Online auctions, selling and me

Have you been scammed on eBay?

Some UK eBay users who have been scammed have got together to try and do something about it. According to this article UK residents are losing £500,000 per day (c $1 million) to online auction scams and the losses have folks getting organised.

Frankly, I wouldn't recommend turning up at the address you sent the cheque to unless you have a policeman with you and it worries me that individuals or groups might start taking the law into their own hands.

On the other hand, if this group could lobby for changes in the law so that internet crimes are pursued by a national crime force then it would be a good thing in my opinion.

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'Shake-up' for internet proposed

Pretty soon you might be able to have a domain based on your business name. The article highlights some interesting possibilities.

One of our members brought a very interesting item to our attention at Pheebay.com. You can view his post here and follow the trail to a remarkable piece of honesty and openness from an upright member of the community.

Many thanks to chameleonsystems for showing us the post.

The future eBay will be unrecognisable to today's users.

Will it be better? As a business, yes, it will find stability in the process of reaching its maturity. Will it be safer? Unquestionably.

Once upon a time, when eBay was an infant, it was a great place to trade person to person, whether it was an attic clearance or selling your hand-knitted socks, somewhere in the World someone was waiting to bid and buy. eBay was built on the little people, the Moms and Pops who scoured fleamarkets and thrift shops when they had sold their own clearance items, many made a tidy little extra to get by and some did very well.

Mom and Pop were eBay's greatest assets but now they have become the business's greatest liability. Why? Because eBay can't distinguish between the honest Mom and Pop would-be sellers and the scammers and counterfeit sellers when they sign up and the membership is now so vast that finding the bad apples is both time consuming and very expensive.

Nor can you legislate for the "little guy". Scammers, and in that I include counterfeiters, come in all forms, from the lone hacker in his bedroom to the sophisticated networks of some scamming rings. Inevitably they are only deleted after their scams have been perpetrated.

In the past, eBay has managed to distance itself, claiming to be "only a venue" but that position is no longer tenable. "Only a venue" has been soundly rejected in more than one recent court ruling, the Louis Vuitton case, resulting in awards totalling $63 million to be paid by eBay, being the most notable. I have no doubt eBay will appeal the decision but cannot win the appeal, nor will eBay succeed in changing laws claimed as "protectionist".

Such laws are there to protect all of us from the potential dangers of counterfeit cosmetics, perfumes, alcohol etc and eBay knows the appeal is futile, it is only a delaying tactic. eBay has known for a long time that this day would come. eBay has prepared for it.

Step back from the fray for a moment and see the bigger picture which eBay has been painting for some time now. I recall two years ago, in the thick of the protests of Summer 2006, a seller being told they were exactly what eBay was trying to get rid of. The plan was sketched even then and all that has transpired since has simply filled in more of the picture.

I must admit, eBay has been clever. It is no mean feat to have retained a steady supply of smaller sellers to bolster the numbers and income until the inevitable crunch happens. The future has begun.

eBay must change. Being held liable for fraud on the site leaves the site wide open to massive losses and so the current format is now unsustainable.

Imagine if eBay had to pursue every Tom, Dick and scammer to recoup the fines imposed on them, how much would fees have to rise to cover the costs incurred? There is no choice, eBay must rid itself of all the smaller sellers, hobby sellers, casual sellers and, yes, even some of the existing powersellers while attracting existing professional businesses. The process has already begun.

They are building a shopping mall where the fleamarket used to be.

So, what of the Moms and Pops? They have no place in the future eBay, either shape up or ship out. I would suggest that anyone with the ability to research and a reasonable knowledge of collectables consider opening an eBay drop-off store, naturally they will need to be able to provide guarantees, the rest will need to find somewhere else to sell or auction their items.

Sadly, I suspect many wonderful part-time sellers and artists / craftspeople will drop out entirely. When the crunch finally comes (I anticipate an announcement in late September or early October) it will be a shock to most sellers, few know what's really going on.

But, for eBay, this is the right move. Legitimate businesses can be held liable, can be made to give assurances, bonds, guarantees to indemnify eBay for any actions arising from their conduct on the site. It will, at last, be a safe site for us, the buyers.

