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Jeff

As you are probably now aware, quote from AuctionBytes today 29th Jan 2008 :-

"eBay will announce today that beginning in May, sellers will no longer be able to leave negative or neutral Feedback for buyers."

And the comments from sellers are already flowing in stronge terms, please don't be dragged under with them, please bring in support for other sites like the UK's Tazbar and SpecialistAuctions. Smile
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I am another seller that would like to see auctiva support another avenue for sellers to use """besides""" ebay. The fact that sellers will only be able to leave positive feedback for buyers destroys the """two way street"""" concept. While there are some GREAT new ideas, (lower insertion rates, free gallery and multiple feedback) has everybody realized that the final value fees are changing also and they ARE NOT GOING DOWN.
auctiva is a GREAT way to list your items and pictures. I have referred several people to this site because it is user friendly. My friends and I are not power sellers so the listings do not pay the rent. I started doing this because it was FUN.....IT'S NOT FUN ANYMORE. Frown
quote:
free gallery

We don't get that in the UK Frown

Yes Ms M greedbay have a strangle hold on some markets for sure at least I can move some stuff now but on some sites you cannot afford to auction an item if it only gets one bid where on greedabay there can be a tustle which pushes the price up.

Certainly items I would put out fixed price can be sold elsewhere with much less overhead even if it takes longer. Smile
Cute little feepay cartoon from ioffer herehttp://www.ioffer.com/feepay
I already had an account with ioffer and just imported my ebay ratings and listings with Mr. Grabber; I registered with ola.com, ecrater, bidville, and will look around for more. There's google checkout to give paypal a run for its money. I hope auctiva starts playing ball with the little guys, too. There's always amazon for the barcoded items if you don't mind the high commissions.
The problem with those sites is they give you zero buyer traffic. eBay can change what they do and treat sellers how they do because they bring you buyers. It's pretty much as simple as. that.

That ioffer cartoon has got to be close to 3 years old now. What that tells me is that it means nothing. They are a failure. eBay brings sellers buyers and ioffer really is a nothing. They are zeros. Losers. Time wasters.

As for the eBay stike mentioned by Mouser it was so pathetic that we actually listed more items in the past week during this so called boycot than we have ever done. The boycot was a failure. It meant nothing and achieved nothing.

While many may loathe eBay they remain the best place to sell and the best value for the fees they charged for the traffic they bring. Believe me I'd like to see alternatives as much as anyone else but right now nothing compares. To not list there you are only hurting your own sales and not them.
Nothing ever will compare if we sit around and say "Oh, they're the only ones with the traffic". People left last time they raised fees and became successful on other sites and their own websites. More people are leaving this time - with or without the traffic. Eventually the buyers will come to where the sellers are. And sellers of collectibles and unusual items are not going to be on ebay - they are running them off.
quote:
best value for the fees they charged for the traffic they bring.

Fact of life - fees are proportional to STR.

Ultimately by moving to a few prestige big boys and discarding all the fleas the giants will start calling the shots as they will have more weight than the shareholders.

When greedbay decides it no longer wants anything to do with small sellers and in particular selling second hand goods, antique or otherwise the other sites will no longer have greedbay as competition.

Then another site will grow into its' place, I wonder who, and when ?
Well I sold my first item on OnlineAuction.com. I have accounts at iOffer.com, eBid.net (US), eCrater store, another web store at CityMax.com with my own domain, and so on.

Staying with eBay is letting them win. They'll just keep bullying us with ridiculous rule changes and fees. As corny as it sounds, "If you build it, they will come". So I've put my eggs in different baskets, and doing what I can to drive my traffic to those places.

In the mean time, back on subject; Since Auctiva has done so well with their listing creator/editor, why can't they make one that'll work for all these other places, one with basic HTML and WYSIWYG views? Just take OUT all the eBay reference, and leave openings for whatever venue's links that we put in manually?

I mean, we can almost use Auctiva now that way, simply by changing up the texts in my "Details", and NOT including the built in store links to eBay, but replacing them with HTML links to whatever venue store I have.

A very cool thing would be the ability to change my Auctiva domain to reflect a different site, or allow the uploading of .csv store items, and NOT link to eBay. I just renewed my domain here in January, prior to all the hoopla. As it stands, I have nothing listed on eBay, and therefore nothing in my Auctiva domain site.
I forgot to mention that the other venues' forums are chock full of ex-eBayers asking questions, asking for new categories, etc. The very cool thing is those other venues WANT your business. They are running specials for joining (eBid is $49 for lifetime membership, no annual or monthly fees ever). They listen to your comments and act as quickly as they can to make the changes. OnlineAuction.com (OLA) is very young, and wants experienced sellers and buyers to join up and help them create the site that will beat eBay. iOffer has unique auction types that are very cool, and import eBay items easily (with minimal editing).

