I am thinking of Jumping ship?

[Raffles142009]

If you PM (Private Message) me with the details I will take a look.

All done Sir!!!!!!!

[bringinitback4less]

Hi Raffels welcome to ebid.

Before making any commitments maybe look up an item, go to advanced search and check completed listings and see for yourself what sells and what doesnt.

There is no "sold" listings option so you must check completed.

Doing this will give you a true picture of how things go around here.

Welcome to ebid and Good Luck!!!!!!

[kreativebargains]

Just had a look, and with what you sell my own humble opinion is that you would have every chance of doing well. The items you sell are likely to show up easily on a search with good use of keywords and in addition knowing some of the members on here you could get sales from current eBidders.

Taking your listing for "Droyt's Glycerose Soap 3 x 125g Bars2 that you have listed over there as an example, here is what I would do:

Cost on eBay £8.99 with free shipping. Out of that you pay £0.89 FVF and £0.50 to Paypal. That leaves you with £7.59 per sale. I would reduce price to £8.49 on eBid with £0.17 FVF and £0.49 to Paypal leaving you with £7.83 per sale, an increase of £0.24 or 2.7%.

Doing that will give your current buyers an incentive to use eBid, increase your profit and will also help you to undercut other sellers in order to take sales from them. It would also put you at the top far savvy buyers who do a search with lowest price first.

You could enhance your visibility and give a real eye-catching price by separating the shipping as you are not forced to offer free shipping. So in the example you could do a base price of say £5.49 with £2.99 shipping. That would increase profit by another £0.06 as there are no FVF's on shipping here, but would show a sale price at £5.49 which would make it sit alongside chemists and stores that sell at a price without shipping included. It would also allow you to easily offer shipping discounts, so depending on weight you could give free shipping on additional purchases or charge £0.99. That would help drive multiple purchases.

Once again, I do hope you join us, but if you do then patience is a must. The traffic is not as high but with your items over time I think you could build a good customer base. You have good items that are likely to be searched for, and with the fees on eBid you can compete favourably with any other sellers.

[bringinitback4less]

Hi Raffles and welcome again,

Asking advice is a great way to go, not to mention, people are very helpful and friendly around here.

Bottom line though make your own decision with facts, check the completed listings for items similar to yours.

Others opinions and what they think the potential is, is important. More important is facts.
Check completed listings.

Good luck and best wishes.

[kreativebargains]

Hi Raffles and welcome again,

Asking advice is a great way to go, not to mention, people are very helpful and friendly around here.

Bottom line though make your own decision with facts, check the completed listings for items similar to yours.

Others opinions and what they think the potential is, is important. More important is facts.
Check completed listings.

Good luck and best wishes.

Checking completed listings would require more than that. There are plenty of sellers with listings that may be similar but are not listed with the opportunity to sell. Recently I think it was a stamp seller who was complaining of lack of sales, but when his listings were looked at there were many thing that were contributing to that state of affairs, not least of which was a higher price on eBid than eBay. For the majority of sellers, and I admit that for some reason not all, the sales can be made on eBid with well priced and well listed items, no matter whether others list and get sales on eBid with them or not.

[JanetB]

My understanding is, the 49.99 seller+ lifetime membership is only good in the first 24hrs of membership sign-up. If, at a later date in time, anyone wants to upgrade to seller+ lifetime and wants to take advantage of the 49.99 deal, then you can choose another option first (ie 1 week for 1.99) and then upgrade. Someone will come along and correct me if I'm wrong.

[kreativebargains]

My understanding is, the 49.99 seller+ lifetime membership is only good in the first 24hrs of membership sign-up. If, at a later date in time, anyone wants to upgrade to seller+ lifetime and wants to take advantage of the 49.99 deal, then you can choose another option first (ie 1 week for 1.99) and then upgrade. Someone will come along and correct me if I'm wrong.

Correct. So Raffles if you do as advised and join on the 1 week option you should be able to upgrade to full Seller+ within the first 24 hours of doing so, the £1.99 should be deducted from the £49.99.

[Raffles142009]

You can import your listings over - personally I wouldn't. You need more keywords in the titles to be really effective, on the bay you are really just selling to those on the bay. On eBid, with good keywords, you can reach out into the Google world and bring in buyers that way - as well the site users. Because there is no variation listings then you will actually have a lot more than 24 listings - more listings = more exposure.

Don't expect miracles - you don't get miracles for £50. In fact you can have an atrocious night out in Poole that costs over £50 with nothing to show for it at the end of the night apart from a hangover - that £50 eBid fee covers you for life. You can have 5 free pics per listing, 5 free shops (I think you probably only need one at the moment).

Here is the other thing - if you wanted to expand into other areas, then eBid is a great platform to do that. Often there is a learning curve with new ranges and things take time to get right - on the bay you would paying for that, wiping out a lot of profit before you even got started.

Ultimately the eBid platform is an opportunity for you to be able build an established custom base without the costs incurred on maintaining and running a website. Takes time and effort, but is much more rewarding.

I would like to thank you all for the very informative replies, they are very much appreciated. A million thanks. I will after all join, probably start moving my items onto the site tomorrow, on a week basis as I missed the £49.99 offer last March I think it was . If I need help putting pics up may I ask on here? I been told it is not so easy posting pictures here as it is on eGay.
Raffles.
P[.S. I have moved about 4 of my items onto the River, sold 3 items there,in a week or so, all the same, and they sold for a reason, but the selling fees there are really expensive. I am on a 3 month trial and I will not be taking up the offer.

[emmily121]

Hi welcome to eBid, thought you and other new eBid sellers may find this useful, it is a post from Suesjools that I've copied and pasted.

Some suggestions, if you haven't already tried them:

1) Add a signature link to your posts, so members can click to view your listings.
2) List as many items as you can; it's free to list and relist and the more items you list, the more potential sales.
3) Use 7-10 day listings with auto repost to ensure your items move up searches.
4) Let former customers from other sites know you're selling here.
5) Use social networking (Twitter, Facebook, personal blog, etc.) to promote your listings.
6) Use Plug Your Auctions on the forum (1x per 24 hours - delete old plug before adding new one) to promote your listings.
7) Offer international shipping whenever possible to widen your potential customer base.
8) Tell everyone you know and meet about eBid.
9) Buy a few inexpensive items to increase your feedback and support the site.
10) Get involved in eBid activities, as the monthly YDC charity auctions, if you're so inclined; it's a great way to raise monies for good causes and it helps raise your profile in the eBid community.
11) Check out the Help videos and read Astral's FAQs page, lots of good info. in both places.

http://www.mootango.webspace.virginmedia.com/ebidkb.htm

Oh and have fun.

Best wishes for many sales to all,

[Raffles142009]

So let me see.........

I need to join on a week's basis, and this costs £1.99 and I can list as many as I like for the 1st week is that correct? I can then join up for £49.99 Lifetime with no further FVF's or Listing Fees, is this correct?
I am assuming I can pay the fees via Paypal?
Any info would be appreciated.
Raffles.