Re: New Question: E-bay / Marketing / Sales

We sell on ebay because it is simple, at least to us. We can use pay pal and the cost of promoting what we sell and the people it reaches are better than we could do on our own. We also co not have to have amerchant account to take credit cards. All of our websites are in search engines, but people would have to know what they were looking for and go only there. People browsing on the site almost find us by accident. I also like to beble to look t the feedback on purchasers. We have recently had 2 blunders happen, and both were fixed. The blunders were what others did, not us. I was a shopper before I was a seller and really liked it. I like the whole idea of it. What we really like is the ability to control when our auctions end. And being able to end all transactions on Sunday night, and have 1 shipping day per week. I guess we could do that anyway, but we like being able to reach so many people. I am about to launch myself as a clothing seller. Rainbow

I agree about the exposure. Ebay is essentially a way to do inexpensive advertising to a huge, international market.

You might like to know that it's possible to put paypal buttons on your own website, if you want to. I've got them all over my site and Dave's, too.

Laura

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.compuppies (Dr. Sooz) :

]You can do that on eBay -- stick with the stores.

????????

i'm sorry - you'll have to 'splain that one, Lucy.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.compuppies (Dr. Sooz) :

]Start doing eBay.

that wasn't quite the kind of thoughts i was talking about. i was more wondering "why" this is happening and ways to work with it WITHOUT doing E-bay. i'm just not up to that right now.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.compuppies (Dr. Sooz) :

]If you go to the stores on eBay, you can usually just buy stuff. No bidding ]against other people.

ah - okay - i didn't understand that - thanks.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

Hi Sooz and Moonfancy - I finally came back. It's a lot different here than three years ago.

A few of us are considering a co-op venture on eBay, and would appreciate any suggestions.

-=JR=-

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.compuppies (Dr. Sooz) :

]None of these things are up for competitive bidding. It's all Buy It Now only.

okay - i'm still confused. to USE the "buy-it-now" you still have to register with E-bay, correct?

Kandice only has finished pieces in her store and Marjean's store completely confuses me, because it says "buy-it-now", but then it says not to use E-bay's checkout.

i KNOW i can just e-mail Nicole with items i need, but . . .

i'll figure something out . . .

my original question was why people abandoned selling on their own sites.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

doing E-bay.<

Vicki, I'm as puzzled as you are. EBay has gotten so HUGE as to be extremely difficult to find things (I don't even look at beads there anymore unless they are posted here, LOL), and lots of stuff isn't getting bids right now. If I were selling beads, I'd be more than happy to do it without paying auction fees, FWIW!

Carol in SLC My new stuff:

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from snipped-for-privacy@aol.comnospam (Carol in SLC) :

](I don't even look at beads there anymore unless they ]are posted here, LOL)

yep - and then i go looking for the site that isn't on E-bay.

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

You know, I go to eBay to find new glassworkers, etc. You've got to do a lot of scanning to find something, and then I usually make a guess as to whether I want to see other things by the same artist.

I would imagine something similar could be accomplished by listings of artists who sell their own works. It could be divided by type of work, and perhaps also by region or state. Does Wet Canvas do that?

Tina

I have a friend who does Ebay as a big part of her income. She has recently started only doing 3 day auctions, listing everything to end on Sunday.

Her rationale is that Ebay is so big people are generally only looking at what's newly listed or going, going, gone. The three day auctions keep her stuff in one of those two places almost the whole time they are up, with less time for customers to shop around and maybe buy elsewhere.

She's selling more stuff, so either it's working or it's coincidence. Too early to tell for sure, but it makes some amount of sense.

Laura

It wouldn't be hard to set up a site that would feature a group of artists, but the trick is in getting the large numbers of buyers to come in to the site.

Laura

I sell on eBay mostly because that's where I get the best prices for my work. I put items in my eBay store for those who want buy it now without the auction hassle. I have auctions for those who like auctions. I use my website as a gateway to my storefront. It's an easy way to get the traffic and customer exposure I need, and it's relatively inexpensive when you consider how much it is to advertise these days. eBay has a huge customer base, and that's what I need. I don't get the same prices at Justbeads or any other auction site, and I don't get the exposure at my web site. I get

time for customers to shop around and maybe buy elsewhere.<

That's a very interesting observation, Laura! I think she might be on to something!

Carol in SLC My new stuff:

Because it's easier on eBay. Registering with eBay is very secure - sometimes a whole lot more secure than sending money through snail mail these days.

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Kandice Seeber" :

]Unfortunately my cupboards are a tad bare right now until the concentrator ]gets here (Tuesday I hope).

ah - so beads WILL get added there???? cool!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Kandice Seeber" :

]Yep - I have an eBay storefront where people can just buy the items I have ]without doing the auctions.

so . . . i can e-mail you for them, rather than going through E-bay?

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "laura" :

]It wouldn't be hard to set up a site that would feature a group of artists, ]but the trick is in getting the large numbers of buyers to come in to the ]site.

do web rings and such help with that?

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)

vj found this in rec.crafts.beads, from "Kandice Seeber" :

]Because it's easier on eBay. Registering with eBay is very secure - ]sometimes a whole lot more secure than sending money through snail mail ]these days.

thanks, Kandice!

----------- @vicki [SnuggleWench] (Books)