Why does ebid not have main stream advertising

[baconbuttyman]

I have now been on ebid 10 years, I have had faith in ebid over theyears but sales are stagnent, always have been, its a shame cos ebid can be so much more,, is it happy to trundle alomg, or does it want to be s player in the game.
I have only ever seen two tv ads, sure a better option would be a radio campaign, there must be something it can do, I havnt sold any thing on ebid in a long time, I am sure I am not the only one who thinks this

[cheaver]

I have now been on ebid 10 years, I have had faith in ebid over theyears but sales are stagnent, always have been, its a shame cos ebid can be so much more,, is it happy to trundle alomg, or does it want to be s player in the game.
I have only ever seen two tv ads, sure a better option would be a radio campaign, there must be something it can do, I havnt sold any thing on ebid in a long time, I am sure I am not the only one who thinks this

My eBid experience is quite different to yours after only 3+ years here so I have to disagree with you. There must be reasons for that, neighbour!

[squern]

eBay had a full-page advertisement in the Daily Mail yesterday. It must have cost tens if not hundreds of thousands.

It promoted cut-price new items, the sort of thing that is vailable everywhere - Argos, Amazon, etc.

It would not have been any use to a seller of used, specialised, or non-mainstream items. Or any small seller.

[adruml]

I have now been on ebid 10 years, I have had faith in ebid over theyears but sales are stagnent, always have been, its a shame cos ebid can be so much more,, is it happy to trundle alomg, or does it want to be s player in the game.
I have only ever seen two tv ads, sure a better option would be a radio campaign, there must be something it can do, I havnt sold any thing on ebid in a long time, I am sure I am not the only one who thinks this

This subject has come up once or hundreds of times before. First time I've seen it from a ten year veteran.

From the responses I have viewed I have come up with...

Yes eBid will trudge along.
Members do not want to see increases in fees for advertising budget.
Sellers must treat eBid as a selling platform similar to your own website but according to ebids rules.
Use keywords to expose your items to Google.
The sellers here are responsible for traffic to the site, not eBid.
We never really heard from eBid as to their long term plan although 15 years appears to be long term.

Look at the records (what you can find) of the sellers who have sales and determine if the results interest you then make a decision as to moving forward. I don't believe eBid will change anything but members will/have and the results can be seen.

[baconbuttyman]

eBay had a full-page advertisement in the Daily Mail yesterday. It must have cost tens if not hundreds of thousands.

It promoted cut-price new items, the sort of thing that is vailable everywhere - Argos, Amazon, etc.

It would not have been any use to a seller of used, specialised, or non-mainstream items. Or any small seller.

How can you say it wont help the small seller, if ebay have an add out there it means footfall on the site, something ebid needs, I have started to upgrade ads so fees are paid, I fear that ebid owners are cutting their own throats with free selling oportunities, more revenue means more money for advertising, its a total shame ebid owners dont throw their proverbial hats into the rkng and push it more.

[squern]

The subject of the advert was new consumer electronics items that have been "cut" in price.
For instance;
Panasonic 42" TV £349 (from £499, if you belive it)
De Longhi coffee maker £39.99 (£89.00) (Argos £39.99)
Xbox £349.99 (£399.99)
Qualcast lawnmower and trimmer £66.49 (£99.99)
Stanley Fatmax hammer drill £84.99 (£149.99)

My point was that the average eBid seller is unlikely to have these items, new, hanging around unwanted and unused.
The advert is aimed at the Argos/Amazon market of sold-by-price electronics. Most sellers on eBid are not trying to compete with Argos and Amazon, they are selling personal items, or specialist interest items.

And incidentally it is headed "Up to 50% off RRP" - that mythical number that sellers of these products make up. At a discount of £50 on £399.99, the "saving" is only 12.5%. So misleading as well.

I don't think "footfall" for these items would have benefitted any but the biggest professional sellers.

[baconbuttyman]

I understand you point, wether a seller like you n me has an xbox etc or not, it's got people onto the site, I trade a lot on facebook too, i am always plugging Ebid on there, wether it works or not i will never know, how ever, any publicity is good publicity, in the length of time this place has been open, it should have gained more ground than it has,It would be nice to hear Ebids point of view, the android app is a big step forward and easy to use, needs a bit of polishing up but hey in time??
Radio advertising is a great step forward and wouldmake this place better known,
one thing i have heard through feedback is people think the site is full of scammers etc, I try to explain its more NPB's than rogue traders, (is there a system for reporting NPB's?? any way, i do still think Ebid needs to put it's self out there

The subject of the advert was new consumer electronics items that have been "cut" in price.
For instance;
Panasonic 42" TV £349 (from £499, if you belive it)
De Longhi coffee maker £39.99 (£89.00) (Argos £39.99)
Xbox £349.99 (£399.99)
Qualcast lawnmower and trimmer £66.49 (£99.99)
Stanley Fatmax hammer drill £84.99 (£149.99)

My point was that the average eBid seller is unlikely to have these items, new, hanging around unwanted and unused.
The advert is aimed at the Argos/Amazon market of sold-by-price electronics. Most sellers on eBid are not trying to compete with Argos and Amazon, they are selling personal items, or specialist interest items.

