Another eBay jerk to block

[steve B]

Originally Posted by auggiedoggy

Might as well stop you right there. This is a forum for pre-WWII card collectors and Bidstart has little if anything of interest to people that collect this material. Searches on T206 came up with reprints and that Topps garbage from 2002, 2010 and 2011. Qualify the search with 1909, 1909-11 and it came up with zero!!! Zero Obaks, zero C46, zero [insert pre-WWII set of choice].

Bidstart will, sadly, never rival FeeBay.

You do know there are other portions of the forum right?

The OP has newer stuff in inventory as well as older stuff, and autographs. Moving it or having a second venue would be useful.

The only reason there's no prewar activity there is because sellers haven't tried it. I'm not sure why, since there's no listing fee for store items, and even without a store the first 50 are free. Only .02 after that and even that is free if over 5% of the items sell. Final value fees are lower too.
http://www.bidstart.com/sitefees.php

I've been inactive as an Ebay seller for a while now, and I'm probably going to start getting back into it. Just maybe not on Ebay.

Steve B

[auggiedoggy]

Originally Posted by steve B

You do know there are other portions of the forum right?

Steve B

Yes I do but this was posted in the Pre-WWII forum.

We have a catch-22 situation. The sellers won't make to move to Bidstart from eBay because there aren't enough potential buyers and there aren't enough potential buyers because there aren't any/enough sellers. Something's got to change but I don't see it happening any time soon. I know of no other on-line auction site that even begins to rival the evil FeeBay.

As I said, they've become the only show in town and can do pretty much whatever they want.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by auggiedoggy

Yes I do but this was posted in the Pre-WWII forum.

So get a bit of a rip for offering a suggestion, but the OP get s a pass even though the problem sale was for a 50's football card?

Ok. I guess.

Originally Posted by auggiedoggy

We have a catch-22 situation. The sellers won't make to move to Bidstart from eBay because there aren't enough potential buyers and there aren't enough potential buyers because there aren't any/enough sellers. Something's got to change but I don't see it happening any time soon. I know of no other on-line auction site that even begins to rival the evil FeeBay.

As I said, they've become the only show in town and can do pretty much whatever they want.

The catch 22 is there for sure. With a bit of effort bidstart could really put a dent in Ebay in collectibles categories. They started as Stampwants.com and had backing from some major dealers who were really unhappy with Ebay. At the time a lack of policing frauds was the biggest problem. One that sounds familiar. A lot of mid range dealers moved altogether, the bigger places eventually went to using both. They publicized it by giving out a very expensive stamp as a prize. (The upside down airplane, not a really nice one, but still an awesome prize)

I actually like their site a lot more than Ebays. Especially the feature where you mouse over the picture in the search results and it shows a picture that's a bit larger. When I'm looking for a particular variety I don't have to go to each item.

I'm surprized some dealers don't add it as a venue. With automated migration and management and lower fees it's not such a bad deal.

Steve B

[auggiedoggy]

Originally Posted by steve B

So get a bit of a rip for offering a suggestion, but the OP get s a pass even though the problem sale was for a 50's football card?

Ok. I guess.




The catch 22 is there for sure. With a bit of effort bidstart could really put a dent in Ebay in collectibles categories. They started as Stampwants.com and had backing from some major dealers who were really unhappy with Ebay. At the time a lack of policing frauds was the biggest problem. One that sounds familiar. A lot of mid range dealers moved altogether, the bigger places eventually went to using both. They publicized it by giving out a very expensive stamp as a prize. (The upside down airplane, not a really nice one, but still an awesome prize)

I actually like their site a lot more than Ebays. Especially the feature where you mouse over the picture in the search results and it shows a picture that's a bit larger. When I'm looking for a particular variety I don't have to go to each item.

I'm surprized some dealers don't add it as a venue. With automated migration and management and lower fees it's not such a bad deal.

