Startup TipsSeven things you need to know about ebid
There are alternatives to eBay, if you want to diversify your e-commerce reach. Madeleine Kirke takes a look at EBid and gives her seven tips for getting the most from the service.
1. They have a special offer on lifetime membership . There is no stated end date but they won’t keep it up forever. For a one off payment of £49.99, you can list an unlimited number of items in five stores and, if you don’t opt for listing upgrades, pay no more fees ever. Even with lower traffic and slower sales than eBay, this must be a good investment in “diversification” (see Dan’s eBay tips!).
2. The Special offer includes a free eBid T-shirt but you won’t get it until you email support and tell them what size you need. This isn’t the second most important thing but even the friendly (see fact 7) posters on ebid’s boards are getting tired of threads complaining about non-receipt of T-shirt.
3. Always start an item at the price you would be happy to receive as bidding wars are rare on ebid and I suspect that most sales are BIN.
4. Don’t pay for any upgrade except gallery. You only pay for that when your item sells and the % is tiny.
5. List items that you couldn’t risk on eBay. Most of my sales are of really odd items – obscure vintage sheet music & the lid of a Denby mustard pot are recent examples.
6. Don’t expect quick sales – list, set to autorelist and wait – buying a few items to get a bit of feedback helps too. Emailing old customers can help if you get repeat customers. I send a link to my ebid stores to every ebay customer (no, I’m not an ebid fundamentalist. I still list on ebay). Your autorelist needs to be for 7 days or more because items with a reasonable length of time to run and bin prices are automatically uploaded to Google Shopping and there is anecdotal evidence that many sales come from this channel.
7. EBid’s boards are completely different from those on ebay. The sharks who are sniffing for newbie blood just are not there. If you have a problem using ebid, just go there and ask.
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I started to sell after I inherited a collection of Coronation mugs too large for any one dealer to buy. Real World Selling was quickly overtaken by online selling. Now I import silk and silk scarves from Thailand as well as continuing to sell random collectables. http://uk.four.ebid.net/perl/normal.cgi?user=41247&mo=their-all-about
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Well done Madelaine – A good set of 7 – they say it all plus some, and they point out all the advantages of eBid over other auction venues – and eBid have overseas sites too, to allow overseas sales.
Thanks for contributing Madelaine. Good stuff. Glad to see that if you type in ‘ebid tips’ into google.co.uk your tips here already come in at #7. The first listing after advice from ebid itself.
Love the fact that SmallBizPod Sevens is already giving people profile and Google visibility.
Great and helpful article there Madeleine. I would also advocate selling on both sites, as both have their strengths and weaknesses. I would also recommend the Lifetime Seller+ offer, especially when you consider that even on a low volume selling basis, that works out to be a normal single month commision!
I’d just like to add that ebid.net is the best place for the hobby seller.I can’t afford fees elsewhere to list my items,listing them on ebid.net costs me nothing with maximum exposure.
Nice set of seven. I use ebid a lot and I think you’ve got some good points there for new users. Like you, I sell elsewhere too, so I’m not an ebid fundamentalist (great phrase) just a realistic supporter of diversity in selling. 🙂