Power Sellers Unite

Tailwinz · Joined: 31 Dec 2011 Posts: 7

I have been selling on eBay for 10+ years... I have had it!!! I'm tired of giving them so much to do so little... We are all stuck, with little to no options... Pay out the butt, and make a little, or just quite and make nothing... I started an auction site to list my stuff, and it has been picking up quite fast.. over 5000 hit's in just 3 weeks!! It's quite basic, and rough around the edges, but I'm still working on it, and it's getting better.. I still list on eBay, but not nearly as much... I send letters with all eBay sold items, directing people to the new site.. November eBay seller fees were $380, December was $87 I still sold the same quantity between the to sites.. I have it set up to give new members a $20 credit in their selling account to try it out.. There are NO insertion fees for basic listings with up to 4 pics, and final fees are only 2.9% It's a win win!!! Sales will be slower, but you can list as much as ya like for free, and still sell on eBay while it's picking up... The more people that we get listing, the more hit's, and better selling it will be!!! Come take a look, and please tell me what ya think..
Anyone that wants to try it out, I'll add another $20 to their sellers account.. Just drop me an email, and tell me you found the site through this post... www.tailwinz.com <- the site 8)

Digmen1 · Joined: 12 Feb 2010 Posts: 1007

Just what we need another auction site ?

Let us knwo when you have 5 million listings ?

And some buyers.

I think its best to support tone of the top 3 alt sites.
Ebid.net
ecrater
Bonanza

By the way that black background makes it look like a warez site.

Tailwinz · Joined: 31 Dec 2011 Posts: 7

Yup, I can't agree with ya more... We do need another auction site, and with 6000+ hits on this one in less than a month, there are a few more that believe it also!!

Otherwise we can all group together, and complain about eBay while we fill their pockets with OUR money..

I have sold $793.94 on www.Tailwinz.com in less than 30 days with the final fees totaling only $23.00... I think this is exactly what is needed!!

Thanks for your input, all is appreciated!!!

Digmen1 · Joined: 12 Feb 2010 Posts: 1007

You are paying fees on your own auction site ?

But I do agree that new site must charge fees otherwise they will never have any money to advertise.

seewhatimsellingnow · Joined: 29 Feb 2008 Posts: 1254 Location: Ohio

Pretty nice set-up- I know that must have taken a lot of work. However, I do not see where any members are listing on your site- Only your own listings showing? Helicopter parts?

You're going to have to get a LOT of members interested in listing- in a LOT more categories. Hey- I understand that Ebay wasn't successful in the first few day- so I may just list my Ebay items on your site.

You say that listings are free, and up to 4 photos? AND i get a $20 credit when I register? Yep! I just may give you a try! :lol: Betty Lou

Tailwinz · Joined: 31 Dec 2011 Posts: 7

I am paying fees.. Sounds kind of nuts... I'm actually putting quite a bit of other money in as well... I do need to charge fees, to keep it going... There is quite a bit of cost, and I have someone that I pay to help with things on the site... I'm ok with the web stuff, but not a pro by all means... I'm not looking to get rich with an auction site, I just really believe there needs to be an alternative to eBay... If nothing else to force them to appreciate their sellers a little more, and reduce their rates, making it more affordable... I know my site can't do this alone, but if enough people started finding other ways to sell a few hundred in merchandise a month, it would take a toll on eBay...

Tailwinz · Joined: 31 Dec 2011 Posts: 7

seewhatimsellingnow wrote (View Post): › docWrite("quote")
Pretty nice set-up- I know that must have taken a lot of work. However, I do not see where any members are listing on your site- Only your own listings showing? Helicopter parts?

You're going to have to get a LOT of members interested in listing- in a LOT more categories. Hey- I understand that Ebay wasn't successful in the first few day- so I may just list my Ebay items on your site.

You say that listings are free, and up to 4 photos? AND i get a $20 credit when I register? Yep! I just may give you a try! :lol: Betty Lou

Hi Betty Lou,

It has been a tremendous amount of work.. :) Yes, it is mostly my items posted so far... I have two others with listings so far, and one of them did get a sale last week... I think I was happier about his sale than my own...lol You're 100% correct, I need lots of sellers, in many of the categories to pull in the traffic... When ya do sign up, drop me an email with your user ID, and I'll put another $20 in your account, so you'll have $40 to play with... that should keep ya going for a while.. And please let me know if There are any categories you would like me to add for you...
Thanks for your support!!! ,Matt matt@tailwinz.com

nonameo · Joined: 02 Jan 2011 Posts: 13

Ah... okay, here we go.