And incidentally it is headed "Up to 50% off RRP" - that mythical number that sellers of these products make up. At a discount of £50 on £399.99, the "saving" is only 12.5%. So misleading as well.

I don't think "footfall" for these items would have benefitted any but the biggest professional sellers.

[JanetB]

If I can make a suggestion:

Edit all your listings and make them 'live' at ie 7 - 10 days and with up to 10 auto relists (this will give you 70 - 100 days running before you need to relist manually again).

RUS and 7 days > 1st bid usually stay stuck at the bottom of the search list.

If you make your listings live, they will work their way to the top of the search list and many more people will get to see them.

Hope this helps.

I have now been on ebid 10 years, I have had faith in ebid over theyears but sales are stagnent, always have been, its a shame cos ebid can be so much more,, is it happy to trundle alomg, or does it want to be s player in the game.
I have only ever seen two tv ads, sure a better option would be a radio campaign, there must be something it can do, I havnt sold any thing on ebid in a long time, I am sure I am not the only one who thinks this

[rokins_toys]

eBid prefers to sit on the bench and watch the game hehe. eBid prefers to use little tactics that only get to tiny audiences along with mentions on ecommerce sites that are for businesses and not general shoppers which provides very little "advertising" to the wider population. Even as a business owner I rarely visit ecommerce sites that are about business and what businesses are doing etc. I find them tedious and boring.

As you are in Great Britain banconbuttyman I do have to agree with you though. Advertising in Great Britain does not have to cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, but some people just like to throw out unfounded sums of money for something they know very little about. Yes, eBay spends millions of dollars on advertising (and don't be naïve in thinking the advertising is the sole reason for the high fees on eBay because it is not, it is also the greed of those who own and run the place wanting a bigger commission on their investment on top of other constantly increasing expenditures like energy for their offices and staff wages around the world), TV advertising globally which costs millions within itself due to the TV advertising in so many countries, but eBid does not have to advertise on TV in every country it has a site. It does not even need to advertise on TV at all to begin with. TV advertising is something eBid can build up to via other advertising methods that will increase both sellers and shoppers as well as bringing more business sellers like me here and for them to actually stay!

People are naïve when they say fees would have to go up - why? eBid could very easily afford a radio advert on somewhere like Heart FM or another British national radio station, of which, they stream on the internet which people in America and around the world do listen to British radio on the internet just as I have listened to American radio stations via their internet streams. So advertising on British radio will reach far more people in more countries than they realise it will. Radio advertising is far cheaper than TV advertising.

eBid does not have to pay tens of thousands of pounds for full page adverts in national British newspapers. You can take out half page adverts, quarter page adverts, and even smaller adverts on a page filled with other adverts like you often see in papers like the Daily Star, Daily Mirror, The Sun etc. which will be the better papers to advertise in as apposed to the Daily Mail, Express, Times etc. because most of the latter newspapers have a smaller readership nationally than the former. If eBid was selective in their newspaper advertising they could take out a quarter page advert in a national British newspaper and have banners on that newspapers website for around £1k. I know a few years ago, maybe 3-4 years ago you could have taken adverts out in the Daily Star and had banners on their website for £750 but obviously prices increase/decrease so eBid would have to get an update on prices and what they get for the advertising package.

Why waste time and money on a phone app for a minority handful of people on eBid that want it when it brings no benefit to the majority of sellers and will not really contribute anything to increasing sales for the majority? Just like google shopping has done nothing for me, it has probably brought me a handful of new customers over a two year period and people are ignorant and naïve in this area as well because they believe everyone goes straight to places like google or bing to find an item - they do not, the majority head straight to places like eBay/Amazon and other high street chain websites and do internal searches for what they are looking for.

eBid spends our money, from sign up fees and final value fees, on buying items which they give away for free in buddy point auctions when instead they should take that revenue and spend it on some sensible advertising to bring eBid to the attention of the general population of Britain by advertising on the radio and in the newspapers, because these are far cheaper avenues of advertising that reach just as many people as TV advertising would because people read papers and listen to the radio and those same people watch TV too.

There's no point saying that sellers are responsible for promoting themselves on eBid - the whole point of a platform like eBid is for them to advertise the place to bring in both sellers and shoppers - if eBid does not do this then things remain stagnant for the majority, sales become glacier slow. If I have to pay for advertising my store on eBid then I might as well pay for my own website and pay to advertise that instead. The reason so many small businesses like myself use places like eBid, eBay etc. is because it is cheaper than building and publishing our own websites especially when we would have to pay fees to places like VeriSign so shoppers know that we are trusted with card information/bank details etc. not to mention the fees in setting up direct credit/debit card payments via the bank etc. If you use a host it would cost you x amount per month for them to host your website on their servers. To build and publish your own website online means buying expensive software. It all costs money that a lot of small businesses like myself cannot afford.

