ChannelAdvisor parther PIXmania for PixPlace launch
July 2, 2008
If you’re not familar with PIXmania it’s time to find out more. With 6 million regular buyers and 15 million visitors to the site each month they’ve just announced a brand new marketplace - PixPlace.
Now we’re hearing ChannelAdvisor have emailed their sellers inviting them to become one of the first merchants to sell on PIXmania. ChannelAdvisor will be the only company to offer product listing tools and sales management services on PixPlace from launch and are also waiving their fees until 2009.
There are no upfront listing fees and sales commission rates are adapted to the sellers product range. There’s nothing to lose and 15 million reasons to try selling on PIXmania, if you’re interested in selling on PIXmania then register with ChannelAdvisor to become one of the first PixPlace merchants.
eBid to offer eBay import tool
June 7, 2008
Here’s an interesting little snippet from this morning’s eBid newsletter:
With a large influx of new users joining us from other auction sites, we have been asked many times for a way to import auctions from these sites. This is something we have decided to follow up and will soon have the facility ready for use.
Like many eBay sellers, my own objection to trying some eBid listings has mainly been the time I would have to put in to list on another auction site; while I’m unconvinced the sales will justify the effort, I simply haven’t bothered. Offering an easy import tool would undoubtedly encourage me and many others to try some eBid listings, so we’ll be interested to have a look at this when it launches.
eBid also say that May 2008 was “our busiest month ever in terms of sales made by our sellers”. I’m really happy to see them talking about sales made, rather than items listed. It will be interesting to see if the trend continues.
eBay promote free Gumtree listings
June 6, 2008
Browsing the computing category today I was amazed to find (albeit hidden away right at the bottom of the page) an advert saying Find computing items on Gumtree.
Up until now Gumtree has been the black sheep of the eBay family. It’s an eBay owned company that no one at eBay ever seems to mention. After all eBay are in the business of paid adverts so a part of the company that gives adverts away for free is a bit of an anomaly. Encouraging eBay buyers and sellers to trade with no cut for the company just doesn’t sit well with the bean counters 
I’ve never seen a Gumtree advert on eBay before, at least not one which encourages buyers to click to make a purchase, but if you see a similar advert in categories you trade in I’d certainly drop a listing or two on Gumtree.
If you’ve not yet tried Gumtree as a seller you should, it works well with free listing, no final value fees and it gives a pretty good return on the time invested too.
Rumour: uBid coming to the UK?
May 15, 2008
There’s a rumour flying about that uBid may be planning to launch in the UK. uBid have been trading for about as long as eBay in the US, with a record stretching back 10 years.
Their big differentiator is to stand behind everything sold on their site with a 100% Fraud Free Guarantee. uBid have a Certified Merchant program with sellers having to become accredited prior to selling on the site and all buyers are credit approved.
With Overstock already planning to open in the UK the time is ripe for other competitors to make the move. Without a doubt whichever of the largest eBay competitors arrives first will scoop up the cream of sellers leaving the second mover a harder task to win over online sellers.
uBid is aimed primarily at business with excess inventory to shift with seven different plans tailored to a customer’s requirements. Most sales on the site are by uBid themselves, so the site is more akin to Overstock than eBay.
If the rumours are true and uBid are coming to the UK the race is on to see who will be first, uBid or Overstock, or is there another competitor waiting to tap into the UK market?
Multi-channel strategies for selling online
May 8, 2008
A report by JupiterResearch was released today which examines the issues driving multi-channel online selling. The report was commissioned by ChannelAdvisor. The highlight from the executive summary shows that 75% of online retailers surveyed attributed their online multi-channel strategy as a key contributing factor to their success.
Retailers claim that expansion of online channels are meeting their expectations for increased sales and new customer acquisitions. However retailers using multiple channels should be wary of the strain that running multiple channels places on the business processes.
This is something all those who started out selling on eBay should consider - whilst adding their own website, Amazon, Play.com and perhaps Google adwords and Comparison shopping might sound attractive, over-reaching and spreading your business too thinly across multiple channels may be detrimental to growth if introduced too early.
In order to mitigate the complexity of multiple online channel retailing, 55% of retailers outsource some aspects of the business operations. Almost 70% of those outsourcing attribute increased sales (and 65% increased customer acquisition) directly to their outsourced partners.
