posted on March 19, 2001 05:17:12 PM new
For a long time I had been using Ebay & Yahoo as my 2 venues of choice. When Yahoo implemented fees I started "shopping around" a little and decided to try selling on Pootah as well.
I have still been selling on Yahoo and between Yahoo & Pootah I am selling as much as I used to sell on Yahoo before they started monkeying around with their listing order.
However, I am getting ready to leave Yahoo simply because they have not given me a way to pay them for their services. (I am unable to pay by credit card at this time.) I am down to my last credits, and when they are gone, so am I unless Yahoo magically provides a way for me to pay them. (fat chance.)
I understand that a lot of you have started using Bidville as an alternative site and have good things to say about them. However, I am cautious about jumping in there because I understand that they are going to try for an IPO in the near future. It seems they will be another (but smaller) ebay all over again, and for that I might as well just stick with Ebay.
As far as smaller sites go, I LOVE Pootah. I think I am likely to start concentrating more of my energy on that site.
I was planning on trying out Dutchbid also, but haven't got that far.
I guess I just wanted to touch base with you guys to see what's working for you all these days. Anyone selling on Dutchbid? Pootah? Yahoo (still)? Ebay exclusively? Your own web site? Day job?
I like to carefully consider before making any major "strategy revisions" (even though it seems like I am making a new one every other week ) and would appreciate any input.
ps I am still job hunting, but the CA energy crisis is making it really tough because unfortunately most of the textile companies I could work for are closing down and laying off employees, NOT hiring...so I'll have to keep making this auction thing work for awhile till I can come up with a plan b...:P
I haven't given up. I have items listed at BidBay, Bidville, ePier and Lycos, and next on my agenda is to construct a website to sell items directly. I'll get working on that after some income-generating work is out of the way.
posted on March 20, 2001 09:56:59 PM new
Most of my ads are in Stamps. I haven't tried too hard yet, here's what I've done in the past 6 weeks:
eBay 100% sell through rate but prices weren't near what I hoped for. I risked opening low and made little profit after fees though I had multiple cheap bidders on all ads. The closed ads don't show anyone doing too great in stamps so it's not a site I care to pursue for selling. I did pick up some great deals bidding though.
Pootah sold 1 of 10 ads, winner claimed to be sending payment a month ago and I've never heard from him again. I'm only getting 1-2 hits per week.
Bidbay- 0 page views in 5 weeks, I'm not wasting any more time there. My relists ran out 2 weeks ago and I haven't given them another thought.
Yahoo- sold 18 of 50 ads since March 1st (using free credits and listing in lots instead of the single items I ran before fees)
Bidville 60 ads, 15 sold on auction & I made offsite deals with my winners for another 11 that weren't listed.
I have heard good things about eDeal but haven't really checked them out. I know their auctions have FVF's only. I also saw a link that said you can create your own free private or C2C e-commerce site there. I don't know if that's like a Yahoo Booth or what, I haven't been in a mood to read up on it yet.
posted on March 21, 2001 08:11:29 PM new
Dimview- you're not listing anything on Ebay? Are the other sites working well for you?
Retta- my Ebay sales have been a lot like you posted yours are. High sell through, lots of effort, and little profit. Bummer about your Pootah auction. I have actually sold almost everything I've listed there. I guess the market there is just soft for stamps, for whatever reason. Same with BidBay apparently. Looks like even Yahoo would be a waste of your time if you were using "real" money, which is sad. It looks like Bidville is your best bet these days but only because of the free listings, huh? Your sell through there is OK but not fabulous, but then it's a new site and considering that your results there were excellent. Thanks too for the info about Edeal.
Thanks both of you for posting, I appreciate the insights.
posted on March 21, 2001 09:56:17 PM new
As I mentioned about Yahoo I'm listing in lots. I'm sure I would fare better with singles as most collectors need to fill missing spots here and there. I went with lots to save fees but hoping people might write and say 'I only need this & that, will you sell those seperately?' I would, but no one is writing Selling in lots does save time and energy though, 1 ad, 1 EOA, 1 package and alot more profit. Still, without my free credits I wouldn't use Yahoo.
I sold another 4 on Bidville tonight . They have the shop by photos open for featured ads and hope to complete it for the rest of the site in 1-2 weeks. That should be a big help.
posted on March 22, 2001 09:57:44 AM new
Of the alternative sites, I'm selling a little on Lycos, Epier and Bidville. I get a lot more views on Epier than Bidville. I have sold the most on Lycos. I have also tried (and not sold anything) on Edeal, Dutchbid, Bidbay and Pootah. My International Barbies are going pretty well on Yahoo right now. I'll keep a little on Yahoo to keep a presence there. I don't have any credits so I'm paying for my listings there.
