Has Ebay Finally Shot Itself In the Foot?

[johnwash1]

Glad You liked It, Partly Drawn and Partly clipart from two large online clipart librarys, Retired 2 weeks ago so thought I would see if I could still remember some of the things I learnt from my days as a graphic artist way back when we used to use Amiga,s and Lightwave.( god that was a long time ago) LOL

Thanks for the 2nd one! OK, you proved you're not a one-trick pony! Looks like the start of a long running series, you could even do a website with a weekly cartoon, check if auctionhilarity.com is available!

Never used an Amiga myself, but last weekend our local Linux user group a whole bunch of people were reminiscing about the Amiga and how far ahead of its time it was. Its demise was a very sad story, such a waste.

[gorgeousuk]

Can someone check if my link works?

i originally duplicated the beginning, but should now be ok?

Hopefully!!!!!

Thanks all

[johnwash1]

Can someone check if my link works?

i originally duplicated the beginning, but should now be ok?

Hopefully!!!!!

Thanks all

No, it's trying to go to http://http://uk.ebid.net/stores/gorgeousuk-Gift-Store

[starlady22]

For incredible value I would recommend nearlyfreespeech.net -- instead of x quid a month it's the only hosting I know of that's pay-as-you-go, which may mean a month's charges are one cent or less! If you're very high traffic (you should be so lucky!) it's not such good value, but it's not a problem to move away. And the beauty of it is that if you get a huge spike of traffic (e.g. you get slashdotted or other massive publicity) you only risk the few dollars that you've prepaid (whereas a traditional hosting company will hold you to ransom).

The catch is that it's a service for people who really know what they're doing. You need to find a local friend who can help you.

However, all that said, why do you actually want a website, rather than listing things on eBid? What will it gain you?

HI
Thanks for the info. I want a website as well as ebid, not instead of. I just feel it's time.
I will have a look at the website you suggested.

Jane

[johnwash1]

HI
Thanks for the info. I want a website as well as ebid, not instead of. I just feel it's time.
I will have a look at the website you suggested.

Jane

OK Jane, that's fair enough, I wasn't fearing you'd jump ship!

Before you start looking at that website (nearlyfreespeech) and get totally turned off by their geeky techie stuff, let's look at this a different way. Imagine you could wave a wand and all the domain registration, website hosting, page design and other grunt work were taken care of by your fairy godmother. What she cannot do is decide what to put on your pages.

Curl up with pad of paper and a pencil. Sketch out very roughly what you want it to look like. Even more important, jot down what you want to say. Hey, why stop there, go right to the top -- what do want your visitors to learn or do? Or you might decide it's not about your visitors, it's just about putting a bit of your life in front of the public (though I've never understood why people blog, but it sure is popular even though 90% only get one visitor [1]).

Whatever you do, don't just say you'll postpone that until you've actually got a website. If you have firm ideas laid out for the content, getting people to help you make that a reality isn't so difficult. If you don't have that info, well, not only will you never get the help, you may even find you don't need a website after all!


[1] That would be the author's mother, of course!

[starlady22]

OK Jane, that's fair enough, I wasn't fearing you'd jump ship!

Before you start looking at that website (nearlyfreespeech) and get totally turned off by their geeky techie stuff, let's look at this a different way. Imagine you could wave a wand and all the domain registration, website hosting, page design and other grunt work were taken care of by your fairy godmother. What she cannot do is decide what to put on your pages.

Curl up with pad of paper and a pencil. Sketch out very roughly what you want it to look like. Even more important, jot down what you want to say. Hey, why stop there, go right to the top -- what do want your visitors to learn or do? Or you might decide it's not about your visitors, it's just about putting a bit of your life in front of the public (though I've never understood why people blog, but it sure is popular even though 90% only get one visitor [1]).

Whatever you do, don't just say you'll postpone that until you've actually got a website. If you have firm ideas laid out for the content, getting people to help you make that a reality isn't so difficult. If you don't have that info, well, not only will you never get the help, you may even find you don't need a website after all!


[1] That would be the author's mother, of course!

Hi Johnwash

Thanks for the reply. I understand what your saying, and maybe that's why i haven't bothered yet :-).
But i think it's time to try at least. One of the reasons i never tried before is because as i said originally, i always have different items, never the same, and not always more than one of the same thing, so i was never sure whether that would cause problems, or even if it can be done, with me always changings the items i sell.