One of the most interesting parts of the report showed the percentage of total online sales attributed to the different online sources used.
Direct visits to websites, natural search and paid listings contributed almost three quarters of all online sales. Email marketing shouldn’t be underestimated, contributing 13% of online sales. It’s perhaps one of the lowest cost to implement (especially with shops email marketing tools on eBay). Comparison shopping in contrast was only thought to contribute 3% of sales but is used by 34% of retailers. This is one area the report falls down as it fails to explain why so many retailers use a channel for which so few sales are attributed.
Read more
QXL closes site & withdraws from UK
May 6, 2008
The online auction site QXL have announced that they are to close and withdraw from the UK marketplace. qxl.co.uk will close for business this month, with final date to list an item being Friday this week.
Final bids/buys will take place on the 19th May, and trading will cease on the 30th May at which point all accounts will be closed.
QXL have traded in the UK for as long as eBay have opened in 1997. Their name was changed to Tradus with QLX as an operating brand and were acquired by Naspers in a deal finalised in March this year.
QXL are the dominant auction platform in Poland, Switzerland, Norway and Denmark, but hasn’t been a serious contender to eBay in the UK for the last six years or so.
With the purchasers of QXL deciding to shut the platform down it’s likely to give a boost to the remaining eBay competitors - eBid, Tazbar and Cqout. The question remains how long they too can continue profitable operations in the UK?
US start-up takes on eBay
April 29, 2008
A new startup is being billed as the marketplace that will rival eBay. Launched in public beta today, though apparently only open to US residents, Wigix is aiming for the Buy It Now, new items end of the market. The site, whose name stands for “want it get it exchange”, offers a stock exchange-type price matching mechanism, where buyers and sellers can add their desired prices for items, and the system will notify both parties when there is a match. Wigix will offer a ticker showing recent transactions and prices, hoping to entice browsers to become sellers.
No fees on items under $25
As has become the norm with eBay competitors, there is no fee to list on Wigix. Items sold for under $25 are fee-free even when sold. From $25 up, there is a downwards sliding scale for sellers:
- $1.50 for a sale $25 - $100;
- $1.50 + 2% of the amount above $100 for a sale $100 - $1,000;
- $21 + 1% of the amount over $1,000 for a sale of more than $1,000.
Buyers will - unusually - pay $1.50 per item themselves. This pricing structure obviously tends towards the higher end of the market.
But members also have the opportunity to earn money from the site, without needing to sell a thing themselves. Those who add new products into Wigix’s Amazon-style inventory, will earn 5% of the site’s transaction fees when items are sold from that listing. There’s a great opportunity for someone with a large database of products there…
Members can also become category experts, overseeing product submissions, blogging, posting on forums and dealing with other members’ queries: creating community around their categories. For a fairly hefty time committment, these members will earn 1% of the revenue from their category.
PowerSellers wanted
eBay PowerSellers will be able to import their catalogues into Wigix, and they say that from July, the site will offer store fronts.
I must admit, I’m more impressed with Wigix than with pretty much any “the next eBay” I’ve ever seen. Concentrating on higher-end consumer products rather than trying to take on the breadth of eBay’s marketplace, looks like it may attract experts in the relevent categories, as well as serious buyers and sellers. It’s a shame they’re limiting it to US residents at the moment, but perhaps that will change in time.
Could you sell on Overstock UK?
April 24, 2008
Overstock announced in February that will be expanding to the UK and Europe this summer. I met some of their staff at Catalyst US and today Jake Bailey, Director of International Business at Overstock, gave TameBay the inside track regarding their UK launch.
On the launch date Overstock will ship to International customers through a freight forwarder in the U.S. This initial service will allow UK customers to shop in pounds sterling, with the product shipped from the U.S.
The range of products on sale will not differ too much from what Overstock offer in the U.S. Obviously, some products are just too expensive to ship internationally (like furniture), so these types of issues are being worked through prior to the launch.
Overstock are always looking for additional third-party sellers or “partners”. They are currently seeking international third-party sellers that can ship both domestically and into the U.S. (a UK seller for example, that could fulfill orders in the UK and directly into the U.S.) With the initial launch, they will mainly use sellers from the U.S., but are already seeking international sellers for future expansion. Overstock would welcome any sellers that would have an interest in partnering with them, especially if their products can fill a gap in Overstocks product portfolio. The main qualifier is that the seller offers product to Overstock customers at the best price on the Internet.
