[meteorite-list] ALTERNATIVE dealing with eBay Fraud! JASON, be carefull what you say about my meteorites on the Meteorite List, I am warning you...

From: Jodie Reynolds <spacerocks_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2013 17:14:17 -0800
Message-ID: <932769060.20130302171417_at_spaceballoon.org>

Hi MikeG,

I've never studied your market, so I have absolutely no clue how you
drive traffic, what your traffic volume is, what your sell-through
looks like, or how you manage your pipeline - so I'm just going to
take your word for it - I honestly don't have any interest, vested or
otherwise, in learning your [collective-your] market.

The general topics of eCommerce, shopping carts, running ones own auction engine,
interfacing to merchant gateways, that sorta thing - I have "some
experience" there.

We run our own heavily modified OSCommerce servers, but that is a lot
more like "rocket science", just maintaining them is full-time work
for multiple people.

"WeBid" is fairly easily integrated into most shopping carts that you
control the source-code for and allows you to offer a bidding engine,
as I say, there are others (including some specifically integrated
into the OSCommerce platform).

We don't sell on eBay anymore because it's just too difficult to
differentiate ourselves, our money is better spent driving our own
traffic - but that's after years of experience in our own market, I
can't speak to yours at all.

--- Jodie

Saturday, March 2, 2013, 4:51:11 PM, you wrote:

> Sure, eBay has a massive traffic base.

> But, the vast majority of those visitors have zero interest in meteorites.

> At any given time, the amount of visitors on eBay who are looking to
> purchase a meteorite is a tiny percentage of the overall traffic base.
> By paying eBay fees, you are basically purchasing access to their
> other visitors, in the hopes that somebody will purchase your wares
> who wouldn't have normally seen your offering outside of eBay. That
> holds true for people buying iPhone accessories, DVD's, laptops, and
> sports jerseys, but the amount of those visitors looking to buy a
> meteorite is vanishingly small. I would bet, that at any given
> moment, this mailing list has just as many (or more) members than
> people on eBay buying meteorites. This List has what, a 1000 members
> or so? I would be highly surprised if there are a 1000 people on eBay
> right now buying meteorites. When dealing with niche items like
> meteorites, paying for access to eBay's traffic base is a game of
> vanishing returns.

> I drive more traffic to my store listings each day than eBay draws to
> my meteorite auctions. I would post a 7-day auction on eBay and it
> might get 50 views, or 100 if I was lucky. In that same period of
> time, I get triple that on my website.

> Now, eBay is great for buyers. I love being a buyer on eBay. eBay
> caters to me, kisses my feet, fans me, and feeds me grapes. I can be
> a total buffoon and buy fake items with little or no caution or
> research. And when I get burned, I can file a dispute with eBay, get
> my money back and keep the item. It's a win-win for buyers.

> Best regards,

> MikeG

> PS - want to free yourself from the chains of eBay? Use HighWire
> eCommerce - http://app.highwire.com/?ref=meteorite

> I have been using HighWire for almost 5 years now with no problems and
> very little downtime. It was the best thing I ever did when it comes
> to trading meteorites - it gives you a selling platform that you
> control. I don't have some eBay clown looking over my shoulder and
> nitpicking my listings or strong-arming me for ever-increasing fees.





> On 3/2/13, Jodie Reynolds <spacerocks at spaceballoon.org> wrote:
>> Hi Don and List,
>>
>>> Yes there will be a set price and yes you can still use PayPal to have
>>> Buyers
>>> purchase your meteorites, but Bam...no eBay fees, no negative feedback no
>>> bull crap!
>>
>> Maybe a little closer to "rocket science", but if you still want to
>> offer bidding, there are open-source bidding engines out there that
>> can be installed on your site allowing for a very similar experience
>> to fleabay without the negatives you note.
>>
>> You're still going to need to generate your own traffic which is what
>> eBay is really offering, but you can simulate the experience.
>>
>> I've set up WeBid (http://www.webidsupport.com) on numerous sites,
>> and it's pretty capable these days. Of course, there are others both
>> free and not-so-free.
>>
>> Just a thought to answer a limitation you noted.
>>
>> --- Jodie
>>
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>>
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>>

-- 
Best regards,
 Jodie                            mailto:spacerocks at spaceballoon.org

Received on Sat 02 Mar 2013 08:14:17 PM PST