Sad news for auction sites

[BigKidsAttic]

Just found out via a post on one of the Facebook groups i'm in, that Ebay has made no FVF or regulatory operating fee's for UK based private sellers for the 1st 300 listings. Fee's still apply for optional upgrades or if the item is delivered to an overseas address.

That does not sound good for here!

[theElench]

I still sell over there (but not for much longer) and when I say "sell" I mean that I list, but haven't sold anything since May. They may get a lot more private sellers adding listings but they will soon find out that the problems with the site will mean that it's highly likely that they'll sell very little, if anything.

Their search isn't good and is biased towards "Sponsored" listings, reducing visibility of items that aren't sponsored.
Every ad. is now cut to pieces and is used by obay as a bill-board to display literally hundreds of other 'similar' items and even after having 'sold' an item, obay will show the buyer more similar items. Often with lower prices that encourage buyers to immediately cancel the sale.
Even their famous 80% off FVF offers aren't all they claim, with many complaints that sales under the reduced FVF offers produce even less sales than the same item listed at full fees, due (again) to reduced visibility.

A good many of the new sellers will soon fall foul of obays absurd Estimated Delivery Dates Shown To Buyers. They usually tell my buyers that, with 2 days handling plus 2-3 days for delivery by RM they should expect delivery the day after I post, or at best the day after. Encouraging bad FB and opening the gates for unscrupulous buyers to demand a refund for "non delivery" before RM's EDD is past. This will ultimately lead them to become "Below Standard" sellers.

Only my opinion but obay is now so flawed it's practically useless for small volume sellers who won't Sponsor. Sellers of anything that is slow to sell and isn't likely to sell the first time it's listed and sellers of items in small niches that don't sell in high enough volumes to please the site.
I may well be wrong but what I see when I search the site after an "Offer Weekend" is an increase in miss-posted listings, wrongly ascribed items and "rubbish" listings from sellers who know nothing about what they're trying to sell, with a few poor photos and an AI description that's often inaccurate.
I think that might well lead to an increase, not in buyers flocking to obay, but even more buyers searching on google main site / images / shopping and other non-obay search engines that make it easier to find what they really want, not what obay is willing to show them.

[goldenwonders]

Hello Dave,
afraid I'm going to challenge you on some of your comments about Obey. You will remember that I came back here having packed in Obey because of my annoyance at their ever increasing fees and new rules around 4+ years ago. At the time I listed over 1700 items here and waited.... and waited...
I had been here before many years earlier and found sales were better back then than on my return. I was reminded that this site is 'different' to Obey, you have to spend time on social media and pinterest and all the other promo outlets. Well I came here with my Hard Rock Cafe pins - highly collectible in the USA - over 400 or so. I sold ONE in 2 years to a UK buyer. After selling a few items, I realised this site is not promoted and quite frankly a very poor comparison to the dark side. This is all because of a lack of advertising, telling buyers it exists. I came in for a lot of stick daring to suggest that without advertising it will never compete in even a small way. Some of the comments included a member (who shall remain nameless) saying 'this is not an auction site'. I did laugh!
Anyway, I let my auctions drop down to nearly nothing and returned swallowing my pride back to Obay. That was a little under 3 years ago. Since then I have sold only to UK buyers but have sold most of the original 400 HRC pins I listed here and a lot more that i have since added. Yes I get charged more than on here - BUT I charge more on Obey, so I don't lose out. I don't pay full fees as I only list when fees are set at the 80% FV sales charge.
I've had one bad patch when sales dropped everywhere (all auction sites) early in the year - but since then not had any issues - built up over 500+ feedback - all positive and have return buyers, who don't want to know about ebid as they've never heard of it!!!
I do think some of your comments are a little sweeping as I'll discuss below...