There is no use saying eBay's advertising does not benefit all sellers because it does. Their adverts are everywhere so when some thinks about wanting to buy something, whether it be electrical - new TV, toaster, computer related or whatever, or whether they are looking for a toy or something home furnishing related they often go straight to known shop websites or eBay/Amazon and do their searches there because these places are always advertising on TV which means these shoppers never see anything relating to eBid unless they watch Toy Story and then they think eBid is just a made up place for the cartoon and not in fact a real place because it is not like they will be reading the credits at the end to find out it is a real place!

Baconbuttyman has valid concerns. I am a business, yet my sales are not what they should be on eBid due to the sheer lack of advertising. I am not going to invest in stock which will cost me £40+ for a case of one thing, £80+ for a case of something else, £100+ for a case of something else, for me to only sell one or two items out of those cases per year despite filling in brand and barcode info etc. It is not worth the financial expense of me doing this for an extra handful of sales per year. I am starting to buy extra of some lines, but they are not listed yet because they are not even out yet. I have pre-orders with distributors for which some of these items will not even be out until the start of summer, the end of summer and going into winter. Some stuff will be out this month, but I am only waiting on 2 new things this month so it is not going to generate a massive increase in sales for me. So a lot of what I have ordered right now does not exist except on a factory production line or a warehouse collecting dust before it is shipped out to stores and distributors (distributors so people like me can stock such things), so I cannot list what I do not physically have in stock because I do not do pre-orders.

eBid can afford to advertise in Britain in newspapers and build that up to advertising on the radio, then in a few years time, build that up to TV advertising. Being sensible and selective on how and where you advertising can bring down the cost of advertising but even this is too expensive for me at this moment in time and for the foreseeable future. But this level of advertising by eBid brings in more business sellers like me whom will stay because the customer base will be here due to the advertising. My sales are low and slow here and increasing the lines I stock online does not guarantee and increase sales for me especially when shoppers looking for what I sell will go straight to eBay/Amazon and do internal searches there instead of using bing, google etc. so such shoppers never get to see my listings which means my sales remain stagnant regardless of what I list online. All that changes is I'm spending more and more money on stock that is not selling on eBid.

And I only have a handful of regular buyers which eBid advertising would increase that by a factor of 1000... eBid seriously lacks choice and lacks an availability of items because of the lack of independent business sellers like myself on here. Those sellers are not here because the customer base is not here. The customer base is not here because eBid sits on the bench watching the game instead of advertising and joining in with the game. If advertising took place, even on the small scale that I suggest, it will grab the attention of business sellers like myself whom will give eBid a chance or a second or third chance depending on whether they have been here before and quit here because of the lack of sales for them. Shoppers want choice and fair prices but the choice is not here because the sellers are not here offering that choice with huge selections of items. Shoppers are not here in their hundreds of thousands because the selection of items is not here. Advertising fixes both these issues.

Edit: Before the ignorant, arrogant, naïve people jump on their self-opinionated podium of delusional self-importance, you forget one thing when people like myself and baconbuttyman talk about advertising, we're not talking about eBid advertising in every country they have a website, we're talking about eBid solely advertising on the level I suggest within Great Britain for the benefit of all British based eBid sellers which does not need to see an increase in fees and does not need to cost the millions of pounds that would be required for global advertising in the countries eBid has sites. eBid advertising on this small scale strategic level in national papers (and banners on their websites is part of the package which are seen by people around the world) and advertising on selected radio stations like Heart FM (whom also broadcast online with listeners around the world and I know this because I have acquaintance's whom work at Heart FM in the Midlands and one of them is a presenter/producer), will grab the attention of sellers whom have come and quit here for them to come back and be a success this time around and it will bring in the bigger business sellers you all keep whining about whom are not here and say eBid should bring here but they will not come here until they see realistic advertising which will bring shoppers here for them. These big business sellers have the wide variety of items that are sold in their hundreds on a weekly/monthly basis and these businesses are not interested in eBid because there's no advertising. Even the medium businesses are not interested in eBid for the same reason. eBid would increase its revenue from fvf's without even the need to increase them due to the increase in sales that advertising would bring. After spending the next 2 years building things up in Britain, eBid can then start doing the same in other countries like the US, Canada, Australia/New Zealand and rest of Europe where ebid has numerous country designated sites, again, fees would not need to increase in any of these countries - you just need to be smart on how and where you advertise for maximum effect which keeps advertising costs down but brings in the necessary growth needed to bring in the bigger sellers, the customer base and so on for eBid to be in the game and to be REAL competition to the domination of eBay/Amazon. eBid thinks nothing of spending thousands of pounds on items they give away for free in buddy point-less auctions, money that would be better spent on advertising in British national papers and on British radio.

[adruml]

I don't want to sound negative but well said Rokin!