So they want Websites but.......

[Alana]

http://forums.ebay.com/db...1&threadID=1000588536

Why are they not willing to do the work and seek the solutions.


Ah....I guess I am feeling better, totally crabby with this thread this morning.


Oh Well


Alana

[2boysandtoys]

Hey Alana - it's OK to be crabby here ----- that's what makes it so 'cool'!!!  You have a couple schools of thought here ----

1 - They are like me, scared to death to fail, clueless on where to start, therefore do nothing.... :rollieyes:

2 - They just like to hear themselves BMW (B!TCH, MOAN, and  WHINE) - and aren't very driven to make a change.

Crab along girlfriend, crab along!! 

[Alana]

Thanks Erin!

I know it is scary and hard stuff to figure out, honest I do, otherwise I would not waste my time sharing what I can.  Just that I see that old Ebay mentality, the best place in town is EBay stuff over and over and it is so frustrating.


I don't know when it was that I read somewhere over there a few months back that someone was so happy with her sales on Ebay for her porcelian figurines that she would never consider leaving but wishes her 600 a month fees would decrease some, but she gave tons of advice that you have to run auctions, and she runs at least a 100 a week. 

So figure in the cost of her product and fees, and well...I just do not get the big picture, so I must be missing something.


Alana

[2boysandtoys]

I'm convinced that a decent percentage of sellers on ebaY do NOT understand their total cost structure.  With the way the bills are 'viewed' vs. the 'paypal' - I think they get all wrapped up in the sold cost, and forget all else....otherwise - if they really 'got it' - they would NOT stay!!

 

I don't have those answers but hope they do wake up some day soon!!  :beers1: :bye7:

[vinewood]

 

.  With the way the bills are 'viewed' vs. the 'paypal' - I think they get all wrapped up in the sold cost, and forget all else....otherwise - if they really 'got it' - they would NOT stay!!

erin  and   alana   ppl on E  must  look at the big pic and not  the  10-13%   E    takes   including   pp   

[moonwitch60]

I have just had re-enforced what I thought about leaving ebay and setting up my own store - which has only recently opened.

I just googled one of my products (barbie watch pink)

First links to come up were a bunch of Amazon ads - which click through to my listings there - then a site I've never heard of - then mine!!!!!!!

My site came up on the front page of the google search and it hasnt been on-line a month yet.

Not only that - but there isnt an ebay listing above my store.

I wont be going back to ebay any time soon - not to sell at any rate.

[2boysandtoys]

moonwitch - that's like super cool - congratulations on your quick and rapid success!!!   

[QUILT]

Yikes!  Your all talking about me like I'm not here.  I'M HERE!!!!!    Don't wanna be there, but am in the process of making changes.  Wish they would happen sooner.       Love ebay~hate the fees. 

[Alana]

I think for whatever reason and hopefully it is that your making money on Ebay, people will stay there. I also think there is a certain sense of false security in believing that Ebay is the only game in town.

I think it's hard to understand that there is a whole other world out there that do not shop on Ebay and never see your product. If people selling on Ebay are already concerned about the search issues over there and they aren't anywhere else to see if their product will be seen or sold, how are they able to know what is outside of Ebay?

What struck me on this particular thread is that it seems there are a lot of people who are searching elsewhere to build their business, but aren't looking for the answers in the right places.

It's like asking someone on an Ebay board what is going on with the price of eggs in China.  You would think the answers would be best found on a board on produce in China. 

Threads like this make me feel like I am reading, things suck here, how is everywhere else?  Then you get responses from everyone who is there and not everywhere else. Why not go to "everywhere else" and seek the answers there?

Then there is the ones who say, yeah I opened a site on Prostores and I don't see any results, you go look at their Prostores and find they have nothing under the hood in their websites to make it work.  No meta tags, not even a description or title tag, no keywords.  You do a Google on the name of their site and the only thing that comes up is their front page which says my home, policy page, contact me. That is how Ebay works, you do nothing, just list your product.  You can't do that on a website.

That is not how websites work. I just think that the only way to gain back control of your business if it's not doing well on Ebay is to leave Ebay and put some time and effort into seeking alternative solutions. There is a wealth of information out there but there seems to be that community sense or something that keeps people who are truly suffering in their business from leaving.

