A Message from Bill Cobb: Resetting the Balance of the eBay Marketplace

Well, I for one am closing my eBay store at the end of this month and will no longer be using the refid link to my eBay store Store.
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edited 7-21-2006: I will be leaving my eBay store up for the next two months. I'm loading it up with store items up until 11:59pm on the 21st of August.

After that date the new fee's come into play. Before that date all store items will have the old fee's and fvf.

Ebay will have quarterly reports to make to their board of directors end of September. This should prove interesting.

I opened another store on ecrater and have been busy filling it. Got my va. store started and have been busy working on another domain name that I purchased.

I have no plans to stop selling on ebay, (because as hubster says..Everybody knows eBay) but I'm still continuing to branch out and I will be just as successful at those ventures, too.
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I'll be using the Auctiva Store Link...At least I can cross promote that way.

I had REALLY hoped and kept my fingers crossed that Auctiva would come through with an ecrater type of store.

I don't want you to be another auction site..Puhleeeeze..who would want to go up against eBay and Google? I was hoping and keeping my fingers crossed was more of an ecrater type of store-front..a Buy it Now storefront. There are those that don't have their own domain names or don't know about getting their feeds to Froogle nor have the time to build a site from bottom up or the big buckeroo's to have someone build a site for them.

Plain and simple. What I and others would want is the store (not the showcase) that we have via Auctiva that would incorporate GBuy, the use of Sellathon, UPIC insurance and the cross selling abilities.

If the buzz that I'm seeing on ALL of the boards I belong to is any sign of whats to come.............

EBAY sellers are shutting down their stores (which is what eBay wants) and fleeing to ecrater and/or building their own site.(eBay is hoping we'll put up more Auctions, Buy It Now, Fixed Price Listings, but I won't)

I have no intentions of leaving Auctiva. I'm pleased as peaches with what I receive and the manner in which I receive your product Jeff.

However think on this...I'm cutting out my store and doing my sales different with eBay due to the latest announcement in regards to fee's. The amount of my links back to Auctiva will be cut by 1/2 to 3/4 within the next month.

That equates to less Auctiva links out there on eBay from this one seller.

As I stated I'm in the process of having my Store Auctiva url
http://www.auctiva.com/stores/viewstoreitems2.aspx?id=6466
placed on every auction, on every email, my websites and more.

That doesn't mean that my own site, other domain names, my many ecraters, Bluejay and Bidville are taking a back seat though.

I'm glad you didn't fry up in the heat!
Thanks for your insight and thoughts.

My Best,
Donna

Actually you have this URL too:

http://store.auctiva.com/Suthrnjewl

That may be easier for people to remember or type in. We really need to let people know they have a URL like that, we're working on that now.

We also may be giving you a url like: Suthrnjewl.auctiva.com or Suthrnjewl.auctivastore.com

We're working on those as well, is that something you'd like? Is there one you prefer over the other?

We're also working to templatize our stores so that you will be able to use your template in your store and it will look a lot more professional. I don't want to give up all the goodies, but we hope to have revamped our store feature in the next 6-8 weeks. You wont be able to list items there yet, but that will probably come as part of our phase 2 release or shortly after that.

OK fella, divi up for the dummy. This Auctiva store like is to show what you have on Auction at ebay? If you close down your Ebay store, what will show up in the Auctiva store? I've never paid much attention to that - so splain yourself. If love Auctiva too and if you'll notice it's my first recommendation sire on my MS Spaces - only one line up from Suthrnjewl.
Thank
Rosemary

quote:

Originally posted by Auctiva Jeff:
Actually you have this URL too:

http://store.auctiva.com/Suthrnjewl

That may be easier for people to remember or type in. We really need to let people know they have a URL like that, we're working on that now.

We also may be giving you a url like: Suthrnjewl.auctiva.com or Suthrnjewl.auctivastore.com

We're working on those as well, is that something you'd like? Is there one you prefer over the other?

We're also working to templatize our stores so that you will be able to use your template in your store and it will look a lot more professional. I don't want to give up all the goodies, but we hope to have revamped our store feature in the next 6-8 weeks. You wont be able to list items there yet, but that will probably come as part of our phase 2 release or shortly after that.