Of course, I have not forgotten that the buyers on eBay - that's you and me - are also the Moms and Pops trying to make that little bit extra to help the budget who may have grown their businesses but not to the extent they can give the indemnities eBay will require. We can either hope an eBay drop-off store will open somewhere near us so that we can continue selling our items (less all those percentages) or we can go where the auctions are.

The auction format is only dead on eBay.

In reality, the impending shift in eBay's focus will be a good thing all round. Sellers like us will spread out across the net to more than one auction site and I doubt if any of them will stand head and shoulders above the rest. The choice will be a personal one, of course, but I recommend that each seller Google the items they normally sell (limit it to your own country if you like) and find out which sites are brought up on Google's first few pages. Make your choices carefully, you may even want to use several specialist auction sites to sell specific categories of goods.

Use the PheeCalculator to compare fees charged where possible and learn how to improve your own search engine optimisation. Beware, when you look at a 'new' site on which you might consider listing, check out the designer goods, look for Chanel, Christian Dior, Tiffany, Louis Vuitton etc and if you find many listed then run (don't walk) away. Any site filled with fakes - and I won't name them here - has a very limited lifespan, the lawyers will get to them in time.

Once you have decided where to list, promote yourself and your chosen site on social networking sites like Squidoo.com, blog about that special offer you have or that unique piece of memorabilia, and have fun doing it.

eBay has brought us these changes and we must make the most of them. The good news is that the entire online auction industry will, in fact, be strengthened by these events. Many sites will be going out of business as copyright holders use the law to clamp down on counterfeits and, I believe, the law will be beefed up to protect not only copyright holders but consumers as well. If you sell online then you will need to keep up with developments and at Pheebay we are committed to helping you stay ahead of the game. We're all in the same boat.

The OAI will emerge from this transition period in 12 to 18 months time as a far stronger and safer environment in which to trade Worldwide.

In short, it's time to discover the cyberspace beyond eBay and leave it to its shopping mall but I can't help thinking that the final strokes which complete that picture will be the graffiti sprayed on the closed doors "they still wonder where we went".

Published originally by Pheebay.com

A place you can comment on the above opinion piece.

The News From eBid - July 2008

eBids' founders Gary and Mark would like to show their appreciation to all the buyers and sellers that have helped eBid reach the milestone of 1,000,000 auctions. As we continue to grow, there's never been more of a reason to take advantage of our Seller+ Lifetime offer, still available at only £49.99.

But what does this really mean to YOU as a seller? It means up to 5 stores, options for FREE listing, FREE photo inclusion and NO Final Value Fees, depending on how you list and that's FOREVER! Right now, everyone who upgrades to Seller+ will receive a FREE eBid T-shirt. Check out our selling fees to find out how much you could save with a Seller+ Lifetime account.

Yahoo Auctions - Going, going, gone!
QXL.co.uk - Going, going, gone!
Bidville.com- Going, going, gone!
eBid - Growing, growing, growing.

As competition tightens up within the online auction markets, eBid is continuing to spread its wings and embrace the global marketplace. Whilst rivals are bought up, split up or shut down, eBid is expanding.

Leading UK publication Web User has awarded eBid their highest Gold Award as the best online auction alternative to eBay. All the more impressive when you consider Amazon didn't even achieve a bronze award.
The magazine reviewed eight sites in total. Features they liked about eBid included:

The number of auctions
The range of categories
The ease of navigation
The powerful search facility
The Buddy Points system for "good citizenship"
The lively and good natured forums
Simple payment systems
Range of auction types
Clear display of shipping costs

Read more about this award here on Pheebay.

Reviewed: Issue 193 (31 July - 13 August 2008)

I first came to online selling because a nasty asthma attack left me unable to go to T in the Park and I'd tickets to sell, so I joined up to eBayInc. It wasn't altogether pleasant, 1 complete timewaster, 6 dumb questions etc but, on the whole it was ok.