Things I consider very important:
1. The number one thing I need is buyers. People have to buy my stuff. What are you doing to get buyers to your site? Recently I've been finding that some of my things sell faster at amazon, and so there's been a nice sized exodus from ebay. In one of your comments you mentioned that you need sellers to bring traffic to your site. Yes, Items do bring traffic, however traffic and buyers bring sellers. It really is a catch-22 and I think this is part of the reason ebay is still so big. If you need to pay for advertising for your site, so be it. How much are ebay fees? mmm... 300 or so? You could get a lot of adwords for that. I'd also recommend getting a paid reddit plug.

http://www.reddit.com/ad_inq

One other thing I'd like to add is that ebay got big not because of people doing full time listings(although I'm sure it followed quickly) but because of people listing things that were hanging around in their attic, or something they found at a garage sale and whatnot. People came to ebay because they could say "look what I got on ebay, and it only cost me $$$ and I bit TTT seconds before it ended and..."

Another thing that helped ebay was all of the weird things like jesus toast.

2. Is it a big hassle to list? People like craigslist because it is easy. Ebay is relatively easy, but amazon and craigslist are still much easier. At one time I thought I needed to get away from ebay because of the fees, but now I'm seeing that ebay has other problems that are worse than their fees. I am thinking that it would be best for me to have my own site. I shouldn't have to post my return policy on every item(even though it is automatically filled out), when I select AS-IS then the system should automatically know that I do not offer returns for non-working and as-is items.
(as a note, you need to consider what kind of sellers you'll have. Are you catering to the people that list casually, or people who do several new listings every day all year?)

3. I want my own identity. Ebay tries its hardest to keep their name front and center and not yours. I could ask just about anyone I know if they knew who they bought their last ebay item from and they wouldn't know. They don't think "I got it from so and so on ebay" they think "I got it on ebay". Amazon does the same thing, but the problem with ebay is that you still have to put tons of effort into trying to decode best matches, designing your listings, etc. whereas on Amazon there is none of that. They handle EVERYTHING and they do it well, and the fee makes it more worth that. boom boom BAM it's done. (now, if you can give a seller identity AND make it easy to list, now there's something to shoot at! Okay, I'm starting to ramble on this point so I'll move on.

less imortant things:

1. Purchasing multiple items from one seller should be easy, and buyers should be encouraged to do so. I'd recommend having a system set up to where shoppers get advertised shipped prices only(perhaps via calculated or flat rate calculation systems). Not "free shipping", that's a farce. However, it would be nice to have a system to where buyers get advertised their total cost for bundles. So, if someone is looking at one of my items, they may see "combo" shipped prices to the side with images and links to the items... or something like that(you'd want them to read the listing first of course).

2. Ebay will nickle and dime you for every last !@#%^ thing. Please do not nickel and dime me. I feel that I should either be charged a flat fee per item, or one percentage when my item sells. All of this "bold" and "featured", "gallery" horse honkey needs to go(imo). Whatever helps your sellers sell should be FREE as it is helping you as well. I think it is excellent that you charge nothing up front(and are giving credits even! yay!), and I think this is a big mistake that places like ebid and webstore make. Ecrater is okay, but feels a tad too restrictive and the shipping system is cumbersome.

3. Use colors and images to illustrate things such as whether an item is new or used, return time, payments accepted(well, ebay already does this), etc. These things usually do not get tons of visibility and it would be nice to have them stand out more without taking up a lot of space. This is, essentially, my answer to the problem of "buyer did not read the whole listing", and if you've already got an answer to that one, excellent. Hey, there's another idea... limit the amount of things you can say in a listing. More pictures, fewer words. A picture is worth a thousand words, even if it's just a little relevant clipart. I'll show you some things when I can get them together, I need to incorporate them into my ebay listings anyway.

4.As an aside to this, you could have standard clipart and let sellers do specific customizations. So, every seller has to have an image that shows their item as new or used, but sellers get to customize their graphics. The seller would simply upload their set of widgets and viola, automatic placement in the same place.

5.Sometimes on ebay, I'll see several of the same item flooded by the same buyer. This is really annoying. Please have policies against this or fix it on the software side so it can't be done.

6. Sometimes I think an item chatbox would be nice. You know, right there in the listing, so people can discuss it. Of course, the first issue that comes to mind is people spamming their links in chatboxes(or bots doing this) but that is quite far off, so I wouldn't be too concerned about it. I'd test it out, see how people like it, see what needs to be changed, etc... Ebay puts item questions at the very bottom, and I think people frequently miss this. It's also in 10 or 12pt whereas sellers usually use bigger text for their listings, drowning out Q&A.