We're on the same track Jeff, oh yes we are.
I'm not sure how to upload items to the first link but I'm sure you'll let me know.

Thanks for asking my preference...I'm fine with whichever is keyword strong for Auctiva. I'm not being humble <smile> ha! because I'm confident in my ability to make a site keyword strong and meta tags to BRING not only customers to my store but to Auctiva at the same time.

I'll be copying and pasting your statement onto all the message boards I belong to that are ranting and raving today bout the stores and flighting to ecrater, freewebs and more.

In my long-winded spouting off, that's what I was trying to get across and I'm very thankful you understood what I was trying to say.

Thanks again for everything you do!
Donna

OK, I'm done. Put out what I had to at auction. I've slept and my plans are set for the rest of the month. Wouldn't want to be Ebay in about 60 days. My take - "they would not listen, they did not know how - perhaps, they'll listen now".
Good luck to all,
Rosemary

I get fustrated with the fee's also. I am trying other sites right now but it seems that ebay site bring more people in to buy.

If the prices continue the way it is, the buyer are not getting good prices cause we as sellers have to tack on our overhead... the buyers might just get a better deal going to retail stores... I don't know... errr....

It just not right!
I been trying overstock.com but it's not really all that great. Any suggestions?

quote:

Originally posted by nobostore:
I been trying overstock.com but it's not really all that great. Any suggestions?

ecrater.com

Also buy your own domain and forward the url to your eBay right now.

In the meantime open a free ecrater. Get your keywords and meta tags heavy and on the button.
Sell independently of eBay and work, work, work at getting more sites with your link. The more links the higher you'll be placed in the Search Engines.

Don't pay someone to submit you to Search Engines either..that's throwing good money away.

Make your site meta tag strong and use great key words and you'll sell.

Best of Luck,
Donna

I second the Ecrater motion.

Rosemary

quote:

Originally posted by leahyrlw:
My take - "they would not listen, they did not know how - perhaps, they'll listen now".
Good luck to all,
Rosemary

Hey, I have that theme on my profile at myspace.com My background is vincents starry night painting and Don Mclean starts singing (Vincent) I love it!

Thanks.. i will try ecrater...
It's harder and harder to make anything on ebay...
I appreciate everyone on here...
Thank you !

yes.. BUT remember.. so many times we work and build and then the change comes right when we are making some real money... the change THEN puts up back to doing this all over again...all sites usually change when THEY CAN....once we are making money with ecrater or any other.. then they will see a way to change to get this money we are now making... the ole ebay model...even with the most control ... even with that we need somone to give us a yearly dot com... we need to get search engines to place us.... once they see we are making money.. they also can change just like ebay... what we got to do.. is work on our govt to NOT be in the pockets of this system which harms sellers.. and also the wealth being in a fews hands hurts sellers...nothing in the long run will help sellers UNTIL we get our govt.. not run by the robber barons...henry ford had the right philosophy for sellers... put the wealth to build a gigantic middle class...maybe 90% of the people in the middle class and 90% of the wealth also with this group....

Boy...I wish I understood meta tags & keywords more...

quote:

Originally posted by Auctiva Jeff:

quote:

Auctiva - hurry. You can do this!

Interestingly enough when I first started Auctiva in April 98 I already knew I couldn't beat eBay even if I built a site 5x as good. They already had the grip on sellers and buyers that was too quickly feeding on itself. And that was with only around 300,000 items on eBay. Now there is 14 million auction items and something like 60+ million store items.

eBay wasn't really all that feature rich then. There was no photo hosting, no help at all for sellers to list a lot of items, no eBay software, no templates, no scheduling, no counters, no HTML editor, no spell check, nothing. That of course is why my product was so successful almost instantly and where we are today. There was a big need for that. Originally I thought that could give me a way to get a lot of sellers using it. Then I could hope those users may give a site I built a try. Then Amazon got into the game, and Yahoo, and Microsoft, and everyone and their mother. At that point I really didnt want to try and compete with any of them and their fat pockets. I figured sellers would have enough choices and competition between those sites to keep eBay honest. So what I did was a deal with Amazon to build support into Auctiva for listing to Amazon and we were the first site to support listing to multiple sites I think. A little while after that we added Yahoo.