When asked if there is a place for the small seller on Overstock, they described themselves as “agnostic to seller size”. What’s most important is that the seller takes good care of customers and supplies product at a competitive price. It also depends on the product category, for example, they would want a partner to keep high stock numbers in a fast-selling DVD, but would be happy for a partner that sells very high-end jewelry to only keep a few items in stock.
Overstock currently work with eBay sellers, Amazon sellers, website owners, traditional Bricks/Mortar outlets and larger manufacturers. They have relationships with ChannelAdvisor and Vcommerce and are exploring others. Many of their partners link directly to Overstock through either through an EDI or Shopping API integration.
Overstock are the most serious competitor to enter the marketplace in recent years. eBay and Amazon are likely to watch developments with interest as sellers rush to partner with their newest competitor.
We’re interested in your views - will you sell on Overstock? Are you a US seller that will be selling to the UK? Are you a UK seller that would like to be selling to the UK and US on Overstock when they launch in Europe?
Selling off-eBay: An experiment
February 28, 2008
I’ve often said eBay has all the buyers, but this week I thought I’d put a couple of alternative venues to the test. I wanted it to be a realistic experiment so I chose two popular sites - eBid and Gumtree. Both met one particular criteria which sellers claim to love - they’re both free to list. Gumtree also has the advantage as a classified ads site of also being free to sell.
First job was to choose which products to list. I purposely chose products which I sell week in week out on eBay and never fail to sell. With the thought in the back of my mind that many sellers claim to make a good income from alternate sites there was a twinge of guilt that I was making the test too easy but starting with top sellers made sense.
I was also conscious that listing on the 18th, the first day of the supposed eBay strike should mean that alternate sites were getting maximum traffic. If ever there was a time to list on these sites it’s when they’re in the media spotlight attracting maximum attention.
So the first listings went up just after 8pm on Monday 18th, one of each on eBay, eBid and Gumtree, starting with a laser printer and a TFT flat screen monitor. At the last minute I decided to lower the price by about 27% on both products for eBid and Gumtree, it seemed a reasonable move as I don’t have previous feedback for sellers to assess me by.
The first sale came in just three hours after listing… but it was on eBay and for the rest of the week eBay sales carried on as normal.
Tuesday saw a couple of TFTs sold on eBay and one on GUMTREE! For a free listing with a sale less than 24 hours later that was a worthwhile exercise. Gumtree kept a steady stream all week selling another TFT and a printer over the weekend. Sadly eBid failed to generate a single sale, in fact it only generated 4 page views on the printer (and two of them were Sue and me) with 19 views on the TFT Screen.
The eBid listings finished on Monday, but Gumtree are still producing sales. I’ve had another email this evening from a buyer wishing to purchase another printer, it appears the adverts have some longevity even without reposting the ad.
So the conclusion from a quick experiment - don’t bother with smaller auction sites where you still have to pay fees, if you want to try an alternative venue try classified ads on Gumtree.
Overstock to expand to the UK & Europe
February 26, 2008
In what’s probably good news for many eBay traders, Overstock CEO, Patrick Byrne, has made public his intentions to cross the Atlantic and gain a foothold in Europe. Overstock aim to be up and running in the UK by summer 2008, and are currently investigating logistics partners to work with.
In the US Overstock is a serious contender to eBay aimed at businesses looking to liquidate surplus or returned inventory. Byrne runs the company by being open to the community and at times berating them, often viewed as controversial he’s passionate about what he does. He’s also a keen advocate of distinguishing auctions from fixed price listings, having once said “Starting price $29.95, Make it Mine @ $30.00. Folks, that is not an auction, that is a classified ad. Our real auctions have disappeared under an ocean of such classified ads, which destroys closing rates for everyone.”
According to reports it’s intended that new offices will be opened in Europe with expansion to Canada controlled from existing US locations. Byrne cites “language, currency differences and tariffs attached to trade across borders” as the main challenges, along with the logistics of shipping products overseas and handling returns back to the US. For this reason they’re looking for a company to partner with in the UK. Byrne will need a local partner who knows the market; he’s probably already upset half the country in referring in his expansion plans to “England” rather than the UK.
Although Overstock are significantly smaller than eBay one thing is certain, they will be watching the Overstock entry into the European market with interest. The serious competition is about to hit the UK.
