posted on May 30, 2001 08:28:06 PM
Hows everybody doing on it.
I have discovered that the gallery pictures has helped views a lot and sales are very slow but no slower than they are on yahoo or ebay.
Any body have fresh ideas on how to get sales.
I feel my prices are right and having lookers, but get the feeling it's sellers looking and not buyers really.
But then feel that way on all auction sites, so anybody got suggestions.
posted on May 31, 2001 09:19:35 AM
I am doing just fine. I am doing this year the same thing I did last year on BooHoo. Since things are slow I am building my inventor. I have checked my sales and am happy to say that so far I have sold more on bidville then I did on BooHoo this time last year. The site is very easy to work with and I like the way it is laid out. I am a premire seller so I do the front page and featured catagories they have a special on these services so it is cheap. I like the free basic listings and the fact I do not pay for my pictures to be added. For myself I have invested very little but had a very nice return. Alot of people use the take it now feature on my auctions I guess they dont want to wait. I wish all sellers luck know mader where you sale. Have a nice buying/selling day.
posted on May 31, 2001 06:45:19 PM
I wish I was saying I'm doing great, but that wouldn't be quite accurate. I've sold three items for a grand total of $9.00 in the past month. I'm hanging on, though and trying to get more inventory listed as I go along. I think I'll sign up for one of the Premier member plans as it's a good way to get some of the features for an affordable price AND put a little money into BidVille's pocket (hopefully for promotions).
posted on June 2, 2001 09:30:18 AM
My sales at Bidville have been picking up. Some of my older stuff that have been rotting there for about a month are getting looks now. I even manage to sell several of these items every week. For instance, I just sold a card that I had for over 2 months. I informed the buyer that I have other cards he might be interested in. In the end, the buyer ended up buying 9 auctions from me! These were auctions that were just sitting on Bidville for months now.
A lot of people here seem to like Epier. I took a look at their site. Looked like a cheap man's eBay. They pretty much copied the format. That's pretty sad. Come up with something new. Anyway, I looked at the stuff they were selling: there is no stuff! The place has so few items for bid. no wonder why the "sellrate" is higher: Sell one item and that's a huge percentage!
I'm sticking with Bidville. It's getting better... slowly. In the long run, people will buy were the items are. Bidville has almost 650,000 items. How many does ePier have: 10,000, 20,000?
posted on June 3, 2001 05:07:23 PM
Just wanted to update everone about bidville. Bidville has add 131 new catagories and is starting to add bulklisting. So the improvenments keep comeing. Have a nice buying/selling day.
posted on June 4, 2001 09:19:32 PM
By dang I am seeing sales starting to move on Bidville, not high end things, but a lot more sales than have seen in awhile.
I think it's going to move, so sticking with it.
posted on June 4, 2001 11:00:01 PM
I've had a $135 item and a $225 item sell at BidVille some weeks ago to different bidders. Some items have sold since, but it is still quite slow in many categories. I noticed some quality items listed in a few categories that rarely had some before. This is a good sign! There are definitely some deals to be found...only wish I had more to spend...LOL!
My sales at eBay have done very well, closing in an average of 1-1/2 days at the "Buy It" price. Still, I'm looking forward to even more improvements at BidVille. The "Premier" membership is a Super Deal! I'm going to have to seriously consider paying for those HUGE savings on feature price-credits. I haven't used it much yet and I still have some $$s left from the Free $10 credit they gave me when registering.
BidVille just added a big category for automotive stuff and the Bulk-Lister should arrive Very Soon. The bulk-lister should make those Premier membership feature-credits worth the effort. When items sell there...Great...more fee-savings for me! If not, I just copy and paste the auction over into eBay and bite that bullet...
Great Bids and Buys to all!
posted on June 5, 2001 01:57:49 AM
I've only sold 21 items in the past 3 weeks:
3 items to 3 bidders on Bidville
6 items to 4 bidders on epier
12 items to 12 bidders on Yahoo
What's happened to multiple purchasers? I have always given free to very cheap shipping on additional items. I used to have a bunch of multiple winners & now it's rare.
Interesting note, all 6 epier sales were items I also had on BV at the same time. 2 of them showed 2 watchlists on BV for the past 3 runs but no bids ever came.
posted on June 6, 2001 05:10:54 AM
I wont list a thing on BV until the page views pick up. I agree,it looks like sellers are the only ones looking at the sales listings.
I listed 50 test auctions in Feb at BV and sold one lot of 23 Royal Doulton Toby's for $1450 within a few days after listing it. The fellow that bought them drove from Maine to OH to pick them up and said he found them through a net search. That was it at BV, I have never sold another item in 4 1/2 months or had more than a few page views per month on my items.(Some expire with no page views.)
I'm liquidating an estate and have mainly expensive and odd items to sell. I've got them priced cheap, there just doesn't seem to be many buyers at BV. I had 355 auctions at the old Yahoo and averaged 20-25 sales per month when Yahoo was in it's heyday. Even though BV is free, it is not worth my time to list there. I have been selling things privately and have sold about 75 items over the past 4 months through local ads. BV, you have a nice sight but need to start advertising to get the word out and find some buyers!!!
posted on June 6, 2001 08:59:25 AM
Well I've sold about 20 items on Bidville in the past week and a half. Plus, I have 13 current auctions with bids. Many with 3-4 bids, and 2 with over 10 bids. The large majority of these bidders are new.