I suppose I was just before my time. People didn't see the value in multi channel sales back then, things were just fine on eBay they thought. There weren't as many professional businesses on eBay then, people doing it full time and bringing a real business side to it. eBay was growing very fast then, sales were good profits were good, and so on.

There aren't any plans here to compete with eBay, no AuctivaPop, or thigns along those lines. What I have put a lot of thought into are ways to help drive more traffic to our sellers listings. I have many ideas and I'd love to be doing them all now but time and budgets are a reality I have to deal with. After we complete phase 2 I'll have a lot of engineers here with free time and you can expect to see some innovation and new ideas. Some will bomb I'm sure but hopefully I come up with a few keepers. That's how it's worked out in the past 8+ years.

I want to help sellers make more money. Because in doing that I believe it will lead to growth for Auctiva along with those sellers we're helping. Hopefully then you feel like we're making money with you, not from you. Right now on eBay it feels a little more like taking than helping you to make it. Not every eBay seller feels that way perhaps, and it wasn't always like that, but more and more it's heading that way.

How about a really cool off eBay Storefront w/shopping cart that's integrated with eBay? You know, listings can launch from it, when buyers check out from a listing they are taken to the Auctiva Storefront. This is what the poorly coded Prostores do. There are a few other companies doing this as well. However, they are way over the top with charges. A monthly fee PLUS a percentage per transaction.

Now, would be a great time, seeing how eBay wants to recover the relisting fees its losing to eBay Store listings. With the latest fee hike there would be a huge market looking for a product like this. Charge a reasonble fee. Heck, charge a flat $10, $15, $20 or $25 per month NO transaction / percentage fees. Of course, depending on what the storefront offers. I think this is a fabulous addition to Auctiva and it could be very profitable.

Something to consider.

Here's a list of some current OVER PRICED solutions. Get in this game and out price them!

Web Stores with an eBay Extension

AuctionBlox: (osCommerce extension)
Make-a-Store:
StoreFront:
Y.E.S.!:

Out of respect, I didn't use the links.

quote:

Actually you have this URL too:

http://store.auctiva.com/Suthrnjewl

That may be easier for people to remember or type in. We really need to let people know they have a URL like that, we're working on that now.

We also may be giving you a url like: Suthrnjewl.auctiva.com or Suthrnjewl.auctivastore.com

We're working on those as well, is that something you'd like? Is there one you prefer over the other?

We're also working to templatize our stores so that you will be able to use your template in your store and it will look a lot more professional. I don't want to give up all the goodies, but we hope to have revamped our store feature in the next 6-8 weeks. You wont be able to list items there yet, but that will probably come as part of our phase 2 release or shortly after that.

Thanks Jeff;

I would like to see this kind of store you are working on as a stand alone type store. In otherwords not a site with pages that are in actuality, ebay auction pages, or ebay store pages, although I think a link feature for those that want to do this would be appreciated.

Myself I would rather construct new pages of items for sale and these be google effective by having the ability to use head tags on the site or some form of simplification of tags. The cart to have the ability to use google pay as method, as well as paypal, etc. Hopeful. I suppose, we just take what we can get as an offering on auctivas part.

I found this on the stores board this morning. The announcement Ebay Singapore received:****** A Message from eBay: Resetting the Balance of the eBay Marketplace - Update for International Sellers******

July 20, 2006 | 02:14PM a SGT
International Sellers,
Today, eBay announced fee adjustments on select international sites. We recommend you visit the Announcement Board for each site you sell on to learn about any fee changes for that particular site.
Sincerely,
eBay International AG

This link will show you what Ebays Singapore fee structure was. "FREE!!" Please read it and tell me what I'm missing. http://pages.ebay.com.sg/help/sell/storefees.html

totally free to list and sell on ebay singapore. BUT, singapore site listings dont show up on other ebay sites. So, many singapore sellers list on other sites (such as .com) in order to get the worldwide exposure, hence the announce on ebay.sg about fee hikes on various intl. sites.