Is that why Ebay is still on top of the auction list?  Because people are stuck and fear leaving? If that is the case, they could literally throw away their business because they don't want to search alternatives. So what I am seeing is no matter what, the mind frame is set and they either do or die on Ebay.

Then this thread is over four pages long, about alternatives but it's on an Ebay thread. I don't know, seems to me that if they are looking for an alternative site and it is a website they want, they need to understand the dynamics and process of setting one up. Go to those forums and find out.

If they are looking for alternative sites to list and sell on they should check out those alternatives and seek those answers.  why stay on an Ebay thread to find the answers. That is like saying hi everyone, I was wondering what is going on outside and how everything is out there.  People will respond, but why not go out and find out and personally experience it? 

I sell vintage collectibles, I do not want to sell them at a flea market site that offers one of a kinds for .99 cents. I want to sell them somewhere where people come to my site to find vintage collectibles only.

People are on Ebay for a lot of different reasons, but it's got to be profitable for them and or they really need to search somewhere else.

I just don't see seeking solutions on an Ebay board about other options really going all out to commit to that change in their business. It is going to take a whole lot of learning and a whole lot more info than what they will get on an Ebay board.

I don't hate Ebay, it just doesn't work for me the way it used too. I don't want to sound like I am bashing Ebay. I am just not getting why people are so scared to move if things aren't working for them there.  I know it's a tough decision but I guess if your not making sales and not producing the results you want, why not take the plunge and find alternatives?


Alana

[QUILT]

You make some great points Alana and I am very happy to see that you are feeling better.

I know why people sell on ebay, because it is easy.  Simple as a matter of fact.  All you have to do is fill in the blanks and ebay templates pretty much take care of the rest of it.

Having you own website is a wonderful thing, but you really have to know what you are doing when you get one and you truly better have people you can rely on once it is up and running.

I have been blessed and have a great group of people around me who are wonderful when it comes to getting me out of trouble.  That being said it didn't happen over night and my growing pains still hurt.

As for ebay posters must of them look at the end result. "Oh look I listed this and it sold for that".   Never counting the time and energy it took to get the product in the first place and then list it.  A lot of people never look at their listing fees, posting fees, final value fees, relist fees and even their paypal fees when the sale is all said and done.  If they took a closer look they would see that pretty much they did alot of work in order to pay someone to take their item. 

I do monitor my fees and it makes me sick 

I intend to continue to drive traffic to my own website and in the future hopefully the fee sucker with be a thing of the past.  Until then I continue to gain as much knowledge as possible and work towards becoming truly independant.

[Alana]

It has been a while since I opened a store on Ebay, and when I first started making templates, my brain went straight to Ebay to sell them on.  But within a week, I just could not motivate myself to keep going and making them.  Something just stopped in me, I had no motivation.  Then I got my first Ebay bill from that store which has only been there since September. $35 bucks, for at that time 11 template listings. Didn't sell any, paid store fees and called my instructor who is teaching me how to make these. I said why am I back on Ebay?  Her response was because your addicted and love it.


I had to think about that, am I addicted and love it? Slept on it and called her back and said, as soon as these last auctions end, I am out of there.  How do I get the Ebay code out of there to make these templates compatible for any venue?  I got a couple more hours before these auctions close, and I am out of there.  The thrill is gone.  The templates are on my website for now. I just can't feel the same I used to feel about Ebay. 

I know why people sell on ebay, because it is easy.  Simple as a matter of fact.  All you have to do is fill in the blanks and ebay templates pretty much take care of the rest of it.

That is so true, but you can not leave ebay and think you can do the same on a website.  You have to do the research or the website will probably fail. Then the message triggers the ones who say, "I have a website, it gets no traffic, that is why Ebay is the best place in town, all the traffic is here".

No all the traffic is not there, half the time I can't find anything I am searching for on Ebay by keyword search. That alone turns into a complicated learning process just to find the stuff your looking for.