Being a grandmother I'd a house full of 'stuff' and thought it might be a good way to have a clearout, so I listed and some items sold well enough.

The very first thing I realised was that the camera I was using wasn't good enough. If you want to sell at good prices you must have clear photos, an early purchase was a decent digital camera.

You also need to arm yourself with a good set of scales and a postage rate booklet. Everyone sometime has cheated themselves on postage.

Advice - sell internationally if you can. It's not hard.

I enthused to friends about eBay, I enjoyed what I was doing but it wasn't too long before it dawned on me that with the latest fee hikes it was getting to where I was having to sell to make the fees and I wasn't in love with eBay but with selling online.

After the feehikes announced July 2006 I stopped selling on eBay (though I'm still a member there), my first port of call being eBid. Now I'm on Dealgates, YourHighBid, Bidz.org, HalfMoonAuctions and more. I spent a time on Tazbar too but ended my listings there recently due to management changes taking the site in a different direction.

I don't think any one site will be able to break eBay's virtual monopoly in the online auction arena but with the fraud, scams and other problems (well documented) on eBay I don't think it will take long for the buyers to switch loyalties when they discover other venues without these problems.

So many of the smaller sites are safer to sell and buy on you'd be daft not to try some, free listing too, what's to lose?

You can find help to break the eBay addiction, www.pheebay.com is just one, I think it's the best but I am slightly biased LOL

Dozens and dozens of auction sites are out there, many are specialist sites and I've been trying a few of them out. I'll add to what I'm writing here over the time ahead and hope that some of the info will help some people find their own special niche on the internet.

Pheebay also has help and advice available for people setting up their own websites and is looking for the road ahead for online selling, away from the 800 lbs gorilla, by bringing smaller sites together and encouraging personal development of your own webpresence.

Oddly enough, I had often thought in the past that online selling was the way ahead for people like me. I'm disabled with arthritis and couldn't do a "proper" job. I did have ideas about what I wanted to sell and I guess I'm about half-way through my learning curve now.

The very first site I tried was eBid but when I started using it, it wasn't the eBid you see today.

Recent changes to the site have greatly improved the performance and presentation of eBid and its forums, I recommend anyone interested in online auction selling to take a look at eBid now. It's easy to use and the fees are very reasonable. It used to require a gold membership to get gallery pictures on your listings but that's no longer the case and the site is still growing steadily.

I'm glad I stayed with eBid, fees are minimal, customer service does what it says on the tin and there is a good sense of community there. You'll find my listings here I hope you'll explore this site as a genuine alternative to the 'big guy' and good luck with your sales there if you list.

It wasn't until I left eBay that I discovered the simplicity of ecommerce, there are so many ways you can set yourself up in online selling and so easily.

You can have your own store somewhere like ecrater or you can buy a domain name and set yourself up a website. There are so many hosts, so many styles, so many different things to consider that the real difficulty is in choosing which one to go with. Actually making your own website and uploading it is the easy part.

I have my own site, www.mapofthetarot.com put together with a WYSIWYG program which suits my needs perfectly. I still have more work to do on it and I haven't added a sales area or shopping cart yet but at some point I'll be adding more content and changing a couple of things.

It really doesn't have to cost you the Earth, my program cost less than £20 (under $40) and I haven't yet explored all its capabilities, it can do so much more :-)

If you visit us over at Pheebay.com you'll find a load of opportunities for free advertising for members. I'm a mod there, chances are you'll see me. As a Pheebay member you can an have entry in Net Store Search Directory free, there are places on the forums to promote your listings (wherever they are).

eBid, by the way, is an international auction site, well worth looking into :-)

My eBid store can be found here.

EBid is shortly to expand into a further three countries, bringing the total to 17 and Mark and Gazza have recently added RSS feeds to the site, a real plus in my book :-)

I've only just begun experimenting with adding videaos to my listings. eBid make this simple, all you need id the 11 digit code from YouTube and magically it appears.