I don't think I've ever done this well on Yahoo! Just the other day 2 different bidders bought some items at the "Take It Price".
posted on June 6, 2001 09:16:42 AM
daredevil2010 >
I don't think I've ever done this well on Yahoo!
Can't argue with that kind of success. I'd sure be interested in hearing about the categories that are really hot over there at Bidville.
I tried clicking through some categories at random trying to locate some of those niche categories, but came up empty. I finally clicked on World War II memorabilia thinking that since ePier has an excellent category going on at their auction site, then surely Bidville would have a comparable success rate.
posted on June 6, 2001 07:28:31 PM
dimview...the closest thing I could find to a hot catagory was the "gripes & groans" thread...oh wait, that doesn't count...nevermind!
posted on June 6, 2001 09:09:15 PM
I am getting a lot more lookers as I said, and had a mild selling frenzy last weekend, which did surprise me.
I have no idea what the hot catagory is for selling.
I'm selling fabrics,dolls,toys,nik naks, estate items, jewelry estate items and just about everything but the kitchen sink, don't want to figure shipping on that.
But don't see any thing being hot in my areas.
I use take it a LOT but do list 10 days 7 times just so the one auction will close a different day on each relist. Using the take it, lets a person bid faster if they want.
Now does anybody else find 10 days is too long and they get more sales on shorter listings or with as few lookers does it matter.
posted on June 6, 2001 11:16:03 PM
For now the length I use depends on how crowded the category is. For keyword searchers it doesn't matter but for browsers if you're on page 20 or worse several days you aren't going to draw views. Many of my categories only have 50-200 items so I use 10 day or longer there but in categories that have 1000+ I'll use 3 day and manual relist to stay closer to the front. I scan the category first to see what length gets me on what page before I decide. If I opened cheap and anticipated multi bids I'd use long ads but until many more buyers show I'm opening for what I want and happy to get 1 bid.
posted on June 7, 2001 06:28:18 AM
ok, removing tongue from cheek to be serious for a minute...I honestly don't know of a hot catagory, but then I don't really look for them. I sell books on BV, mostly paperback. Following sports stuff in a distant second is the book catagory with over 62,000 listings--of those, 41,000 are from a single seller who apparantly uses 5 day auctions with 99 relists, so it's kind of hard to get my items seen through all that...still I've had relative good sales, and proud to say that once folks find me, most become repeat and loyal customers. My current strategy is to list each book for 7 days with 2 relists, if it doesn't sell...it gets restocked and another book takes it's place in the auction line-up... that keeps my listings fresh and I also try to keep my listings at under 200 items, that allows for easy browsing through my listings with only 3 or 4 pages to view.
posted on June 7, 2001 08:14:42 AM
uptoolate and robnzak,gooooood info, good info.
I have never thought to look at how much is listed in a spot to see how fresh I want to keep the listing. Guess cause I have so much figured this is so nice just get it listed and sit back.
Will do more of a look at that on the items I still need to list.
Now one thing when I do have over 200 items I thought of, heck how do they look thru the maze to see it and will they look. But realize that Bidville has the sort by title, and when I've been looking for one of my items this sorting makes it so fast and easy to find the item because of the great alpha order they come in. So hopefully customers will notice that too when looking at my pages.
I also find repeat business, when you treat a customer right they will come back.
That I like the very best.
Joan
http://www.geocities.com/justjoansetc/
posted on June 7, 2001 03:15:56 PM
I have a totally different problem with BV! I started listing and shopping there-have bought and received several items. But...
I won an auction from a seller with several pages of listings. But he won't sell! I have written him twice, asking for a total so I can pay for this. The first time, he sent back a terse note asking for the auction number, which I sent him. Not a word from him since.
If this guy doesn't want to sell, why does he bother listing? He's just hurting the BV reputation.
posted on June 7, 2001 03:43:41 PM
robyn - are you posting photos with all those book auctions? I've started listing more, even offering free shipping, but mounting regular auctions with the photos and descriptions is going to kill me.
I have constantly found listings by this one seller who does no more than create a subject line with author and title, then the description is a blurb for their web page.
thing is...I would never buy with no description, not even as much as you get on half.com!
posted on June 7, 2001 09:01:39 PM
bearmom- I would sure as heck report this guy to Bidville. If he's not going to sell then get him out of there, makes it easier to search for things that are for sale.
Now I don't do gallery pictures of every item I sell, but try to do enough on different days that will get attention.
I run from any auction that doesn't bother with a description except to say it's a widget, and then have a 10 page Rules and Regulations.
Amazing these people even sell anything.
posted on June 7, 2001 09:22:53 PM
keziak...the listing you described sounds like the "monster" lister with 40,000 items, I too wouldn't buy a book or anything else for that matter without adequate description, and I hesitate without photos.