Search isn't good... yes I'd agree but anyone who knows how to search will find what they want with a bit of effort, maybe that's down to experience?
Swamped with lower price items encouraging cancellations of sales?? .... Not sure this is correct. First depends on what is being sold, my HRC pins are not cheap - but I've never had a cancellation for anything that I've sold in the last 3 years.
80% Reduced FVF - sell less items ....tend to agree to a point, there is less visibility, but if you pursue the 80% FVF you do make sales and it does make savings. Visibility has always been an issue but its one that Obey struggle to enforce as they are losing sellers, NOT gaining them as you suggest - this is proven by the fact that when I search certain items that I collect there are less available to buy - that is not because of the search difficulties. It's also partly down to the amount of auction sites/venues to sell.
Delivery dates difficult to achieve - WHY? I set mine at 2 days to post and despite Obey constantly pushing me to reduce to 1 day post I ignore them and it works fine. I have had 1 transaction delivery defect - which was crazy and nothing to do with late posting. It was because the buyer paid me 2 weeks late, my sales were at that point set on holiday mode as I was away, I posted on my return but because it was recorded post they said I'd posted late - which I appealed but they said it was not appealable!
Offer weekend AI items are rubbish mis-posted and inaccurate ... Not sure why anyone uses AI, it is poor and you can get totally meaningless descriptions. Laziness BUT I love badly written sales items as these are the ones that as long as you know what your buying are the real bargains of Obey.
So that one is swings and roundabouts - it all comes down to knowing what your looking for and maybe a degree of experience in knowing what you're doing.

Buyers are now a rare commodity - ANYWHERE - not just on Obey - they certainly are rare here! We must remember there are more sites selling items on the net today than ever there were when Obey/ebid began - trouble is Obey made the effort to gain attention, ebid made no effort and has I'm afraid stagnated! Finally I do think the 'collecting' side of things is actually dying, young people are not interested, certainly less interested, antiques are losing their appeal - look at the TV antique shows - auctions full of elderly people and few if any youngsters.
Anyway thats my take - over to you.

[BordersBargains]

It going to have a massive effect but only one the sites like this one who rely on their sellers to advertise
*bay are going down the Vinted route so the buyer pays the fee's which will be smaller but still profits but they are also going to prefer to give pay outs every quarter which means some nice interest in their bank - - - Its a win win for eBay and sites like this will only survive if they get their names out there which currently they don't. *bay are also doing a whatnot style thing which will damage things even more
Its making me think we may be going back to the old school days when *bay was very popular and smaller sites like this did actually not bad but only due to their branded tape etc
Vinted will not see a single issue however because they spent money on being seen and made their app a very popular platform for all ages and I have to admit it is pretty damn good and a nice achievement
I've seen zero action on here since February except for one sale recently which I forgot to take off when it was sold elsewhere for a higher price.
I started selling on *bay then came to this site and my first ever sale was here which made me a loyal user of the site but they slowly lost interest in being seen or pushing their visibility sales dried up and I left for a while, then came back which was an ok period but for the past few years they have had numerous opportunities by *bay *tsy etc making stupid changes to grab sellers and buyers and grow their platform! Nothing happened and it just seems they are happy with the way things are but now *bay have made this move others will do the same and they will all grow and gain their lost sellers and buyers.
Price wars will also start on *bay as more sellers appear which will mean the cheaper listings here will no longer be the cheapest, people will stop using the smaller sites more and be unfortunately forced to go to the bigger boys

I'll keep listing here on a template basis but won't expect anything to change

[mark4740]

Surely Ebid will have to do something to try and combat this, Who will want to pay 69.99 or full price at 139.99 when you can list for free on ebay with no FVF? I will list 100 or so items on ebay and relist them after 10 days if they don't sell and list new items if they do, That will keep me within the free 300 items limit with no fvf's and at least ebay works for me where as everything is broken on here for me and support have tried to help but NOTHING has been resolved, Its time to invest in some advertising not matter how small or this site will disappear, I still can't get my head around after 25 years hardly anyone has heard of ebid its bizarre, And when they post those silly posts on facebook surely they must realise its only the sellers who see these posts.I went over to ebay during this period of ebid tape so i didn't see it but bringing this back would be a start, something anything

[goldenwonders]

Its time to invest in some advertising not matter how small or this site will disappear, I still can't get my head around after 25 years hardly anyone has heard of ebid its bizarre, And when they post those silly posts on facebook surely they must realise its only the sellers who see these posts. I went over to ebay during this period of ebid tape so i didn't see it but bringing this back would be a start, something anything