You can see my video efforts to date here on Squidoo or on my art card listings on eBid.net

A really good article for some background on eBid's owners can be found here

There is more information on other auction sites I have tried below all the RSS feeds from my eBid stores

When I first started on eBid I had some sales but a bunch of us had gone over from eBay at the same time and my sales and purchases were mainly, but not exclusively, with these recent ex-ebayers. Again, it wasn't all plain sailing but glad I stayed with it in light of the improvements since made to the site :-)

It was soon clear, however, that if I wanted to sell online through an auction style outlet, I was going to need to search around for what works where. I soon discovered that there are hundreds of auction style sites out there of varying quality.

The second site I decided to list on was Tazbar. I found the ethos and friendliness of the site under Lee Markham's guidance, added to the ease of use and navigation was really refreshing and it's certainly a site worth trying but I no longer sell there. In fact I closed my account out there just very recently because of a number of changes (IMO not for the better) in the management style, look and functionality of the site and, most importantly, in the ethos. This is my choice and my opinion. Sales on there were not great for me, far from it, and it seems that the meteoric rise of Tazbar after its initial launch has now levelled at a relatively (compared to eBid) low point.

I think Tazbar was in some senses very lucky that the launch of the site in August 2007 coincided with a very large fee hike from eBay and a number of disgruntled sellers migrated to Tazbar because of that. There was also a huge marketing campaign on UK TV stations which did bring people to the site and they signed up as buyers and sellers ... when they could.

The responses to the advertising campaign were seemingly underestimated and frequently the site was freezing under the pressure of visitor numbers each time an advert was aired. This shows one of the greatest dangers in marketing, can you be sure your bandwidth will cope? Servers were upgraded but the site struggled to cope with rushes of visitors.

Now, I don't know about other people but if I visit a site and it doesn't load fairly quickly, I ditch the page and move on. The beauty and the curse of the web is that there is always another site out there to explore and I, for one, get impatient to move on to the next.

There is considerable discussion of Tazbar on the Pheebay forums (it has a dedicated forum as do a number of other sites) which you may wish to read if you are considering Tazbar as an outlet. It has certainly proved fruitful for some individuals.

Sadly Tazbar has now ceased to be.

I next tried listing on two small auction sites, Dealgates and Bidz.org.

Dealgates is run by entrepreneur Luc Michalski and is based in France. His press release in January stated "DealGates.com is a new generation marketplace offering to buyers the opportunity to find the best deal by comparing auctions, instant deals, classifieds ads published by individuals, and catalogs of most famous E-Merchants from USA." More information here

There were a number of glitches encountered when listing first at Dealgates but, to be fair, Luc was very good at helping to iron these out and for some glitches there were workarounds anyway.

I like the look and feel of this site but didn't put my full inventory there so can't really say what performance is like. I appreciate the idea behind it, bringing into one place many sites and parking smaller independent traders alongside.

Luc has made further improvements to the site. I like the ideas and the direction.

Bidz.org - not to be confused with other bidz sites - is also one I initially liked and I was impressed with the representative who came to the Pheebay forums regularly to keep us updated. Something changed and we haven't seen him for a long time. I tried contacting the rep and got a reply from someone else. The site itself seems to run reasonably well though it did suffer some unexplained downtime and it looks like whoever is in charge now doesn't have time to communicate with users.

Again, I didn't have my full inventory on the site so can't really judge how it performs but page views have been disappointing at both of these sites so far.

16th September 2007

Unfortunately, Bidz.org has been offline for some time. It is now back up and running but, as I like my sites to be reliable, I will not be relisting there for the forseeable future.

24th April - An Update on Bidz.org

In the last few months, Bidz.org first became the European arm Of Plunderhere and subsequently the news was out that the owner(s) of Bidz.org had purchased Plunderhere.

Plunderhere is not a site with which I am familiar.

This site runs smoothly and listing, for me, has been easy, fast and totally painless for listing etc.

I'm liking what I see in terms of the changes which have been made since the change of ownership. The site has a fresh new look which I find very attractive and is easily navigated.

I have my fingers firmly crossed for this site as the new management have really taken the overall performance of the site up a gear.

