FAIR SHAKE

If you are torn because you feel the changes eBay has made are destroying your livelihood, but have no choice but to continue to try to sell there until eBay makes a reversal of their recent policy changes, or there is another viable selling alternative, please let your very important Voice be heard--this is your place!

[font=Comic Sans MS][align=center]Ebay was our only source, and we boycotted the entire month of Feb/2008. We normally would have an average of 100+ listings last year, but since then we have decided to wean off of Ebay. We only list 5-10 listings now, just to educate customers that their is life outside of Ebay....while still making contacts within Ebay, making as many sales 'outside the box'.
Its a process most of us have to go through inorder to make Ebay a thing of yesterday, and customers are catching on to it!

We are a registered nursery & sell beautiful & rare plants & seeds. Check out our links below! [/align][/font]

Welcome to Fair Shake! I clicked on your links and your plants are beautiful.

Great to have you here plantattraction!
I haven't yet relisted but will most probably have to soon. I closed my brick-and-mortar antiques store 1 week before the announcements and need to sell off the inventory before May 1st and the feedback gets nasty. Some non-boycotters are threatening to do this, as well as boycotters themselves who misguidedly believe that negging everyone will force eBay to abandon their new one-way feedback. I've boycotted from the beginning but need to pay my growing stack of bills!

[font=Verdana] [/font]I'm creativemood.com on eBay. I haven't listed in a while, but may have to later on. I have a website and listing on eBay helps to direct customers there. I also signed up with Etsy (as creativemood) and had one sale pretty quickly. I hope it will pick up there, it's a very nice site for handmade items. [font=Arial Black] [/font]

Welcome theplantattraction and creative mood--We're glad you found us!

I have heard so many stories from people dependent on eBay financially, and even though I am not, the reason I have put so much effort into all of this is because of people like yourselves who have worked so hard to build their businesses there, only to have that opportunity slip away now. We will continue to try to publicize what is happening, and educate the public to look elsewhere for the products they used to love finding on eBay.

We may not be able to restore eBay to what it once was, (although we'll TRY!!) but it is the buyers and the sellers who will shape the face of the online marketplace in the future. Joining together, our influence becomes stronger. Thank you both for being part of this important effort!

We are sadly, not ever going to restore ebay to what it once was. This is not what ebay wants. Please see my article posts in the New Topics forum. It has become public that ebay is changing its site to a retail oriented buy-it-now platform.

We all need to support each other. We need to find out and join in the aggregated search engine that the PowerSellersUnited and SuBat are working on. We need to trade links to one another and form a community of sellers. No matter where we set up shop on websites and storefronts at fixed price we will have to adapt to a different selling experience. For those of us who really need an auction format like those who sell unique hard-to-find items that do well at auction --- we have to find one.

Take a real good look at what you sell. Are you #1 really making any money with the fees, even before they raised them? Is it even worth your while to sell on ebay regardless of the changes?

Do your items do better at buy it now? Then find a storefront like Ecrater or Blujay that lets you list for free. Don't get discouraged - it will take a few weeks, maybe even a couple of months for search engines to pick you up -but your items will be showing on Google products.

Do you sell items that do better being auctioned up - then get in line because I'm still trying to find a decent auction site. And why isn't there one? Because we are all waiting for someone else to jump in and list some great stuff on one of these sites. We are all afraid because we don't see any bids on these other sites.

What I think we need to do:

Break ourselves into categories by the type of product we sell, because that is what is keeping us from agreeing on a site. Then find the appropriate auction sites for our items and agree on one in our class.

We need a site that is going to advertise itself to shoppers in our category. Less face it, if a site is advertising only on certain social forums like You Tube, its target audience is younger people - way out of the demographic range for antique sellers. However, this is exactly the range for some other items like music CDs, posters, etc.

We need to then set a date for all of us to sell on the site and create a Promotional Campaign for the sale - go to various forums to promote the site and the scheduled sale - try to offer items at a reasonable starting bid - and see what happens. I wouldn't invest the item I paid the most for and really need to make a huge profit because this is going to be a bit risky. But I'm sure we all have some things that will have less risk attached to them, like things we've picked up at sales pretty cheap.

We have a great bunch of minds here that have had the courage to star their own businesses on ebay - now we need to find a way to help eachother here - or it's going to be sink or swim on our own and I don't think many of the smaller sellers are going to stay afloat.

For the record - I think Ebay stinks big time for doing this at a time when it's long-time sellers really need them. The country could be facing the worst economic situation it's seen in many years, unemployment is rising - and ebay is pulling the rug out from under many needy families. As the mother of 2 autistic children and grandmother of 2 more, I hope they rot.

maggie45-

Great post! I couldn't agree with you more on everything you've said.

I'm "getting in line" with you for an alternative auction format site. I'm one of the smaller sellers of antiques and collectibles. I would say that about 85% of my items I have sold auction-style.

I don't know how you feel about OLA, but so far I'm leaning towards them for several different reasons. I think the name itself could help buyers find it. I know if I were solely a buyer that was searching for alternatives to eBay I would google the term online auctions. I've seen OLA mentioned most often as an alternative in articles about the troubles at eBay, it is one of the 4 sites that was chosen to be supported by some of the boycott folks (no matter how some may feel about the way that decision was arrived at), from the stats I've seen they already seem to be larger than some, and I like their fee structure and responsiveness to their users.

Some sellers on OLA are planning to have a 99 cent "rummage sale" to begin on May 1st coinciding with the eBay boycott. They are asking that sellers list some decent items in a 7-day auction format with a 99 cent starting bid, no reserve. I do have some items that I feel are good quality and would be of interest to buyers that I could let go even if they only sold for the opening 99 cent bid, so I do plan to participate. And at the same time I plan to list some other items there that I won't start at 99 cents, but I will start them for as low an amount I feel I could accept for the item, and it would be lower than the opening bid I would have started them at on eBay (due to the lower listing fees I could afford to do that).