The Amazon opportunities
February 19, 2008
Amazon is the name at the forefront of many sellers thoughts at the moment. Sales are up, everyone is talking about it, and of course news of the strike supposedly taking place this week is prompting debate on the best sites other than eBay.
ChannelAdvisor’s latest video newsletter tells just why you should be interested in Amazon with a personal testimonial from a client as to how powerful the Amazon Buy Box really is.
Where will the strikers go?
February 8, 2008
I’m not convinced UK sellers have anything to worry about from the changes to eBay fees and feedback about to revolutionise the site. Certainly claims from companies such as eBid that fees will rise up to 67% are simply not true, almost every seller in the UK without exception will be greeted with lower eBay invoices soon, and that’s even if they don’t qualify for volume discounts. I’m still being contacted by sellers who believe that their eBay bills will rise although I’ve yet to find one that will.
Feedback changes appear to be still the biggest concern and doubtless the proposed eBay sellers strike will still go ahead on the 18th - 25th February. The numbers taking part will probably be small compared to the thousands of sellers on eBay today but the big question is where will these sellers go?
No seller large or small can simply afford to lose a weeks income - smaller sellers don’t generally have large funds to fall back on and larger sellers have employees and business premises that need paying regardless of income.
I’ve looked at the traffic for the main four alternative auction sites in the UK and with just ten days before the proposed strike you might expect to see an increase in activity as sellers prepare to list inventory but that’s not the case.
According to Alexa there is no discernable increase in traffic to these sites, and in fact hasn’t been for the whole of the last year.
Visiting the alternative sites doesn’t inspire confidence either, entire categories are berefit of products, and if competitors aren’t listing there already it’s for one reason alone - there aren’t any buyers. Buyers simply aren’t visiting alternative auction sites and are the most important commodity eBay has to offer. Whilst sellers might decide to list elsewhere it’s unlike they’ll be able to support their businesses on these sites. The only serious contender as an alternative is still Amazon.
If strikers are hoping to replace their income from other sources they’re going to find it difficult, the alternative is to simply give up a weeks income and that’s something not many can afford to do.
Tazbar seize the day
January 31, 2008
I’ve just received an email from Tazbar: they’re obviously keen to grab the business of any disaffected eBay sellers while they can:
Search results are not affected by any form of hierarchy based on seller feedback. … Every seller can benefit from whatever level of membership they choose, thus giving the smaller seller the same opportunity and rate card as the larger seller. … It is by helping the small to medium size seller that we feel we will get this diverse product range. This isn’t to say we don’t welcome large volume sellers. … It is as level a playing field as we can create.
Whoever you are, we love you.
However, what really tickled me was this paragraph:
Tazbar operates a time served traditional Feeback system with a simple Positive, Neutral or Negative option. This is applicable for both buyers and sellers.
We’ve said time and time again that Tazbar and eBay’s other competitors need to work on attracting buyers. In that context, what a great message: “come and buy on Tazbar, where you can still get negged”. 
Yahoo! and eBay team up in Japan
December 4, 2007
eBay are going back to Japan having pulled out of the territory in 2002. This time however they’re not going it alone but will partner with Yahoo!
By March next year the Japanese will be able to bid for items listed on eBay through Yahoo! Auctions, and in a reciprocal arrangement by the middle of 2008 US eBay users will be able to bid for Yahoo Japan auction items through the eBay. Meg Whitman said of the deal, “We are excited to partner with Yahoo Japan in providing Japanese users with localized site designed to enable them to shop on the eBay marketplace with ease and convenience”.
It’ll be interesting to see how the differences between the site mesh, and how clear it will be if an item is listed on eBay or Yahoo! One thing is for sure though, and that’s that a whole load of new buyers and sellers in Japan will be accessing eBay in their own language.
To attract even more Japanese buyers a new site called Sekaimon is being jointly launched. A collaboration between Yahoo! and eBay the Sekaimon site will translate items on listed on eBay into Japanese and help with payments, shipping and customs clearance for Japanese shoppers. Sekaimon literally means “Global Shopping”, which is after all eBay’s ultimate aim.
