ebay, yahoo and ecrater

of course my yahoo ads are done, so I'll be concentrating largely on the ecrater stores...

I would love to be part of the great migration! lol

I've been having a little luck on overstock. Fees aren't to bad, but could use some more sales! Wink wink
Ruth aka Theloyalone

I've had a few sales at Plunderhere, a few more at Ecrater, nothing at blujay in so long I can't recall. Of course things go fast on PoshPoints but then try to find something worth spending your earned points on (a problem).

I closed a large successful store at feebay over a year ago & since I must say I feel like I'm really just wasting my time overall. The total sales in my slowest month from my feebay store surpassed my sales in a year on all the other sites combined.

It's a real problem & I've been rethinking my entire plan (or lack of, it looks like). I run a couple auctions at feebay when they have their listing sales & always sell what I list, but stubborness (mine) is killing me, LOL

Truth be known (& admitted) sales are down everywhere even feebay I think watching the auctions there, less bids, lower bids, etc.

We would love to have a few of you give Main Street Mall Online a try. What do WE have to do for YOU to make this happen?

Main Street is a good looking site, but I am ready to give all of this up. I'm just afraid that online sales have died out-maybe just because of the economy though?

Don't give up on selling online just yet! You will see a bunch of pundits posting lately things like "Online Sales Decline" or "Growth Slows In Online Sales", etc., etc. They could easily have you thinking that online sales are done. Period!

The facts couldn't be farther from the truth. Yes, online sales are slowing but what exactly does that mean? Let's look at those facts:

1 - there is an expected 4,000,000 (four million) new households going on line this year. That's a pretty big market even if you only get a tiny share -- and that's new households, added to existing ones!

2 - online spending, on average, per person is expected to be about $433.00. That is down from the $463.00 high in 2001 but again, factor in the 4 million new households and see how much they are likely to spend at this new lower rate and I'll be quite happy for my small piece of that pie!

3 - online sales are estimated at approximately $17,000,000,000 (that's billion, folks) this quarter, expected to be down from the nearly $20,000,000,000 in each of the last two quarters. This is based on an expected meager back to school business this year. Okay, so it's down a bit. It's still a big number. A BIG number, folks. The key is to get you some of it!

4 - growth in online sales over the last five years has been around 95% a year (perhaps even a little more some years) which has been exceptional and set many expectations. Growth over the next five years is only expected to be 25% a year, a substantial decline in growth -- but there will still be growth. If it weren't for the absolutely unreal growth of the last five years (new things almost always grow more in the first few years!) then people would be screaming about the amazing 25% growth that is coming. 25% growth per year is, on its own, not too shabby by any standards!

So, what is actually happening? Growth is slowing. That's a fact. But even if growth was stagnant you could carve out a decent home business from the absolutely HUGE online business there is out there already.

It isn't just new business you are going to get. With good marketing, good products/services, and great customer service YOU can grab some of the existing business too.

It's all about marketing. Promote! Promote! Promote!

Oh, and one other thing: most of the small selling sites like MSMO, Etsy, etc. don't even factor into the national numbers. That's a little extra you can get if you want it!

All that sounds wonderful MSMO. Love all those big figures. Truth be known a good part of the sales online these days is the big stores who in the past sold only in store but have all now caught onto the online game.

Smaller sellers are feeling the crunch big time. I think a good part of it is that we small sellers can't offer the reduced shipping rates the big guys can. No one wants to pay, often over $6.00 to receive a $10 or $12. item. This means that sellers who sell things like toys (almost always heavy) or china (not the mega$$ kind but ordinary china) just can't compete.

I find many items that in the past were good movers have dropped dead since the last postage increases. Even a small baby item that used to go 1st class rate is now a "Package" at a much higher rate.

Add in the reduced descretional spending money many families have and sadly, it all adds up to less sales for a good many of us smaller sellers (and larger ones too I suspect).

We made an online purchase yesterday. We do this quite often actually. In this particular case we purchased a selection of new kitchen items that we could have bought locally by driving to store at the mall or we could have ordered online from one of the big retailers. We did neither. We ordered from a small, niche-market seller who has a website and and also sells on a couple of auction/market venues. We bought from him because:

1 - his prices are competitive
2 - his shipping is acceptable (actually less than some of the alternatives)
3 - he provides great service and prompt shipping (we ordered yesterday, we know it's in the mail today)

To me it all adds up to a better experience than shopping at the big retailers AND it's more convenient than going out to get the stuff. I could well be in a dwindling minority, but I really don't think so. And there is a lot of evidence to back that up.

The small seller (most of us here) shouldn't even bother worrying about the big guys. They are going to take the lion's share of the marketplace. That's a given. What we need to do is figure out how to get a suitable piece of the remainder.

It's okay to quit. In fact that is a perfectly valid business choice. But don't give up for the wrong reasons. There is more than enough business out there for most current sellers and many more new sellers to come. The key is how you go about getting your share.

...but that is probably a book I need to write! : )

I think the vote button is missing or something. But Ebay used to be the best for me. But lately nothing moves well there. At least not for the money you have to pay.

BidVille and Pricegrabber.com work the best after the Bay and they are alot cheaper too!

Yes, a big part of the growth is the BIG stores. That's why you need to ACT BIG. You need to partner with little guys and together we can BE BIG...

Help me... I'm trying to BE BIG at

http://Compare4.us

I am moving off of ebay and have moved to Delcampe.com. I have sold 3000+ items in eight months at $34,335.00 gross sales, about $870.00 a week.

Delcampe.net (Delcampe.com for USA users) does best for Postcard, photograph & stamp dealers. They do sell other collectibles, but I do not sell those, so I can not help with any info in that regard.

They currently have 203,000 active members (Not dead Ids like ebay).

10,048,005 items at ongoing sales
They seem to average between 250-300,000 sales a month.

So far I am enjoying their site. FVF's only & no listing fees.

They are a small company and have recently made the "jump" to DELL computer Industrial grade servers (Not with out mishap).

Hope that helps someone.

Stefano

Hi all,
There is no E in blujay.com,the typo is located in the above in the poll.
Have a great day!
http://www.blujay.com/BusyQueen

I still sell on ebay occasionally but i have had most success at ebid

I tried ebid on the advice of another ebay member and its great - no fees as well so no huge holes in my profit

Also tried Tazbar only had about 5 sales since joining - it seems abit slow there

BusyQueen wrote (View Post): › Hi all, There is no E in blujay.com,the typo is located in the above in the poll. Have a great day! http://www.blujay.com/BusyQueen

Thank you kindly for correcting the blujay typo!
Have a great evening!

Yay,now we can vote!!