I did tell them years ago they needed to advertise and finally the chickens are coming home, so its probably too late! I made several attempts to convince others that self promotion was not the answer here, they needed to advertise 20 years ago. No one will have heard of ebid because they kept it a secret - it was the cheaper option to do so. The owners have done nothing here, made a living out of the site but not reinvested or tried to grow what they had. Obey never needed to buy this site - it was easier to watch it decline. With sites like Vinted offering free listings it hurt Obey hence their move to list clothing FOC of sales costs - but of course the natural progression was then to sell everything free and just rely on advertising - which is where the real money is made. Obey are also changing the sellers ability to leave fees in their account and spend them rather than have to withdraw month end. That was something that for me was an obvious move - they should have done it 2 years ago as it gives sellers the option to use the funds to buy on their own site.
I'm afraid all the small 7p stamp sellers are going to see a change as this site is here today but maybe soon will be a distant dream - sad!!
As for tape, I'm afraid ebid tape is really a poor option - far too little and much too late.

[madelaine]

It is very easy to condemn those who run eBid for not advertising, but do you remember Tazbar? They had an investor who insisted on spending too much on advertising and the site crashed each time the ad was shown and then went bust when the money ran out. Before that Tazbar was doing far better than eBid.

However, I really do wish something would happen - I was selling at least an item per day and now I'm lucky to sell one per month.

[Stnenopmoc]

If eBay do not charge a fee to suppliers and they take the money from buyers and invoice buyers in the eBay name rather than the supplier of the goods and if disputes are settled by eBay and if credit card bills have only an eBay reference; are eBay actually the seller of the goods from an on-line catalogue of items described and provided via the eBay site, similar to Tesco, Argos, Next etc.

As such are they the legal retailer of the goods supplied on the site, rather than an advertising board.


If they are the retailer then many laws apply in the UK such as Sale of Goods, Safety, and . . . . a myriad of others.


Perhaps this is why eBay were worried about class actions ?

[goldenwonders]

It is very easy to condemn those who run eBid for not advertising, but do you remember Tazbar? They had an investor who insisted on spending too much on advertising and the site crashed each time the ad was shown and then went bust when the money ran out. Before that Tazbar was doing far better than eBid.

However, I really do wish something would happen - I was selling at least an item per day and now I'm lucky to sell one per month.

I don't know much about Tazbar, but what little I do know is that, if as you say the site crashed due to an advert being shown, then the fault lay with the site creators not having set up to deal with the advertising it was drawing in. It seems it had the potential to do well - so going bust lay in its failure to cater for it's success - and that cannot be laid at the door of 'advertising being the reason for its closure'?
I'm afraid that the lack of advertising IS the reason for ebid's failing - AND had it made itself a household name a lot earlier it would be able to maybe stem the flow of what is now going to probably be a fatal blow!
Madelelaine - you and several others have always opposed my comments about advertising being a necessity here.

I wrote this in February 2023 on this forum on a post entitled 'Mary Celeste', in fairness I should point out it was not yourself who told me it was not an auction site .....

"I'm afraid this site is destined to eventually disappear unless it joins the real world and makes some effort to promote itself.
I still have over 1000 listings here, I have heard all the comments about you have to use social media to sell here (not disputing them) but quite frankly I don't have the time. I was even told by one 'Saint' this is not an auction site (LOL - yes I remember who you are) I did laugh and enjoyed pointing out that's why ebid had an award listed on its front page saying 'Best Value Auction Site'.
As I said at the time if you rented a space in an Antique Centre, it would be the Centres responsiblity to obtain the footfall through advertising - NOT relying on individual sellers alone to promote the Centre"!

[madelaine]

what happened to Tazbar was that the new investor insisted on very high profile ads - in the interval of the Cup Final, I seem to remember. Prior to this, the site had been growing steadily. Then, when the investor didn't put more money in, listing fees were introduced and those, as you would expect, were the real cause of the death.

This isn't, most of the time, an auction site - bidding wars are almost unheard of.

However, I have changed my mind - the steady growth I was experiencing has vanished so it is advertise or die.