Where eBid have got it right
November 21, 2007
The good news for me is that I won my beanie hat. The good news for you is that vzaar have bunches more eBay swag for auction for Children in Need, so grab your chance.
eBay t-shirt, by Skypephone
All of which got me thinking about eBay merchandise, and wondering just why it’s so damn hard to get hold of. If you shell out £49 to go to eBay University, you’ll get an eBay pen, and possibly an A4 pad with the logo in the corner. You’ll also get the opportunity to pay for a mug, or a fleece. And that’s your lot. If you go to Live, you’ll see grown adults fighting over eBay-branded pins: why restrict that to just three days a year? eBay’s own merchandise store won’t ship outside the US. I don’t get it: if people want your advertising so much they’re prepared to pay for it, why stop them having it?
If I were eBay, every buyer of a car on eBay Motors would get a bumper sticker with “I bought this on eBay” written on it. Cost in money, about 50p a pop: value in free advertising, priceless.
eBid, on the other hand, have actually got this about right. eBid run their own eBid store, where you can either pay money for eBid merchandise, or spend your “buddy points” (sorry guys, -10 for that name), which you earn by referring friends and buying on the site. I might never say this again, but eBay could well take a leaf out of eBid’s book.
PayPal discount from BT Tradespace
September 11, 2007
BT Tradespace are ramping up their efforts to attract new sellers with a joint PayPal promotion.
The offer is only open to BT Tradespace customers without an existing PayPal account.
It’s not often that PayPal offer new customers a discount over and above their normal rates (3.4%+20p per transaction). For them to do so shows how serious they are about growing their business off eBay. For any TameBay readers that are thinking of selling on eBay I’d recommend opening a BT Tradespace account to take advantage of the introductory offer.
For any existing sellers who already have a PayPal account visit the PayPal fees page, if you have received more than £1500.00 through PayPal in the last month. You too can receive an ongoing PayPal merchant rate discount based on your turnover.
BT Tradespace add marketplace with PayPal
August 15, 2007
It’s six months since Dan reviewed BT Tradespace while it was still in beta testing. There’s been lots of development since then and the site is starting to feel more mature.
The latest news is that they’ve added trading capabilities, now you can list goods and services directly on your BT Tradespace. When a user searches they can now click the “offers” tab and buy directly from the site. Payment is with PayPal, so it should be simple for all eBay sellers to get up and running. There are two subscription levels:
- Basic is free and allows you to list up to five items with a 5% final value fee.
- Contact is a premium service which not only allows potential customers to phone you for free, but allows you to list unlimited items with a 3% final value fee. There’s a monthly fee of £15/mth
There’s still a few things I don’t like about the site, the most important being the lack of a “Sign in” button on the BT Tradespace homepage. You can “Sign up” for a new account, but if you have an existing account you need to type in your own Tradespace URL to access your information. They’ve yet to link the new information in the sidebar regarding PayPal too.
Overall it’s still a new marketplace, but definately one eBay sellers should keep a watchful eye on. If you sell products and services primarily to businesses and you’ve not signed up to reserve your BT Tradespace URL I’d recommend you do, after all it’s largely a free site unless you sign up for additional services.
You think there’s shit on eBay? Wait til you see this!
August 7, 2007
I’m always fascinated by niche auction sites which spring up from time to time. Many are born from the desire to escape the clutches of eBay and simply provide an alternative venue, normally with lower fees in mind. Now and again a new site crops up which is bound to succeed as it truly serves a niche market. It never occured to me there was a thriving market for manure though!
Drum Roll: Pennsylvania Manure Trader
Yes that’s right, a site dedicated to trading in crap, the real stuff! Apparently the story goes State regulations prevent muck spreading with manure produced on site, so there’s a real requirement for farmers to swap their dung with their neighbours. The Pennsylvania Small Business Development Centers developed the site enabling farmers to find alternative uses for excess manure. It’s working too, there’s already a wanted add for 400 tons of chicken poo.
If you’re ever thinking of starting up a new site remember Manure Trader, they have a market for the products sold, sellers have a never ending supply of fresh produce and one mans crap really is another mans gold.
I wish I’d thought of the title for this article but the honours go to Sue
ChannelAdvisor Insite Conference booking now open
August 1, 2007
ChannelAdvisor have announced the 2007 Insite Conference dates for the UK, and if you haven’t attended previously and are serious about building your ecommerce business then I’d highly recommend attending.
The events will focus on areas key to expanding your business both on and off eBay. The agenda covers topics such as eBay, Amazon Seller Central, Google Checkout, PayPal Express Checkout, Paid Search Marketing and Shopping Comparison. There’s time for networking over lunch and a further networking reception (with drinks) in the evening.
