Originally Posted by
stopusingebay
I was going to respond to a thread about advertising eBid, but with the number of ideas that I came up with, I thought it would be better to have them as an original post. Some of these ideas can still be used as a basis for an advertising campaign.
Something needs to be done to attract buyers. Having a huge number of sellers doesn't help if something is keeping buyers away. Advertisements help, but the biggest obstacle is getting a customer to register for the site and make their first purchase. Getting them to come back again is easier. Here are some ideas:
1) Have a 1st time customer discount that is managed by the site. For example, a new user would get $5 off on their first purchase, and it would be tied to their shipping address to prevent abuse.
2) Have a site managed escrow system, where the item is inspected and photographed by employees of eBid prior to being shipped on to the customer. Some users are scared away from Internet auction sites for this reason alone. The buyer would pay extra for the escrow service. It could be a unique feature that no other major site offers.
3) Have a loss leader. A partnership with a Chinese company that sells something like SD cards at slightly below market value might bring a lot of people in. It could be limited to something like 5 units per customer. Sales of cheap electronics from Asia is a huge part of eBay. There are even warehouses in the US that stockpile Chinese items just to eliminate the several week delivery time.
4) Make a deal to have a unique item available only on eBid. Having a unique item from a popular K pop band or celebrity only available on eBid could suddenly make eBid extremely popular. Perhaps an agreement could also be made with an inventor of a new product. Imagine if an invention that was featured on Shark Tank was only available for online ordering through eBid? Look at how many new movies are only available through Netflix. That must be a huge success for them.
5) I thought of another way than would involve writing some software. It's kind of a lot of work but it just might make a big difference. It would be better if I didn't say what it is though.
6) Hop on the cryptocurrency bandwagon. Let all purchases be possible using Bitcoin (or another coin with lower fees less pyramid scheme lure). EBid would keep the crypto payments in its own wallet so that the sellers wouldn't have to do anything more than check a box to allow crypto payments. When they get enough crypto in their accounts, they could send it out to an exachange or wallet of their choice. Imagine being able to say NOW ACCEPTING BITCOIN in an advertisement for eBid?