But to answer your question, yes, they all have pics and descriptions, and like you, listing was killing me. I have a generic template in a folder that I copy and paste in the desc. area, and then just fill in the blanks, HOWEVER, last week I changed it and now most of my listings have the same basic description...
"all paperbacks are used and in gently read condition, with possible creases, folds, previous owners inscriptions, etc, as would be expected, any major flaws will be noted." then all I add to that besides the title is publisher and date.
Of course, with my better hardback or specialty books, I still give details, but most of my BV listing are the buck 99 titles, so it really has made a big difference in listing time...I guess it must be working, got 12 new bids today...I'm having my best week to date. Sorry to be so long-winded, I'll keep the answer to the next question brief...
Rob
Is your strategy to list most things at $1.99? I am trying another approach which probably amounts to the same thing: free media mail shipping.
I know that on half.com and Amazon, to generate regular orders I need to maintain a certain volume, but I'm having enough trouble getting time to do my ebay listings, so I'm a little discouraged in trying to get stuff up on BV. Mostly I do a lot of cut and paste of descriptions I did for the books when I tried to sell on ebay.
posted on June 8, 2001 08:54:53 AM
On anything I sell, I work up my own folder of the items. a picture with number, and then a matching description with the same number. They sit in my folder for when I want to list, and I then have a txt doc with my shipping and etc info.
Now to list it's a matter of loading the picture, copy paste the description,copy paste the shipping etc. It sets at the bottom of my desktop and easy to click on say the shipping and just copy and then paste.
Well gee got off subject there.
I have found on the big priced items like dolls, I can't get people to even look if they see a big starting price. So at least on Bidville I can put in a reserve and start it low to get lookers. I will even offer layaway on a big priced doll and that has gotten me lots of sales along with lots of friends too.
But only Bidville do I use reserve, the other sites charge you anymore to use the toilet paper !!!!
posted on June 8, 2001 10:54:59 AM
keziak- Actually it's not my strategy to list at 1.99, I'd rather list at 29.99 lol...but I can't sell a decent hardback book on BV to save my life, so I have little choice but to do what so many other folks have done, and that's to consider BV the five & dime store, list all my less expensive things there, and bite the bullet and pay the ebay fees for more expensive / collectable book.
I'm trying to keep at least a dozen better books listed, just to keep a presence in that area...but here we go again getting off Joans original topic...Joan, wallypog has a thread in BV auctions...working up a group to have an auctionwide $1.00 sale...it will last for two weeks, and have a link to a web sight with lists of all participating dealers and items...worth a try, might give us all a boost, eh?
posted on June 8, 2001 11:49:31 AM
hey, Rob, thanks for mentioning that! I posted over on the BidVille board just a bit ago that I've been on contact with the owners and we have their blessing. They're also going to put a special logo on the home page advertising the sale for the two-week duration.
All interested parties will need to do to look for some great bargains is to type in '$ sale' in the search box.
Anyone who wants to can sign up on the BidVille board on the sign-up thread. The guidelines are posted there as well, and if there's anyone who needs help with anything like posting the link into their auction, don't worry--it'll all be available for copy and paste.
posted on June 8, 2001 08:29:11 PM
Just saw a new mess from prez. They have added Bidville to the feedback.com site.
I love it now at the bottom of all my auctions are my fb's at Ebay,Yahoo,& now Bidville.
I trully think this speaks for it's self if anybody is wondering about me, cause they can click right on the fb's and see all about this ol bitty.
Wish I could add this to my other auction sites without them getting hostal about it.
And I do like the sale idea you are mentioning, will have to go look again at that.
posted on June 10, 2001 07:22:12 PM
People are noticing the site, I'm getting more action, and more lookers, and very happy with the way it's going.
I don't agree on all low priced items, I'm listing all things, every priced.
Mostly I like the ease of listing on the site.
Joan
http://www.geocities.com/justjoansetc/
posted on June 11, 2001 06:27:36 AM
I like the site too although it could do with a change in color scheme. The site isn't visually appealing IMO. But that's a low priority. No standard listing fees or FVFs are great and listing is a breeze!
However, it would be nice to see more window-shoppers and buyers. Right now the site is overweighted in sellers, but what else would we expect from a low rent district? Bidville is far from prime Net real estate, but with relentless and targeted advertising it could be. I hope it succeeds although I haven't been able to sell anything on the site yet.
posted on June 12, 2001 05:13:27 AM
I have listings in bidville and bidbay. i havent had any hits in bidville and in bidbay for the past 4 months, i have had 4 items sell. one item sold from the bidbay people themselves but bidbay people dont hand out feedback. I am going to stay with bidville for awhile and see what happens. I am going to add alot more items in bidville and hope i will start getting bids. In bidville i list under little_man_44811 and in bidbay i am under herman_b44811. sure hope it picks up soon.
posted on June 12, 2001 01:25:11 PM
I've managed to get a bid on one item and have another close with the Take It price in the last couple of days, so that is definately encouraging.
Yes, I agree--it would be nice if there was more bidding going on there, but considering the nature of the small sites I think a couple of sales a week isn't too bad.