Keep watching YHB :-)

Everything you could possible need is there and the fees are very reasonable. Everything works well and efficiently. You can include up to 4 photographs in your listings, choose whether you want the item to appear in store, auction or both, gallery pics are included, html is a dawdle to add / alter and I can't really fault the site in any way.

Communication with the management is fast and easy and items can be listed for up to 3 months with options to relist automatically up to 6 times, giving you the option of up to 18 months for your items to remain on the site.

Also available is an option to auto-relist if the item sells. This is very useful for me with my cards and I wish it were all as easy as this at other sites.

I really recommend that you pop over there and take a look. Copy the following url and paste it in your browser address bar to see my own YHB store ...
http://www.yourhighbid.com/shop.php?user_id=90

During the week (9th to 16th September) my YHB store was one of two featured stores of the week, all publicity helps.

Unfortunately, nice though the site is, it has not performed for me in terms of sales and therefore on December 5th all my listings will be ending and will not be renewed.

I wish the site every success and if the traffic picks up I may well relist my items.

I'm always looking at auction sites online, I wouldn't like to think I might be missing out on something, but there are so many sites out there, where do you begin? Well, don't go around them in alphabetical order or you might miss out on a gem of a site, Zolanta.com.

To read more about Zolanta, please visit this lens.

Since ceasing to trade on eBay Inc months ago, I've looked at a number of 'other' auction sites, most are free to list on, most have very low final value fees, most even seem to be based on the same software but none stands out as a potential rival to eBay Inc.

Even the most successful of the alternatives pales into insignificance beside the giant.. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do we really want another eBay? Most wannabes turn into scam ridden sites full of fake designer goods where you still run a risk of being hijacked and cyber-mugged if you try to buy anything of high value.

On the other hand, find yourself a specialist site, where collectors trade, and you've found yourself a community, all interested in their subject and usually far more knowledgeable and helpful than you would find on a general auction site. Small is beautiful, because the users are a community, interested in protecting their community, you will rarely find a scam on a specialist site.

In the real world, if you want to buy certain items you visit specific stores, the internet should allow you to place all those stores in your personal virtual High Street instead of them being scattered all over town, yet that facility isn't readily available.

Why not? Oh, sure, you can add various sites to your favourites list but first you have to find them and it isn't always easy. Some site owners know nothing about search engine optimisation and think all they need do is publish their site and people will come, it isn't quite so simple and many good sites out there in the wilds of the web are completely overlooked.

What can be done to remedy this? Well, a good place to start is by taking a look at the mechanics of the Summer Solstice Blue Moon promotional event being co-ordinated by Pheebay.com. The plan is to link many of the smaller auction sites and sellers together in one virtual 'place' and use the combined energy of the many to generate the publicity to grab the attention of the buying public. It's a good place to start but why stop there? Why not make these links more tangible, more permanent and not only continue the joint marketing but also the single page portal to a range of sites and sellers?

It makes so much sense.

... continued below ...
Visit the Pheebay.com forums

Make links between sites more tangible, make them permanent, continue the joint marketing and the single page portal to a range of sites and sellers and you have the basis for what I would like to see.

Why not go a little further and group them into areas of interest, the soft furnishings and home décor 'district' perhaps, the cards and gifts 'mall' and all the better if there are specialist auction sites within the various 'precincts'. Then enable the buyer to select from each area the stores in which they are most interested and let them personalise their High Street or Mall with only the stores/sites they want to see.

It isn't a huge leap of technology to implement this and enable it to display in a comfortable visual form, the technology already exists, so what has prevented this from happening?

Although many ex-eBayers, myself included, openly admit that had it not been for eBay they would probably not have started selling on the internet, it was through eBay they discovered the ease and the pleasure with which it can be done, but what many don't even realise is that the prevailing attitude on eBay of sellers towards other sellers is adversarial and highly competitive. Whilst many find freedom from selling on eBay, they carry that attitude with them, seeing only rivals and competitors where there are, in fact, allies. EBay has introduced many individuals to business but not necessarily to the best business practices.

