uBid, eBid. Why don't they all bid for eBay's business? And FAST!

Hi Randall.

Take a look at the link in JJs comment above.

Directly targeting eBay stores!

60,000 products with unlimited photos per product. No listing fees, no final value fees, Google Check out already enabled, Paypal can also be used, templates and shopping cart all provided. No set up costs to existing/fleeing eBay store owners and all for under $100 per month!!!

Seems they know where their potential market is at the moment!

I'm expecting more of this as the eBay stores set up, even before the fee hikes, was a brilliant model for a successful hosting business.

Graham

OK Sheldon! What did you know?

http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y06/m09/i08/s05

Seems new blood has just arrived at uBid! Hmmmmmmm.

The problem with the eBay competition is that they always go after the wrong end of the food chain....the sellers.

Getting the sellers is the easy part. It's the buyers that need to be the focus. If the buyers are present, the sellers will come.

Yahoo tried the auction business and it was (is) a disaster because they didn't promote it. Yahoo (and Google) have a beautiful built in customer base...all they need to do is tap into it.

Seriously, how hard would it be to place a link just below or above the adwords column with a relevant auction search?

Couldn't agree more with Ty Tribble.

It's the old problem. On the one hand you don't want buyers to come in to an empty store so you market to sellers initially. By the time a buyer rolls up the sellers have got fed up and returned to eBay!

The ideal new site would be built by existing sellers with the capacity to invest time, money and inventory. They can then stock the shelves before any launch.

Then from day one you market ONLY to potential buyers. As you say, if you do a good job on it, more sellers will quickly jump on board if sales are being made.

The kind of marketing necessary would cost money and needs to be thought thru carefully. However I'm convinced it can be done.

Sellers will go anywhere, pay handsomely and tollerate a few hassles so long as the venue is attracting a volume of buyers.

Sheldon,

Thanks for taking our input. I’ve never done discussion boards/blogs until this fee fiasco by Ebay. I believe there is a great opportunity out there. Ebay management’s short-sightedness caused this. If no major players fill the void I believer over time something will shake out. I’ve been watching many sites. I signed up with Yahoo business services. So far I am pleased with the progress. They have been very helpful and friendly setting up my e-commerce site. I got immediate help and no canned responses like you get on Ebay. I chose Yahoo because they are ranked #1 in web traffic according to Alexa.com rankings.

One other place I have been watching is Wagglepop.com. They had their problems when they started and closed down. They seemed to be at the right place at the right time when they got the site back up and running. They had about 100 stores and fewer than 10K in overall listings before the fee hike. Since the fee hike announcement they are closing in on 1,000 stores and have over 100K in listings. While it’s still in its infancy the growth has been phenomenal since the fee hike announcement. Their Alexa rankings have jumped impressively as well. The site seems very easy to see and use. They are working on a bulklister that is capable of pulling seller’s listings from other sites and placing them on Wagglepop. Their slogan is “Join the Revolution” & “The Revolution is here”. It’s quite impressive marketing and listings are placed on Google/Froogle. The stores cost $10 a month and minimal fees when something sells. If they can get the new bulklister to work, you could see large quantities of inventory leave Ebay since it would be easy to do. It’s a site that I’m watching and I have two friends who have opened stores there already. Sales have been slow but they’ve sold some things. Sales have been slow on Ebay too.

In a related story, one of those friends that left was because he got kicked off of Ebay for not paying his bill. Problem is, he did pay his bill. He looked over his invoice and was double-billed many times for the same items. Ebay admitted there was a problem and told him to go ahead and pay the bill and they will credit him later. When he refused to pay for their mistake, they NARU’d him. He is now a No Longer Registered User. That’s just crazy. He has great feedback and is a disciplined seller. He plans on filing a complaint with the California Attorney Generals office. I don’t know if that will do much but there were other sellers complaining of the same thing on Ebay’s message boards. There are other problems going on with Ebay right now and that’s double listings. I and others are having a bunch of listings showing up twice. I’m delisting right now and have 700 listings but with the double listings I’m showing I have over 1200 listings. See what we have to put up with Sheldon?

Sorry to turn this in to a rant. I do believe when this all shakes out there will be someone come along and do it better. It may happen faster than we think. Thanks for presenting us with a place to discuss.

Graham once again you are Spot On! (I hope that is the correct phrase. My Brit friends will have to correct me. )

And right now is the perfect time to get those sellers in place. eBay has alienated it's sellers so much that if a viable marketplace did open up with a sizable base of inventory and the marketing plan was funded well enough you could move the buyers in large enough numbers to shake up the Net. (That sure was a long sentence)

How about this for a catch phrase for the new marketplace? “We knocked the IT out of eBay”, just brainstorming here folks don’t flame me.

I’m sure most of you think this is just hyperbole (I like using big words) but with the correct plan this can be accomplished and quicker than you might think.

I agree with posts 18 and 19. As I commented on your previous post, American sellers are almost impossible to organize. I helped coordinate international protests with the US, UK, Australia, and Italy. I was astounded at how well organized the "foreigners" were and how we kept collapsing into complaining heaps. It seemed so obvious to me what needed to be done, and it wasn't boycotting. (I won't go into details.)