I know the sellers are promoting this sale themselves to buyers, and I've heard OLA plans to do some advertising of the site to also coincide with the eBay boycott on May 1st. Since this is a planned promotional sale with a definite start date I thought I'd mention it to you because it seems to go along with what you have suggested here and I wasn't sure if you had heard about it.

Cherie

tabularasa wrote:maggie45-

Great post! I couldn't agree with you more on everything you've said.

I'm "getting in line" with you for an alternative auction format site. I'm one of the smaller sellers of antiques and collectibles. I would say that about 85% of my items I have sold auction-style.

I don't know how you feel about OLA, but so far I'm leaning towards them for several different reasons. I think the name itself could help buyers find it. I know if I were solely a buyer that was searching for alternatives to eBay I would google the term online auctions. I've seen OLA mentioned most often as an alternative in articles about the troubles at eBay, it is one of the 4 sites that was chosen to be supported by some of the boycott folks (no matter how some may feel about the way that decision was arrived at), from the stats I've seen they already seem to be larger than some, and I like their fee structure and responsiveness to their users.

Some sellers on OLA are planning to have a 99 cent "rummage sale" to begin on May 1st coinciding with the eBay boycott. They are asking that sellers list some decent items in a 7-day auction format with a 99 cent starting bid, no reserve. I do have some items that I feel are good quality and would be of interest to buyers that I could let go even if they only sold for the opening 99 cent bid, so I do plan to participate. And at the same time I plan to list some other items there that I won't start at 99 cents, but I will start them for as low an amount I feel I could accept for the item, and it would be lower than the opening bid I would have started them at on eBay (due to the lower listing fees I could afford to do that).

I know the sellers are promoting this sale themselves to buyers, and I've heard OLA plans to do some advertising of the site to also coincide with the eBay boycott on May 1st. Since this is a planned promotional sale with a definite start date I thought I'd mention it to you because it seems to go along with what you have suggested here and I wasn't sure if you had heard about it.

Cherie

That is fantastic that OLA is going to start advertising. I've heard they are waiting until they can expand their bandwidth which should be this month sometime. OLA seems to be the fastest growing auction format site and their customer service is superb. Great customer service goes a long way and a mega-giant corporation we all know and loathe could take a few lessons from OLA.

I'm going to give OLA a chance on 5/1 and see what happens. I'm also thinking about us.ebid - I have some items that would be wanted by UK bidders.

EBAY ALTERNATIVE SEARCH

This is a search for non ebay auctions and stores - let me know what you think.

maggie45 wrote:I'm going to give OLA a chance on 5/1 and see what happens. I'm also thinking about us.ebid - I have some items that would be wanted by UK bidders.

EBAY ALTERNATIVE SEARCH

This is a search for non ebay auctions and stores - let me know what you think.

What I think is that you are AWESOME, Maggie! You have already thrown out so many excellent ideas, and are ACTING on them. You have already given many people some great information from a lot of different standpoints, and the ideas just seem to keep flowing from you regularly.

I was just starting to sell a few items on eBay to get my feet wet before starting in earnest sometime in the future, so I really have no way of tangibly supporting some of these ideas, but I am here to try to help those who need to organize and work to rebuild their businesses, and this is the sort of creative thinking and doing that will make that support become a reality. Fair Shake is simply a platform--but it is contributors like yourself that will make it a success.

I can't thank you enough for the time and thought you are putting into your contributions here at Fair Shake.

I was just beginning to sell seriously on Ebay at the end of 2007...revamped my store and had a plan in hand in Jan. when Ebay did their "thing". What a sock in the stomach! For about a month I floundered around amongst the forums and mass of information, but am settling back down now.

I became a powerseller in Mar. even though I had participated in the boycott in Feb. and am still only mildly listing. As things roll over in my store (I had over 800 items out there), I end them. This is my sole income and this threw me for a loop.

Now...after 2 months of learning more about the online market (I am a PSU forum member), I am trying to get my quilt supply store (started in Jan. on ebay) switched over to OLA. I really like that I can list as a Founding Member for a whole year for the same price it would have cost me to list for a single month on ebay.

I also began to list on Etsy [cabinfeverstudio] and have had 2 small but fun sales. I plan on doing more with them over the summer.

Will I be able to get totally off of ebay by May 1? I am not sure. But I want to be a part of this "move" and I think I can do it. I will probably always have something over there just to garner customers, but may remove my store. I will be losing my powerseller status soon... :0) Fun while it lasted!

May 1 is my target. OLA is where I am headed. And by the way...I bought some OLA advertising stickers and slap them on my ebay packing slips as I sell items. I will be more aggressively advertising as I get more items moved over.

I am not so sure that it makes sense to totally walk away from ebay...at least not this year. I think it is a great place to spread the word to buyers as we build alternative sites! I say we should use them shamelessly!

I am trying to get my quilt supply store (started in Jan. on ebay) switched over to OLA

Now you've caught MY attention - one of my passions (if only there were more hours in a day ...)! I am also registered at OLA, but have been too busy with the boycott to list. I DO hope to list a lot of things for the upcoming rummage sale.

What is your ID on OLA (you can PM me with it if you aren't comfortable posting). I'd love to visit you there! And a lot of folks are keeping their eBay accounts open for the very reason you mention - it's a great way to advertise your other location(s). And why not use it that way?? You certainly pay for the privilege.

We're glad you've joined us, and look forward to your contributions.

Maggie, do you have a link to, or the name of, the entity that published the news about eBay going retail? I'm anxious to read it and very much want to discuss it at tomorrow's meeting.