Geeze, everybody wants something for nothing. If you want to avoid fees, then you are going to have to plug yourself.

I've had over 2000 hits on my store, and only a few sales from it. BUT, that is because of the items I sell, not because of what bidville is or is not doing.

No, that's because you are visible on the boards, and because (until now) BV management has never advertised, but that's all about to change.

Why is it that when a post is made about a site to discuss why its not living up to everyones expectations or the hype that so many people get offended by this, or take it to heart? These discussions are about sharing and finding out if we are alone in thinking that the sales arent there.. From this post so far I would say that 80% of the people agree with me.. Sales are not there, and if you pay a fee you shouldnt have to drive your own traffic.. Bidville does have fees.. They are not 100% free, therefore they should bring their own traffic... I stated that I would stick around another 3 months to see if anything changes and the commercials might make an improvement, which would be very welcome... Creating a post like this also helps so in 6 months to a year we can come back to this and say YEAH we are now having more sales, or BOOO they cant get their stuff together and nobody should waste their time.. I for one hope sellers come because I could use a good 3rd place to sell my items!

Now what I am going to say here is my opinion from having been on this site years ago under a different nick. SO, if anyone that reads this wants to discuss what I know from having been there as fact, take it to PM coz I will not fuel a fight over it. Got it?

Part of the problem with the site at the beginning was that everyone had high expectations. Which in the manner BV had stated it would do this and that, it was promising.

Then problems arose from the users on the site in the forums there. I KNOW that there were users there that blacklisted people just because they did not like what was said EVEN though it was meant as constructive. And yes, that is true because I knew a few that did just that.

The boards on there became a HUGE problem for all the fighting that was going on. Possible buyers looking for items saw nothing but fighting there. Who in the world would want to buy from sellers that do nothing but wish to fight with everyone.

Then there were those that thought that they ran the whole shabang from the chair in front of thier computer. They figured they were there first OR the longest and had more of a right to do or say whatever they pleased. Wrong!

In other words, a bunch of control freaks trying to take over the place and run it the way that they saw fit. That DOES NOT represent management!!! I am not talking about management at all.

What has taken the longest on there is the fact that people are starting to learn that getting along with each other, treating each other equally, giving and getting respect from each other and everyone walking away happy, is the basic essentials for a site to grow.
It actually has taken a few years for this to start to dawn on a lot of them there.

Advertising? Would you care to advertise a site that has all that going on? Would you like to be the one to try to stop it all? Management was yelled at till people were blue in their faces. I was one of them. But then it dawned on me, it has to be the people that are users on there that has to change things or make it happen. I did not blame managment for not doing what I thought they should have and in a way I understood their position.

NOW, after a few years of not being on there, I see a change unlike what I ever thought would be. It is quiet and friendly there. They are actually trying to get along and trying to keep negativity off the boards.

Like I stated earlier in this post! You have a problem with what I just stated, take it to PM! Negative response will not be responded to by me in this thread. I know all of this because I was there, saw it, heard it.

(Edited for goofs)

Kind of like some other boards on other alternative sites.. Of course everyones goals are the same, yet things get bogged down with hurt feelings and misunderstood words.. Typed words lose their translation easily.. I believe none of us wouldnt be here unless we wanted to see some change in the online auction world.. We all have a similar goal, but at the same time I think that means admitting when something isnt working well so as to not give others the false hope that a place works.. To me 3 months is enough time to see if it works.. Thats how it should be.. Would anyone go to the same street corner for 3 months in a row selling their stuff (not themselves) and only having sold one or two items and then stay? No, they would move up to the next corner or a few blocks down and try something else..

I have my own sites.. Im at a point where I have plenty of products to sell so now its time to start advertising.. I took some advice from a post here at PSU and used MySpace to advertise my site.. I have now sold 10 items in a little over a week, just had another one today.. I sold 2 items at BV since July and neither of them were paid for, so basically no sales... and the beat goes on....

The MySpace rise to # 3 on Alexa's traffic rankings is impressive,
but still only 1/10th of Yahoo's traffic.

I wasn't able to accomplish anything in the way of sales with
MySpace,
but it did give me the idea of using Yahoo Groups to generate sales.

You will see the number of Buy Sell Auction type groups
are increasing on Yahoo. It takes 5 minutes to create a
group and 5 to 10 minutes (max) per day to promote your
group. It works. It generates sales.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bikinishots/

--------------

Personally, I recommend the following Live Space:

http://spaces.live.com/

banknote wrote (View Post): › Personally, I recommend the following Live Space: http://spaces.live.com/

MSN Spaces and Expo (classifieds) has some nice features but
their pages are so SLOW, I've been losing patience and have all
but given up.

I know I sound like a big Yahoo Fan on most of my posts. Its not
that I think Yahoo is so great, its because I think MSN and Google
are such crap.

I don't know what MSN is using for servers, or the technical aspects
of what is involved in downloading their pages, but if you are on
dial-up MSN sites are terrible.

I know this may sound like a dumb question but how do you create a Yahoo group?

yellowrose

http://yellowrosedolls.com

yellowrose wrote (View Post): › I know this may sound like a dumb question but how do you create a Yahoo group? yellowrose http://yellowrosedolls.com

I don't know why Yahoo has "Dolls" listed under Recreation and
Sports. It seems like it would be in the Collecting categories.
But its........Top > Recreation & Sports > Toys > Dolls

You can go to this page and click where it says "Start a Dolls Group"
http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/dir/1600072843

Or you can select a more specialized category.
Basically....you pick a name for your group and add a description
and a Pic for your group and the only thing left is a few options
of your choice.

Well I decided last week to not renew my account until maybe around thanksgiving.. So i emailed customer service about how to close my account until then.. Of course I didnt receive a response and I couldnt find on my Trackpal where I could cancel it or how to do so in the FAQs.. So anyhow of course like I said, no response from them, but of course when its time to renew my account and they want their fee money they email 6 times in 3 days saying that account will be on hold unless I pay, blah, blah, blah.. Here was my response after the 6th email:

I don’t want to keep this account open at this time.. I emailed you a week ago to find out how to put my account on hold until I was ready to come back again but you never responded.. Nice customer service, yet you can respond 15 times when you want your money?? Put more effort into luring buying customers than collecting fees and you might get somewhere..

Im not slamming Bidville here, but I wish they would have responded to my email last week when I had originally tried to avoid all of this.. This pushes my meter toward the greed side, and not the friendly CS that I have received from them on a few occasions.. Of course each time I have emailed about a question about my account, I usually dont get responses back, but when I want to post more items I get A+ CS.. Go figure.. Not starting an argument/discussion, just my .02....

I don't have a "store" on BV, just use the free auction listings. But I have also had a few problems at times that never get any answers.

I have had my listings up right now for a couple of weeks again. I just checked, and on 119 listings, I have a grand total of 2 page views.

On Yahoo I have 136 listings and I've had 29 page views.

On BnS I have about 120 listings and have had 121 page views.

I'm not sure just when each of the sites re-sets their numbers. I only put these other numbers up to show that BV still isn't drawing in people.

Carol

Since Bidville has not produced anything for me either, but one sale, and I have to pay upfront every month I've closed my store. Even $5.00 has become too much for me to pay upfront for no views and no sales.

Will keep an eye on Bidville and if I get to a point where it makes sense to try again I will. I never say never, but I'm spending way too much time doing listings on various sites and not enough time on promoting my business in a meaningful way that makes sense for what I sell.

And not to tweak anybody's nose, but TMX Elmo's will sell probably anywhere at this point. Like everything else, it will not last, so enjoy.