If you've watched the huge jump in items listed and total members on these other sites, they've increased 3-10 fold over the last 3 weeks. In the end, some will make it, some won't. IMHO, eBid.net, OLA, iOffer will make it. Etsy is another place for hand made items and has also jumped a huge amount in members and listings.

eCrater is a totally free web store site, with no fees for anything, ever. CityMax charges $20/month, that's it. Only a couple bucks more than eBay, with no other fees, and the store creator application (online) is phenomenal and super easy to use.

If I may, check out my store site for $20/month. Very easy for me to import/upload items or add them one at a time. The options and free offers you get with your paid membership are fantastic.

http://www.davinciscellar.com

(Forum Mods, if this link is not allowed please edit the link out rather than delete the entire post)
First, ChooChoo, thank you for pointing me to this thread.

And Mouser, you have obviously done your homework. At http://forums.delphiforums.com/boycottebay/start it was agreed that a move to specific sites by most of us would be better in that a lot of our built-up customer base would move with us. To that end a poll was taken, and the overwhelming choice was OLA (onlineauction.com). I signed up there and have found them bending over backward to create whatever categories I need, to answer any questions, and some people have even had them call them at home - on a Sunday! - to make sure they'd received answers. We were all in a state of shock to be treated so well.

Overstock.com and iOffer.com tied for second, and Etsy came in third. Etsy, however, is a limited site since it is strictly for handmade goods.

So we are trying to take the bulk of our business to these sites. Of course, one size does not fit all and others have found different sites to suit them better.

And I don't think it sounds corny at all to say "Build it and they will come." I have said it myself in relation to this issue, and it's true. If we help build the smaller sites, those buyers will come.

I also wish that Auctiva would support other sites as well. I really do like using it, and would love to continue using it if possible.

Good luck all!

Debbie
I joined OLA during the boycott. I have found it is not the place for me.

Etsy is a great place for all art and handmade items. They also have a "vintage" category where you can list vintage items of all sorts. There is also a category for listing supplies for arts/crafts.

I have found ebid ($49 for a lifetime membership, no other fees ever!) to be an interesting site.
I am registered on Ewaey.com (odd name I know). I got in just in time to get a free lifetime membership (no fees ever) for just $1. I was going to start listing there but there seems to be very little traffic. A local guy that sells car parts had moved his listings there and has received no bids or questions in at least a couple months. I also checked out other ebay alternatives and there's also FAR fewer items and bidders than on ebay. I know, I know, but ebay is bad about this and that, yadda, yadda.

I have just started to sell on ebay semi-full time. I do agree the fees and no negative fb for buyers is silly. I don't understand it, even if they try to explain it. Some people say it will make sellers work even harder to please and keep away scam artists. I don't know but it seemed to work well. Even still, I feel the good outweighs the bad.

My feeling about all the ebay alternatives is they're, like Jeff said, nothing compared to ebay. There's little to no traffic on 98% of them. I wanted to see what items were being sold in "Home Audio" on Ewaey just recently. Out of the entire category only three items (yes, just 3) popped up. That is absurd if you ask me and just shows where the buyers and sellers really are and will stay regardless of the higher ups foolish decisions.

Also, like someone mentioned on another forum, some of these people are probably making good money just starting these websites. Like if they say free lifetime membership for the first 5000 registrars, with a one time $1 fee, they just made $5k and they can call it quits right there. Again, I'm not experienced enough to talk about this in depth, but these are my thoughts. Take them as you will.
Last edited by wesm
Hi Wes M, everyone knows GreedBay, very few know any others here in the UK, so my present view (as others writing here) is to spread sales over more sites.

Some things will have to stay on GreedBay because of that is where (at present) most buyers are. Elsewhere, for me in the UK I only list in the equivelent of BIN format, sales are slow but the costs are much lower. So cost effective.

It all really depends on what item types you sell, their values and the country you live in to what suits you best, it's an individuals decision based on an individuals business parameters.
quote:
what/when/where will Auctiva do when e goes down the tubes?
eBay will never go down the tubes until a credible competitor arises. If that were to happen then we'd simply support both sites. I'm not at all worried.

quote:
looks like they have the most count
It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean. Or so the saying goes. Basically in this case I'm saying that a ton of listings don't matter, it's the buyers that count. Yahoo Auctions had a million+ items. Of course they were all garbage and there were few buyers. Probably because they went there and the site was loaded with crap because listing was cheap or free. So in my opinion a lot of low quality or overpriced items is actually worse than a site with fewer but higher quality items at more attractive prices.

eBay was lucky, they had that magic mix of the right items and prices from day 1. It was what mostly made them a success. Everyone else tries to come into the market and compete with them simply by having lower fees but they don't get the rest of the stuff that eBay did right.
quote:
cannot be long now before CEO Jeff presents his standalone store

We should have a beta version in the next few months. If I give a date we'd probably just miss it. But hopefully before it starts getting cold outside, lol.

