of course, an on-topic discussion involving relevant concepts, logic, evidence, etc. If you can do that, of course.
[ edited by captainkirk on Mar 1, 2001 09:14 AM ]
I agree with you, in that this business is new enough and changing enough that sometimes the best "out of the box" ideas come from people who are new to it and aren't set in their ways.
I enjoy very much the flow of ideas here at AW, from both new and old.