By forming co-operatives with similar or complementary sites so much more can be achieved in terms of web-presence, by combining such co-operatives under a single banner, the individual's web-profile becomes so much greater than if they were alone.

Why shouldn't it be possible for the many to set aside their minor differences and come together in their combined interests to promote the variety of shopping experiences available across the world wide web?

Think of a thousand sites linked together, small sellers and large, full sites, simple landing pages, general auction sites and specialist auctions, all linked, all found under one banner.

Many markets with one voice, how strong would that be.

Visit the Pheebay.com forums

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If you don't know the basics of SEO then take a look at this and see if it helps :-)

The SS2BM event came to an end on 30th June 2007, although the phrase remained searchable for months and may still produce results.

I've rearranged my modules but if you look further down this page you will still find links to participants in the event and I have no intention of removing these lists, they are a good resource and should lead you to some excellent online sellers.

I would ask any of the sellers who change their venues to please keep me up to date on those changes as dead links will be deleted when found.

SS2BM blogspot ...
http://ss2bm.blogspot.com/search/label/ss2bm

Obviously this event took place some months ago now but the principles which we were aiming to promote are definitely worthwhile and the tactics we employed were certainly successful.

There was definitely an increase in business for many of us during what would otherwise have been a slack period in sales.

I leave the original here and the module which follows ...

I want to bring this here as I think it presents a great opportunity for sellers to explore new venues and for all the smaller sites to get involved in a joint promotion.

In case it's a mystery to you, the smaller and specialist online auction sites (and there are many of them) have come to be known collectively as the "St. Elsewheres". This event is designed to jointly promote these St. Elsewheres and bring a whole new World of shopping to the computers of buyers everywhere.

As a seller myself, I already list on quite a few sites and will choose at least two more to list on for the event. I hope sellers and site owners will join together to make this event a success.

Pheebay.com is pleased to announce the

Summer Solstice - Blue Moon
June 21st to 30th

Grand Summer Fayre on the web
in celebration of independence from eBay Inc.

Following a suggestion from KissMyConfusion, a member at Pheebay.com, a Grand Summer Fayre is being organised for online sellers and St Elsewhere auction sites.

The object of the promotion is to raise awareness of the myriad of smaller auction site venues and independent website traders across the globe by bringing many together in one promotional event.

Independent sellers and sites are asked to unite for this event in order to highlight the variety of shopping experiences available across the world wide web. A range of banners will be available to auction site sellers and owners and independent web traders for display on their site & auction pages promoting the event. A page will be hosted at Pheebay.com in order to co-ordinate the effort.

So get ready to join in the early holiday fun with a little midsummer madness and look around the sites to stock up on bargains for the Summer

For more information please visit http://www.pheebay.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=69

The very first site owner to sign up for the event was Julie from IWAC, a small site with a dedicated forum at Pheebay.com. Julie works hard for her sellers and is offering some incentives for buyers and sellers on her site.

24th May - The object of this buyer awareness campaign is to increase consumer awareness of the myriad of smaller auction or marketplace site venues and independent website traders across the globe. Sites and sellers will be working together on an unprecedented scale to promote all the participants in the event.

Any seller at an online auction or marketplace site is eligible, any independent website trader selling goods online, any of the small to medium sized online auction or marketplace sites, all are eligible to sign up to this event.

It costs nothing to participate and many sites/sellers are offering special deals during the promotional event varying from a points collection system to free gifts for buyers. Final details of offers from sites/sellers will be published shortly before the event or you can check the threads at http://www.pheebay.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=69 it is anticipated that as we near the start of the actual promotion some special offers will be announced tied to Summer Fayre style games.

The event will primarily be promoted online and all participating auctions / sites will be identified by a specific acronym which will be searchable in Google, try a search for SS2BM to see what we have done so far in preparing this project.

** "St Elsewhere" in this context is taken from the forums at eBay Inc where talk of other auction sites is taboo. To try and circumvent the penalties imposed (known as 'pink slaps' an accumulation of which may lead to a site ban) posters refer to individual sites by nicknames (Amazon = jungle) and to the range of alternative online auction venues as the 'St Elsewheres'