Jane

[RockyWolf]

Hi Johnwash

Thanks for the reply. I understand what your saying, and maybe that's why i haven't bothered yet :-).
But i think it's time to try at least. One of the reasons i never tried before is because as i said originally, i always have different items, never the same, and not always more than one of the same thing, so i was never sure whether that would cause problems, or even if it can be done, with me always changings the items i sell.

Jane

A little one page website can be a useful tool when selling with your own domain as its useful when sending emails to have your nice custom url but having your own store in there and shopping cart it is a very hard nut to crack regarding sells due to the trust issue it's ok if your very well known high street store name or brand.. it's just better to put a banner on the page linking to your store/s on ebid I used to do this on the dark auction site also find if you haven't the skills back ground to run the site yourself it's not a easy task when half way though a sale there is a F"$%^$ up for some reason
you dont understand why it's not working at least with using ebid they are on hand to help out with support when you need it most..But please dont let me put you off..give it a go it's a good learning ground..but so hard to drive traffic to your site..it's better all of us promoting ebid by selling to each other and driving customers to eBid to buy from us all, than being a one man/woman band and putting all that time in a web site with a store and making next to no sells on ones own website been there done that..if you need any help putting a site together just send a pm wishing you the best of luck with your sells on eBid.

David

DONT CLICK THE BANNER BELOW YOU MIGHT FIND SOMETHING YOU LIKE

[johnwash1]

Hi Johnwash

Thanks for the reply. I understand what your saying, and maybe that's why i haven't bothered yet :-).
But i think it's time to try at least. One of the reasons i never tried before is because as i said originally, i always have different items, never the same, and not always more than one of the same thing, so i was never sure whether that would cause problems, or even if it can be done, with me always changings the items i sell.

Jane

Jane, RockyWolf is spot on -- don't attempt to set up your own sales channel, it's so much easier to list on eBid. Especially don't get into trying to take money on your own site, it would lead you into a can of worms.

However, look around at what other sellers do, some of them have web sites, often with pointers to them in their forum sigs. Generally they use them to give more info about themselves, and I suppose this gives more confidence to a buyer. This kind of stuff would remain much the same even though you're changing your stock of things to sell, so your web site would be easier to manage.

If you want a site that changes often, for example putting your latest news on it, you either want to run a 'blog' (there's lots of software to do that) or a CMS (Content Management System) -- there's lots of those too, for example Mambo is widely used and if you can edit an auction using the wysiwyg editor you wouldn't find Mambo too scary. But setting it up I think you'd need help with.

Trying to sell through your own auction site is a waste of time as I can personally say -- try http://www.johnwash.co.uk/beads/ to see a really naff page I put on the web several years ago!

[RockyWolf]

As John points out mambo or joomla you would need to know what you are doing both have very good plug in shopping carts but I was thinking that you could host though 123-reg.com have a site with a cart and they also will give you good support via there own forum .. you could have your own site up and running in about 2hrs using there templates.. Hope this helps.. link then from eBid and your site will hopefully give your customers a vote of confidence when getting things from you..there are so many dead e-commence site just left out there on the world wide web and has become a nightmare.. and a real problem trying to get your money back when you have parted with it in good faith at least when you come to a auction site you can see more or less what is going on like ebid ie: has the person logged in , ie: old ebid logo photos are a dead give away ask the seller a question is a good way of seeing if there is anybody in LOL.

Skype me via my auctions if you would like a chat Dave

DONT CLICK THE BANNER BELOW YOU MIGHT FIND SOMETHING YOU LIKE

[baconsdozen]

I notice ebay are now clamping down on people who mention ebid on their forums or anyone who queries why a thread or post is deleted.Maybe they are starting to get the wind up.
People seem to be leaving in droves and more are bidding for the hell of it or for a laugh knowing that the seller can now no longer leave a comment or negative feedback.Of course it opens up a whole can of worms because with their silly bidderr1,bidder 2 etc nonsense you don't know if you are a victim of shill bidding during an auction and,because of the suppression of feedback by sellers you don't knowe afterwards either.
No wonder sales are falling so fast.