Some sites fees went up, some stayed the same.

eBay sg, china, philippines, and malaysia are all free sites. Items listed on singapore, philippines, and malaysia dont show up on other sites.

Items listed on China site will show up on other sites, but many know if it's a china listing it's a fake or fraud so wont buy from there. And, you have to be able to read chinese to sell on site (plus be able to accept payments in yuan/RenMinBi -- chinese currency -- and be willing to ship to China)

As for other sites - some have same sort of fees as new fees for .com, others have cheaper fees. ebay belgium used to have lower fees than .com, but dunno what current fee structure is (and again, there's the language barrier thing)

pulled up belguim announcement, new fees for them:

tranlation text from http://www2.ebay.com/aw/befr/200607.shtml#2006-07-20074105

Store Insertion Fees

Price Current expenses (per month) New expenses (per month)
EURO 0.01 - 5.00 EURO 0.01 EURO 0.05
EURO 5.01 - 50.00 EURO 0.01 EURO 0.10
EURO 50.01 - 500.00 EURO 0.01 EURO 0.15
More EURO 500.00 EURO 0.01 EURO 0.20

Commission on the final price for Store Items

Current expenses:

Final price New expenses
EURO 0.01 - 50.00 5.00% of the final price
EURO 50.01 - 1000.00 3.50% X (final price - 50 EURO) + 2.50 EURO
More EURO 1000.00 1.50% X (final price - 1000 EURO) + 35.75 EURO

New expenses:

Final price New expenses
EURO 0.01 - 5.00 8% of the final price
EURO 5.01 - 50.00 6% X (final price - 5 EURO) + 0.40 EURO
EURO 50.01 - 500.00 4% X (final price - 50 EURO) + 3.1 EURO
More EURO 500,00 2% X (final price - 500 EURO) + 21.10 EURO

Monthly expenses of subscription:

Format of setting on sale Shops Current expenses New expenses
Traditional shop EURO 1.95 identical
Shop with the One [Featured Store] EURO 9.95 identical
Shop premium EURO 49.95 identical


And theyre upping some auction fees

Gallery will now be .20 Euro (was free)
subtitles will now be .20 Euro (was .05)

Featured Plus will remain at 5.95 Euro for most categories, but will be increased to 9.95 Euro for Telephony categories; Photograph & Cameras and TV, Audio & Video. And, will be raised to 14.95 Euro for Trade, Services and Cars & Motor Bikes categories.

Reserve for Cars & Motor bikes - old price 5 Euro, new price 10 Euro.

Insertion Fee for Cars & Motor bikes
Old fee EURO 1.50
New fee EURO 3.00

Listing Designer was free, new price EURO 0.10

This isn't something I wanted to see after being away for a few days. Looks like I'm probably done with ebay, I will NOT pay those fees. I've done fairly well with my store for the past couple of months even though I have not ran a singel auction people are still buying from me, but I sell low priced items mostly and with the fee increase I won't be making any money.

This really sucks, cause I have been working on a grand re-opening of my store with 500+ items but not no more.

quote:

Originally posted by wayoutwest:


Items listed on China site will show up on other sites, but many know if it's a china listing it's a fake or fraud so wont buy from there. And, you have to be able to read chinese to sell on site (plus be able to accept payments in yuan/RenMinBi -- chinese currency -- and be willing to ship to China)

There's the "loophole" I was trying to dig up from the depths of my gray matter..that you the seller MUST be able to accept payment in whatever country currency you're selling in.

I staunchly refuse to open up to selling in China or Japan. There's so much fraud and I experienced over 3 months of BS, attempts to hack and more last year due to Asian buyers that wouldn't pay up.

I will sell internationally with no qualms with the exception of Japan and China.

Thanks Steve!
Donna

quote:

Originally posted by AngelLisa:
This really sucks, cause I have been working on a grand re-opening of my store with 500+ items but not no more.

Time to work on your free store Lisa.

AND getting your own website up and going.

We're here to help you as you well know we will.

Hope all is going well for you,
Donna