Steve B

I like what I saw there and competition is good. It would take a lot to take away a significant amount of eBay's business though. I'd sell there if I knew enough people would see my stuff. I wonder how much impact there would be if sellers like Probstein and PWCC made the move?

I like today's eBay compared to the early days with all the improvements that have been made. What I don't like is the new attitude. But I guess I'm not alone in that respect.

p.s. Sorry, I wasn't trying to rip you.

[steve B]

Originally Posted by auggiedoggy

I like what I saw there and competition is good. It would take a lot to take away a significant amount of eBay's business though. I'd sell there if I knew enough people would see my stuff. I wonder how much impact there would be if sellers like Probstein and PWCC made the move?

I like today's eBay compared to the early days with all the improvements that have been made. What I don't like is the new attitude. But I guess I'm not alone in that respect.

p.s. Sorry, I wasn't trying to rip you.

That's cool. I did industrial work right about the time companies started making everyone behave professionally. So I've heard worse either way. I've told my wife a few of the comments that might be made in certain situations and she's usually a bit shocked.

I think if a couple big dealers like PWCC and Probstein got on there they'd get a lot more traction. A lot of the non stamp stuff they have I think is from stamp guys that sell other stuff too.

Steve B

[thecatspajamas]

Originally Posted by auggiedoggy

Yes I do but this was posted in the Pre-WWII forum.

We have a catch-22 situation. The sellers won't make to move to Bidstart from eBay because there aren't enough potential buyers and there aren't enough potential buyers because there aren't any/enough sellers. Something's got to change but I don't see it happening any time soon. I know of no other on-line auction site that even begins to rival the evil FeeBay.

As I said, they've become the only show in town and can do pretty much whatever they want.

I tried it a year or so ago (at least, I think it was BidStart. Might have been another, but had the same "duplicate all your eBay listings for free" deal). Went to the trouble of figuring out their system, migrated SEVERAL THOUSAND listings of all different price ranges from eBay to there, and let them sit for I think 2 or 3 months just to see what happened. In that time, I sold ONE item, a $1 comic book that the buyer picked up because his last name was the same as the title. Absolutely horrible, and not worth the time I spent to set the thing up.

[auggiedoggy]

Originally Posted by thecatspajamas

I tried it a year or so ago (at least, I think it was BidStart. Might have been another, but had the same "duplicate all your eBay listings for free" deal). Went to the trouble of figuring out their system, migrated SEVERAL THOUSAND listings of all different price ranges from eBay to there, and let them sit for I think 2 or 3 months just to see what happened. In that time, I sold ONE item, a $1 comic book that the buyer picked up because his last name was the same as the title. Absolutely horrible, and not worth the time I spent to set the thing up.

That IS horrible! The Probsteins and PWCCs of the eBay world would have to come aboard for Bidstart to become a worthwhile option. If they moved, you can be sure their regular followers would follow suit. Until that happens, ...

[MooseDog]

Jason -

Sorry to hear about your eBay experience...if you are doing that kind of volume you might want to reconsider just leaving out of spite.

However there are alternatives, the most obvious is setting up your own web site. It's not that hard...if you can upload pictures and write descriptions you've got all the skills you need. Cost can range from zero to $50-100 a month depending on how you want to set things up.

I can give you all the info you need. Just PM me or post here.

[JasonD08]

Moose

I am open to that and have actually kicked it around lately.

Jason

[MooseDog]

Jason -

All you need is a domain name, a web hosting provider (a company like Go Daddy can do both - they aren't necessarily the cheapest or best, but they are a big company). The software you need is basically free. A couple of popular platforms are Wordpress (was once just a blogging platform but now is a full fledged content management system) and/or an e-commerce platform. There are a lot of the latter, something like Magneto, PrestaShop, CubeCart, ZenCart, or OpenCart. All can interface with PayPal for payments, or you can get your own credit card processing.

If you want to pay upwards of $50 a month for a fully supported integrated system some popular options are Shopify, Volusion and Magneto (again).

These are just a few out of hundreds available, but maybe can help get you started researching.