"If man were to be crossed with a cat, it would greatly improve the man, but deteriorate the cat." Mark Twain
posted on March 23, 2001 05:44:42 AM new
retta- I hear ya! One of my *former* strategies was to buy large lots on Ebay, sell individually on Yahoo. I did OK doing that when I was careful about what I bought. Obviously that is not what I do anymore.
dimview & moonmem- since both of you have mentioned epier I think I will check them out. I hadn't really heard much about them but sounds like they are worth a look. Thanks for the tip!
moonmem- I've been outbid on every Barbie item I've bid on on Yahoo in the last month. Good sign for Barbie sellers, yes?
posted on March 23, 2001 07:07:44 AM new
CAgrrl >
Dimview- you're not listing anything on Ebay? Are the other sites working well for you?
Sorry for getting back to you so late. Been alot of time working on "business" of late and haven't been able to devote much time to "hobby."
Anyway, I haven't listed anything on eBay for several months and the other sites are NOT working well. I have had the largest number of listings (only forty or so) listed on Bidville with no bids, with substantially smaller number of listings on BidBay, ePier and Lycos.
Had one sale on ePier; another sale on Lycos turned out to be a deadbeat.
My plan is to build a website as a "catalog" of my items, some sold directly there, others with links to the auction sites where they can be bid. (I think the mistake I (we) made was in using the auction sites to provide traffic back to my (our) websites.)
posted on March 25, 2001 02:38:44 PM new
Dimview- you aren't missing much on eBay right now. That's my opinion, anyway. My Ebay sales are way way way down right now. I wonder if it's because of tax time? This used to be a bad time when I worked retail, too, if I remember correctly...so hang in there! I guess now is the time to BUY inventory rather than sell it.
I think the web site idea is a fantastic one if you sell the type of merchandise that is easy to catalog on the web. (I unfortunately don't.) I wish you the best of luck with that project!! I think it is a wise investment of time in the long run.
Anyway, is there a clear #2 auction site out there? Does anyone have numbers on this? I feel like maybe there are a lot of people out there just sort of hanging around & waiting for the dust to settle, sort of like I am.
posted on March 25, 2001 07:28:16 PM new
Oh, NOW I get why my ebay bids are down...the site is down as all my auctions are ending!!!!! This SUX! wonder if this outage will have the same effect on my Yahoo stuff that ebay outages always used to have????
posted on March 26, 2001 02:21:45 AM new
CAgrrl
All I have seen about ePier BIN was in a sellers ad description. He stated "Buy price ads will be available shortly and I will switch to that format." I don't see any official info on the site about it though.
I didn't mention ePier when I originally posted because I had only had ads there less than a week so nothing really to report. I sold 16 more items on Bidville this week and sent the winners a link to my ePier ads of which I only had 10. Between 4 people 8 of the 10 ads sold, 2 were my BV customers and 2 strangers. Before I sent anyone links I was getting 4 pageviews at ePier to every 1 view at BV so that was encouraging.
ePier is much smaller than BV, only about 68,000 compared to BV's 509,000 listings. They have some nice features, I especially like the photo upload page because it shows thumbnails of every pic you have on file. (Like Yahoo you have to load pics direct if you want to be seen in image only mode.) You can load all your pics at once then simply click the thumbnail and write your descriptions. You don't have to keep checking the site for bids because they email you every time you get one. They have a no tolerance deadbeat policy. Cool banners that click straight to your ads for you to place on your web pages. They even have a suggested form letter to send in your packages
http://www.epier.com/SellInvoice.asp
I found all of that yet haven't even checked out the site fully.
posted on March 26, 2001 08:10:04 PM new
retta- thanks so much for all that wonderful info!!! I really appreciate it. I had taken a look at Epier and was skeptical because I couldn't readily see that there was a take-it price, and I also didn't see many bids in my categories. Not too encouraging. Lack of bids wouldn't bother me as much if I knew that people were just "buying it now" to close the auctions. Also, I would prefer to be able to use a buy price on my own stuff.
On the other hand, Ebay is NOT going to be the ONLY venue I sell on, so I will keep an open mind and give Epier a try. Perhaps I will list some things on Bidville as well.
) and would appreciate any input.
. They have the shop by photos open for featured ads and hope to complete it for the rest of the site in 1-2 weeks. That should be a big help.