If you go to google and do a search for vintage hats, you will see Ebay listings, but if you click them they take you to tons of vintage hats, not a specific sellers vintage hat.  If you click on a website for vintage hats, you are now on a page with a vintage hat on it. Your there, and you do not have to search through 40,000 vintage hats by 40,000 different sellers.  How much time did you save?

So, I guess the bottom line is how bad do you want to make your business stand out and how much work are you willing to do to learn how to do that? 

Alana

[QUILT]

Oh you motivate me so much to keep working on my own website.  Hope others are reading this as well and know there is more out there is you look for it. 

[Baysbeauty]

I am one that still has my eBay Store but only hold certain products.  I see the market going towards people now going towards websites to buy instead of eBay, however there is still that huge percentage that will continue to go to eBay to shop because E is Big and all over in advertisements.  We must keep in mind that the buyer does not know what us sellers know about eBay and that keeps them going there. 

Keep in mind that buyers are becoming more trusting going to a website now a days than what they did before, so I have full faith in the growth of my website.  I noticed with all my correct keywords & metatags, that my site was up and running on search engines in less than 2 weeks when I opened it up.  It is a lot of work making sure that you have all the essentials in making it work but I feel in the long run, I will have my pay off and be able to get away from eBay all together.

There is so much to learn and I think I'm only a teeny tiny bit there but at least I took the leap and I'm trying to make it work. 

I was a Silver Powerseller selling over $3,000.00 a month, most times having 50 to 100 items up for auction at all times, then all the big fee hikes came and now I have nothing up for auction and haven't in over a month.  Only when I get a good deal on auction listings will I put my things there.  Granted I miss the everyday going to the post office with postal boxes full with packages to be mailed off to my customers, but I know that day will come again but this time to my website.  We must have faith.

My thoughts on keeping my eBay Store are purely to drive the traffic to my website.  eBay has much more traffic than I do so for now it is where I need to be to get these sales to my site.  It is working!!  However I do always send out business cards, refrigerator magnets, discount codes on a post card, and something I just started is my newsletter.  It is working for me, it's been slow but I have had to learn from mistakes that I have done to do the next right thing.

Once in a while we need to go into our site and check those key words, metatags, alt tags, etc.  Also I'm a firm believer in getting yourself out there in other ways as well.  Blogs are great, MySpace is great, Kaboodle is driving traffic to my site, Squidoo is good and The Top 100 List's is also working.  Get your backlinks out there, that is so important.   

[Alana]

Bays: I think your stuff is new, and when I figure the cost of gas and the economy etc etc and find a seller online that sells a product I want and can reorder from, you bet I am going there.  It works.

I still remember my first online website sale.  It was scary, didn't know these people from Adam.  I bought 25 pounds of parrot food and spent around 65 dollars and I was scared.  I googled them.  I had also miscalculated my bird food and living in a rural area, no way I was going anywhere but Madison to get this brand and that was a 2 hour drive. 

Not only are these people still my bird food suppliers, but they are absolutely amazing to deal with.  Their site still doesn't rank well and when you view source, the code isn't all that great.  Doesn't matter, because their service is tops!  I think the more we get out there and let people know we are there, more and more people will find us.

Yes Ebay has some high traffic and it can be great for marketing website sales.

I found out a year ago, that selling my collectibles on Ebay is not a good choice for me, for what I sell. It is not cost effective.

There is a pet clothing store on Ebay that sells new pet clothes that I have been buying from for years. If she had a website, I would be there.  Unfortunately, she doesn't but she gives excellent customer service and I won't leave her.

I have pugs, they are square, they do not fit into round clothing.  This seller spent a lot of time with me to work on sizing for my pugs that would actually give me the sizes best for their square bodies.  Now that I know this, I could order their sweaters at another pet store, but she went out of her way for me and I am dedicated to her for that.

So Ebay does offer repeat buyers and better options for many things.

I had a buyer who bought an apron from me for 15 dollars, said she could not find any vintage aprons at all on Ebay that day and was glad she found me. I went over to Ebay put in the keywords and found hundreds of them.  Some buyers are just not having good searching experiences on Ebay anymore. 

I had to find them by manupulating the search some, but how many buyers know how to do that?


Alana