ChannelAdvisor hold many events throughout the course of the year including online seminars and the annual Catalyst Conference. The Insite Conferences are designed for small groups to encourage networking and group discussions. Spread around the country in Bristol, London, Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham and Dublin there’ll be an event near you.
I attended Insite last year and it was a throughly productive day. All too often it’s easy to get caught up in the day to day running of your business. It’s well worth setting aside just one day this year to review the industry and how you can move your business forward. If there’s just one event that you attend this year’s Insite would be a great choice to make a positive impact on your business.
e2bid trumps eBay with Klass bikini
July 13, 2007
Last December Myleene Klass gave her white bikini to the Sun newspaper to auction for those who lost out in the Farepak debacle. The sale raised £7000 and now the James Whale Fund for Kidney Cancer are hoping to raise a similar sum with the auction of her red bikini which Myleene has signed.
Myleene donated and signed the bikini when she was a guest on James Whale’s talkSPORT radio show on Tuesday 3rd of July 2007. It is signed “It’s A Jungle Out There…. Myleene Klass”
This auction is not however running on eBay but is sure to raise the profile of e2bid who are hosting the auction. e2bid are an auction site dedicated to raising money for charity. All profits from the site go to charity as well as from sale of items listed to specifically benefit a charity. e2bid aim to raise their profile through the charities themselves advertising auctions and definately the Myleene auction will be a draw for bidders.
Competing with eBay - a winning formula
July 6, 2007
Thousands of IT security consultants online find flaws with software and to date have little recompense for their expertise. That’s all going to change with a new auction site - WabiSabiLabi Ltd. They have created an online marketplace where researchers, security vendors and software companies can interact in an open market to enable researchers to obtain the correct value for their findings.
Up until now anyone that found a security vulnerability had little choice but to inform the software vendor for little or no compensation, or give in to the temptation to sell the information to hackers. Now they’ll be able to offer their findings to the highest bidder. All researchers and bidders will have to verify their identity to WabiSabiLabi prior to buying or selling on the site to ensure that they’re legitimate, on the site they’ll only be known by their user name.
The project driven by researchers who felt they weren’t obtaining the best prices for their work, and will gain a following from similar researchers along with companies who need to buy the information. It’s often been said that there will never be another eBay but successful alternative auctions sites will be niche marketplaces, this is a perfect example of one that could be a huge sucess.
Ubid but you don’t ever win
July 5, 2007
Something strange is going on over on the eBay rival Ubid, they have auctions with winning bidders but they don’t let them win!
Basically Ubid have a facility to combat sniping - if someone places a bid in the last in the last ten minutes of an auction the end time is extended by ten minutes to allow other potential buyers to increase their bids. Ubid call this feature Overtime.
Something appears to have gone badly awry - auctions with bids aren’t ending even though no new bids have been placed. Dave Taylor describes his frustration at being the only bidder, the auction time ticking down just to be extended again and again. Overtime appears to have gone into overdrive! Four and a half hours after the auction should have ended (still without any new bids!) Dave gave up and clicked the BUY IT NOW button to end his misery. Now he’s paid $60 over the winning bid price I wonder when he’ll be using Ubid again.
Not exactly a great user experience which makes me thankful eBay have hard end times on auctions. Buyers know how long they have to get their bids in and should bid the maximum they’re willing to pay. However it’s often mooted that giving bidders a chance to bid again increases final selling prices.
What do you think? Extend auctions or stick to a set end time?
Mightydilemma
July 2, 2007
MightyBids.com the Canadian auction site that tried to sell itself on eBay has failed to find a winning bidder. The highest bid of a touch under fifty grand ($97,601.00 / £48,647.26) wasn’t enough to reach the reserve (even though the seller had previously lowered the reserve price).
The question is where do they go next? They received a bid of close to a dollar a member. The site is back online after a code update which was poorly timed to coincide with the auction. The previous staff of 22 were let go prior to the site being put up for sale, but the owners have had enough having reached their stated goal which was simply to prove that they could create a site to compete with eBay.