The features are nearly complete and we're working on integrating well with the Auctiva site and our inventory feature. As well as making sure it's easy to use for beginners but the experts can still find the power features. And things like tutorials and templates.
quote:
Originally posted by Auctiva Jeff:
Wow, I must have been in a bad mood last night. That was harsh.

If people keep moving all over the place and not the same place eBay has nothing to worry about.


Whats keeping auctiva from moving to the auction marketplace. You guys have the resouce and the listing tools. Or are you afread of getting booted from ebays aprovied 3rd party tools.

I can' understand why someone hasn't stood up and created a site. I would thro all my business somone elses way it they would try to push ebay out of the way. And im sure so would the majority would too.
I'm happy to say that the beta has begun and several customers are testing it out. If you didn't reply to the call for beta users in our News forum you likely missed out. Thanks to all those who are helping us test.

quote:
Or are you afread of getting booted from ebays aprovied 3rd party tools.
I wouldn't put it past them to do that if we were to begin competing and became any sort of credible threat. I don't think they'd bother us though as long as our relative size remained small.
quote:

I can' understand why someone hasn't stood up and created a site
A lot of people have, they all fail. Even Microsoft and Yahoo tried and failed. It's harder than it seems. Getting the sellers is the easier part, but still hard. Getting a constant stream of buyers is the difficult part.
I disagree with Jeff. eBay Can go down the tubes.

That is the same thing that Atari thought when they were on top of the video game market. They lost it because they took their eyes off the ball.

I think eBay is taking their eyes off the ball. Problem is no one else yet has market share and that comes with advertising... but the more they screw up... they more opportunity someone else will have to step in. I am convinced it will happen eventually, and especially if they continue to make these radical changes too fast and alienate their entire base.
The video game console market is not at all like eBay. About the only similarity is that once you have sold a ton of consoles the game makers come and make a lot of games, which in turn helps you sell a lot of consoles to gamers that want to play all those newly made games. A big difference is that avid gamers demand ever increasing quality games which require new hardware. It's the battle therein over each new generation of consoles where market share is won and lost.

The difference here is nobody is demanding a new console and you the game makers are going to stay right here making games for eBay until a new better console comes along that has just as many game buyers on it as eBay has. Or at least enough to bother trying to make some sales on it. Which to date many have tried and all have failed.

Also I didn't say eBay will never go down the tubes, I said it won't go down the tubes until a credible competitor arises. Which there still isn't.

At this point it looks like we'll be opening up our store beta to more customers in late September. We've received feedback from about 40 of the 200 customers that participated in the first beta and are going to work to incorporate their feedback along with some other additions we wanted to make.
Last edited by auctivajeff
First of all I am so looking forward to a AUCTIVA STORE...

Second of all--eBay "ain't what it useta be" and soon the masses will get the message. It is like comparing oranges to apples now...and it changed so quickly...to rotten apples.

The anology would be like going back to Nordstroms and finding clutter of WalMart stuff everywhere...looking around and thinking "they musta been bought out--I do not have to waste my time here" then leave and never return.

Many buyers will not discover until the winter months that they CAN NOT find "IT" on eBay and will discover new sites. For the sellers--(I am one, cut back my listings and know I need to shuffle fast--the end is coming and I can feel it. It is just so hard to end and start amew.
[QUOTE Originally posted by Auctiva Jeff]

quote:
We should have a beta version in the next few months. If I give a date we'd probably just miss it. But hopefully before it starts getting cold outside, lol.

The features are nearly complete and we're working on integrating well with the Auctiva site and our inventory feature. As well as making sure it's easy to use for beginners but the experts can still find the power features. And things like tutorials and templates.


I just joined the family of Auctiva, and just started posting. Question is, do I continue listing my stuff through Auctiva to EBay or wait. I read where beta testing was going to end around the time it starts getting cold. Well its starting to get cold.
Are you supporting ANY other sites besides Ebay?
I love the ease of using your site BUT CAN NO LONGER list with Ebay. It has become unbearable.

PLEASE hook up with another site.

I believe if all the sellers who already use your site were to go to ANY OTHER site you would support the sheer numbers would be just the thing to knock ebay off their perch.
Pat
Oh and I wanted to say this also. Ebay has refused on so many occasions to listen to its Sellers. The New Best Matched has cause sales by many sellers, myself included to drop by 1/2.

It is time that Ebay learn that you cant treat Sellers so badly. The new way they are doing best match does not work, they say it work off the dsr's , but they just many sellers with poor dsr's out on the 1st pages of the search when excellent sellers find their items in the back with seconds to go till the end of their auctions.

I believe once word gets out about Auctiva and the Beta, It wont be just a few hundred, but more like 2-4 thousand sellers if not more that will jump ship.

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