Now that Ebay has some sort of deal with Google I doubt it would go ahead with any sort of meaningful competition. There are online malls forming, but they don't have the advertising budget that Ebay does. I'm watching and waiting to see what happens while I continue on Ebay. One online mall requires you to open a different store for every different kind of merchandise you sell at $20 apiece. Yes, there are no listing or Final Value Fees, but if like me you sell a wide variety of items you are talking about five or six different stores! That dog won't hunt, as Dan Rather used to say.

So now I think I get it and you sellers will not like it, but Ebay has their large cash war chest by being first, growing fastest, becoming the gorilla in the room and from charging more than their competition. If competitors do not charge as much money then they will have less for advertising and growth. There will be no competition except from Baido in China. AND that is why their fee structure in China is what it is. Is there anything difficult to comprehend about this?

E-Bay from an investment point of view is dead money. Too many issues, too ego-centric management.At the moment, out of thirty-seven stocks in portfolio, I am carrying NO tech and NO retail. I just can't find one of compelling investment interest.

I keep opinions current on my blog. Your comments are always welcome.

I followed post on Powersellersunite.com back to here. Granted, I have not read each and every post here, but...

In reference to that Top 20 site...

Did anyone check on the validity of those sites?

20. Xuppa is out of business... site not found
Can probably be validated against Kinzy.com

19. Auctionport is a directory, not an auction site.

18. AuctionGuide is a directory not an auction site.

17. Buyit sellit "build your online store.." for a fee of course, not an auction site.

16. Itsgottago... Might be a real site, couldn't find any inventory. But I did find a banner for water filtration. Not an Auction site.

15. Internet Auction List another directory not an auction site.

14. Auctionscape! AhA!!! A real site, phpprobid looking, but the cats have neg inventory? Ok, tell me how you get neg inventory? Would not let me back arrow away from the site.

13. Fair Auction spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykids spykidn from their home? page...
Doesn't look like a viable site to me.
12. Dealspin another directory not an auction site.

11. Auctions.com... directory not an auction site.

10. AuctioNet.com "networksolutions under construction."

9. Auction-Warehouse real site non phpprobid, online since 1998, less then 10,000 items. Real go-getter here.

8. Auctionaddict.com real site, well over 10,000 items probably the best kept secret on the internet.

7. Auctionweiser aka InterShopZone... something like Overstock used to be.

6. Amazon... 'nuff said

5. MSN Auctions... directory does not have auctions.

4. Yahoo 'nuff said...

3. Bidz.com real site I think ... Live Help too!

2. Ubid Isn't ubid b2b? and the aquisition of BV make it c2c?

1. ebay oh well.

Since they claim to go on reviews... how can a defunct site have reviews??? I tried to find an email address for them. And I know that this site has not been updated in 2 years.

So please check your sources. That top20 site may as well be defunct.
try this site for the top 10. http://www.toptenlinks.com/cat.php/Shopping:Auctions:General

I think that we have some up and coming competition for eBay... that is if uBid follows through with it's promises.

uBid recently purchased Bidville Stores... (I think sometime in August) they 'claim' that they did this to promote a 'store' site. If they really do follow through with this idea (and I'm betting - even purchased stock - that they do)... it is going to be the answer to a store seller dream. Already, they've set up feeds to Google for individual stores, from what I understand.

It is going to take some time for uBid to set up the advertising promotions, I am sure. However, it is my personal opinion that once everything is in place, a "fixed price" venue is going to attract the public in droves... as RH suggested in his comments of September 8, 2006

One can only hope that uBid hasn't set it's sights too high and can follow through... ~Kamabri

EBay is dead money. I really don't care if some folks make some $$ cashing in on, say, depression ink pens. There is no future long term for EBay when others are presently doing a better job in niche markets.

Invest in something with a future.

If anyone were to take on Ebay globally like Jack Ma's Alibaba, they would need to offer free listings on the first 25 or 50 auctions a month per household with a free gallery store and a sustained television ad campaign speaking to the sellers and the buyers. If the household goes over the free limit then they pay the listing fee on the additional auctions. All listings free or paid would have a final value fee if sold. The free listing limit would prevent the site being flooded with junk. A short catchy easily remembered name is a must also.

>What is stopping this from happening?

I am able to answer this question on behalf of one of the companies you mention.

As founder and CEO of eBid.net and PPPay.com I would like to thank everyone on this blog for mentioning us in the same breath as eBay, Overstock and UBid. These are all public companies who have had the benefit of IPO income to invest into their companies. eBid was founded upon $5000 of investment and hasn't had any since. We are self financing and debt free and are very excited about the coming months as we continue to enhance our site to our users specifications and ideals.

May I use this as a base to let our customers, who plead with us for more promotion, know we have decided now to activley seek investment and also that our management is in California until the 20th September if anyone wishes to discuss investment or possible synergies with us to help us take on our competitors on a more level playing field.

GS

Gary,

That's cool. Your site is one site I'm watching. Although I do have my new business website, I wouldn't mind spreading out in diffent places on the web.

I believe many of these sites are benefitting greatly from Ebay's blunder. I can't imagine a company just handing over customers to future competition like Ebay has done. It's just mind-blowing to watch. If I were an investor I'd be furious.

If my memory serves me (and sometimes, at my age, it doesn't), in the late 1960's or 1970's the Postal Service GAVE their parcel post business to UPS. According to a few Postmasters, NOW they want that business back and have asked the PMs to follow the 'brown' and try to get 'their' customers to use the Post Office.

This is what eBay has effectively done... they've given away stores to anyone who wants them.

I wonder how long it will take eBay to realize their mistake.... (if ever).