There’s really only a couple of options open to the owners - stick with the site and develop it further, or try again to find a buyer. As they’ve already stated they are starting new business ventures and don’t want to focus on MightyBids.com keeping the site isn’t realistic for them, or the users of the site. Selling it will prove troublesome, a market value has been set so selling either on eBay or an alternative venue is unlikely to find a buyer willing to pay significantly more, certainly not without a full due dilligence process and financial information being made available.
If it was me I’d be inclined to make a second chance offer to the high bidder and run with the money.
Ask Dan : bringing users to your auction site
June 28, 2007
Dan Wilson, author of “Make Serious Money on eBay UK and Beyond
“, online community expert and ex-Community Manager of eBay UK, hosts the first of his “Ask Dan” feature on eBay. If you have a question about buying or selling on eBay, post your question on the “Ask Dan” thread in the TameBay forum and he’ll offer his expert advice. Questions can be anything related to eBay, trading online and online communities. If you want to know, ask the expert.Question from 0ctavia: Do you have any advice to offer non-eBay auction sites / niche markets which you think could make them more attractive to potential users?
Dan answers:
Building any online community is dependent on two things: people and the platform. Perhaps ironically, eBay has proved that people are in fact more important than the platform (the website). eBay has never been the whizziest, sexiest most beautiful site but it did attract people and the people attracted more people and the virtuous cycle of buyers attracting sellers attracting buyers was established.
With the new sites emerging it’s noticeable that they seem to focus on what they don’t like about eBay and that typically means fees. The sites crow about how they are cheaper but the simple fact is they’re only going to get traction if they concentrate on what people like about eBay.
It’s too easy to say “the fees are too high” but with circa 10 million live listings and hundreds of millions of pounds of sales a month it’s fairly obvious that they are tolerable. Lower fees might attract some sellers, but it’s irrelevant to buyers: one eBay-a-like site actually has their ‘low fees’ message in the most prominent placement on their homepage. If I was a seller on that site I’d be crying out that they change that to a message that spoke to buyers. (Could eBay fees be lower? Certainly, but that’s a discussion for another day.)
So my advice to sites that want a bit of the eBay action is to form a plan and understand what sellers AND buyers like about eBay and take it from there.
Buyers First!
When envisaging your site do it from a buyer’s perspective. There’s very little point building a site that’s suited perfectly to sellers or based around sellers’ grievances.
It’s about sales, stupid.
People care about sales and will pay for sales so how are you going to attract them? Very few of the ‘pretenders’ have managed to get cut through on a marketing front and it’s essential because eBay is a world-class marketing machine. PR and word of mouth are the most powerful levers.
What can you do better than eBay?
You can’t out-eBay eBay, so don’t try. But you might be able to do something better. Is it about going niche? (Etsy is a good example). Can you enhance the experience of buying?
Listen
eBay are actually very good at understanding their customers: from the community boards, using research such as focus groups and surveys and also by analysing site usage behaviour, they are pretty switched on. Make sure that you’re listening and most importantly be prepared to make changes.
eBay £1.7bn cash, eBay alternative worth $9.00
June 26, 2007
Rosalinda Baldwin The Auction Guild values MightyBids.com as worth little more then the cost of registering it’s URL. That’s in comparison to eBay with almost unlimited cash reserves. That valuation jives with the current bid of $25,100.00 that’s been placed on the auction sale of MightyBids.com which is perversely selling itself on eBay - the site it was set up to compete with. So will the buyer be getting value for money? Well with 44 bids the reserve hasn’t been met so the seller obviously thinks the site is worth more (Although the reserve has been lowered it’s still not met).
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Recent Comments
- Whirly: #3 you don’t deserve one after having a 1p listing festival you jammy blighter.
- Chris Dawson: #1 I didn’t get a voucher either
If anyone has one and wants to spend it with me... - northumbrian: the only fault with that bling thing is if anything it makes the item look to good
- faculty-x: us techies are honoured at the mo from ebay or the ones that have dropped off ebay the most, us...
- faculty-x: bling looks excellent, must get a copy. been messing around with coral for years, should save ages. so...
- Whirly: No voucher for me which is a pain as I need some stuff I know a buyer who will get one, he likes...
- Whirly: #2 If you build the fee’s into your sale price I think it’s a justifiable expense, we regularly...
- Trish Connolly: I need to dissagree with part of your statement. You say, “I’ve met many buyers who are more...
- J R: if we sell something for £500 there is no way we would be willing to give ebay £50 plus Paypal fees, there...
- Whirly: lmao
