Power Sellers Unite

Paula7928 · Joined: 27 Sep 2009 Posts: 10

Has anyone ever listed their items on the Overstock Auctions site? If so did you make any sales. I listed a few items for several months and made no sales. I am starting to think they don't get too much traffic.

kathyscorner · Joined: 28 Apr 2005 Posts: 610

When they first launched the Auction site they had a lot of interest from the online selling and buying community. I did well, but never as well as I did on ebay. That was when they actively promoted the Auctions, both with TV ads and bold tabs on their Homepage that introduced the Auctions.

For whatever inexplicable reason Patrick Byrne completely lost interest in the Auctions and from there it got passed around within the company in the manner of a hot potato! Overstock managed to completely alienate just about everyone during this time.

Sellers geared up and listed into holiday weekends, and the site had a strange way of crashing the Auction side and diverting all traffic to their main page. It seemed as though whatever focus had been on really building an ebay competitor had shifted to merely using the Auction community to feed buyers to Overstock.com.

Then there was a debacle over seller badges, who would be worthy of special symbols to entice shoppers. That mess kinda drew off the rest of the small fry who were trying. They had a board monitor on their once vibrant community forum that actually befriended many, and snubbed others. It turned into a high school clicquish type atmosphere.

There are many pages of history here at PSU that pretty much document this from the insiders as it was happening. Read them if you want. I kind of know it all because I had been an ebay Trading Assistant at the time they started up, and they got my phone number from that list. They called, I went, and wasted the next couple of years.

IMHO the wreckage that you see now when clicking on the auction tab should just be done away with.
The 2 categories I listed heavy in, Pottery and Glass rarely have more than a dozen items between them. There is no shopping experience that would entice browsing. Once in a while OS makes a half hearted attempt at reviving Auctions, but they long ago lost the confidence of small sellers who carry stuff that would compliment the main tab OS selling, rather than compete with it.

Unless of course you sell electronics and have a shill bidding network, then OS might be right for you! :lol:

elgato · Joined: 24 Feb 2005 Posts: 17240 Location: Texas

Before wasting any more time listing your items at the O, read some of the threads in the O Index here at the PSU forums:
http://www.powersellersunite.com/viewforum.php?f=19

Five years ago you would have seen many of us HERE listing, chatting, selling and buying at the O. Not any more. 8)

I personally would like the O to put more pressure on ebay via marketing the auction side of the site MORE, improving many of the seller's issues we had back in 2005 and removing most of the corporations who flood certain catagories with junk-type merchandise. :roll:

The O/auctions HAD a decent thing going back in 05 and 06 but poor management cost them dearly IMHO.

Jerryb · Joined: 15 Mar 2009 Posts: 444

Zero interest zero sales. I got so bored over there i decided to not even relist my items under the free promotion... why bother? :-) too busy listing on the 2nd --3 days promotion on ebay this month.