I'd offer some criticism of your site, but honestly don't think I need to. Your site seems hand coded and I'm sure you've put tons of effort into it. You also seem fairly involved and well motivated. I have confidence that you already have a big laundry list of things you want to do and improve, and it's probably the things I've already got in mind. It'll just take time.

edit: okay, I will comment on a couple things. Here's where I believe I think your priorities should be as far as the website goes:

1. traffic
2. simplify
3. beautify

My own personal idea for an "auction site" is more like a confederation of trusted sellers that drive traffic to each other without cannibalizing their own sales(in other words, sales cannibalization is something they should consider before sharing :P)

The layout would be loosely related(shared tools, but seller customized) and hosting may or may not be shared, or possibly a combination so that you could have your items show up in the shared hosting search(ebay and amazon are shared hosting) while still having your own website and whatnot. "feedback" would be one's network(formed from buyers and sellers) negs may propogate through the network, giving buyers and sellers the opportunity to drop individuals(buyers or sellers) from the net. This could turn into a traffic nightmare that I haven't solved yet, but I'm sure there's a way around it. Perhaps you could have cutoffs for item value, trust depth, etc.

argh, okay... I quit. I should just put this in another thread :P

Tailwinz · Joined: 31 Dec 2011 Posts: 7

That was awesome!! Thanks for the in depth reply, and taking the time to do so... You hit the nail on the head, with a few of the many many things I'm working on.. I put about 4-5 hours a day, 7 days a week into the site..

My main focus areas are 1st: staying in touch, one on one with the few current members that are involved with the site. Buyers, as well as sellers.. My goal is to make it a community of buyers and sellers, rather than a huge non personal money machine like what eBay has turned into.. The people will stay the # 1 priority..

2nd.. Yes, marketing... I do not have very deep pockets, but my profession does allow me quite a bit of time to invest... I go to site, after site looking for people that are fed up with eBay, and offer an alternative... I take input from their frustrations, and use it to build a site that people want... I'm currently signed up with Google adwords, and will also look at redit.. Thanks for that link!!! I have signed up for google adsense, which will not only put adds on my site, but also help me move up in the search engines..

3rd.. Yes again...:) Simplify... I have done my best to keep it as simple as possible, and easy to navigate through.. I am sort of learning as I go, and have no previous web development skills to fall back on.. It is a very slow process, but it's coming along...

I think the involvement, and dedication I have to the site, and members are the two thing that will drive this site upwards... If the cost of eBay was the only true issue, it would be well worth it.. The truth of the matter is.. The only thing that gets eBay's attention is failure to pay eBay.. That is all they care about...

Catch 22 is an understatement.. :) I have found it pretty easy to get people to look at it, but it always ends there.. The auction side of the site hit the net on 12-7-11, one month, and one day... as of this morning, the site has 10,300 hits.. the traffic is coming.. People are afraid to try something new.. I will use you as an example... :) You were kind enough to take the time to read my post, and put quite a bit of thought into the reply, which I greatly appreciate.. You are an eBay seller with items listed (I'm guessing) But did ya register and try out the listings?? I too have looked at many sites over the last year or so, and thought they looked like there may be some potential, but it always stops there... Change is difficult... I don't think people should stop listing totally on eBay... But we should all branch out, and try new things...

Again... Thanks sooo much for taking the time to read, and reply to my post... After reading your reply I did adjust some of the nickle, and dime upgrade listing features!!! Take a peek...

http://www.tailwinz.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.pl?action=fees

Digmen1 · Joined: 12 Feb 2010 Posts: 1007

@Tailwinz

Your comment hat you do not have a big pot of money, tells it all.

Look at sites like bonzna and ebid.net and ecrater.
They struggle to get buyers and they have thousands of users and millions of listings.

How are you ever going to catch them up unless you have millions to advertise and or some amazing new feature that bring sin buyers.

There have been hundreds of new sites come and go.

Sorry to be so negative, but trying to be realistic.

Tailwinz · Joined: 31 Dec 2011 Posts: 7

Don't apologize for being negative.. That is very realistic.. I appreciate all input, even that which is harsh but true...

If it was easy there would be hundreds of thousands of people out there doing it.. I'm confident that it will rise... 10,300 hits in a month is an awesome jump out of the gate!!! I can get the word out there with lots of work, rather that lots of money to pay others for the work... That is a lot of the problem with so many of the other sites... They just want to dump money into it, and set back and bank, with as little effort as possible.. I know there is a long hard road in front of this site.. I'm dug in, and ready for it... Thanks again for your input!!! ,Matt

nonameo · Joined: 02 Jan 2011 Posts: 13

tailwinz - I think the best people to get selling on your site are people who have RC car and helicopter things that they want to sell, or accessories and other related items. I tend to sell what I call "modern collectibles" like video games, electronics, toys, and whatever I can get my hands on. If I find some RC or helicopter stuff, I will be sure to bring it on down to your site before I take it to ebay. If you have any ideas for things that helicopter/RC type people might be interested in that I could keep an eye out for(well, they have to be things I might find, as I usually frequent garage sales and flea markets for this stuff), then that would be helpful. I just don't think there's a market for something like a fisher price voice warp cassette player(one of the things I have listed on my tiny ebay store) on tailwinz :(

I might list some of my less valuable games on your site, as they are a tad pricey to list on ebay and amazon, leaving me very little in the end.