AuctionCut

Hello fellow business owners

Are you looking for an alternative to E-bay? If so, what are your primary concerns and what would you need that E-bay doesn't provide?

Best of luck to you all!

Melissa

If you're selling online you should always be on the look out for alternative selling venues. Sellers are attracted to eBay because of the traffic it has traditionally generated. Traffic = sales Over the last few years though the Ebay management has done a great job of destroying eBay. Constant rule changes, a dictotorial attitude and sky high selling fees have alienated a lot of people. Many have left and many more are on the brink.
To make matters worse eBay traffic is falling off a cliff. Store owners are complaining on the ebay forums about plummeting sales due to loss of traffic. Traffic is what allowed eBay to rule the online selling waves. Now they're losing it, they have nothing left to offer.
So to answer your question, yes I'm always looking for an alternative and what I am looking for is a selling venue with traffic, where I can sell products without having to part with large chunks of my profit to do so.
Let's hope some good alternatives to ebay come along fast.

I signed up to ebay about a month ago, and was subject to and experienced the Ebay/Paypal Monopoly first hand. I did not want to use Paypal to accept payments as I already have my own merchant account with First Data and they are half the price of Paypal. When listing my first item, I scrolled to the part where it asked how I would like to be paid. I un-checked Paypal, and checked credit card. On the next screen it said that in order to accept credit cards I had to fax a copy of my merchant account invoice to them to prove to them that I can support this method of payment. I faxed them the necessary documents, and the games began. 2 days went by and no message from them about what was going on. Then I called them and was asked why I did not want to use paypal, and that it is the preferred payment of ebay. I explained to them my situation, and they said they would look into the situation, and they would get back to my via email. I waited another 2 days, and nothing. I called them again, and they brought me to the listing page, and they walked me through and told me to click Paypal for payments accepted, and I told them I did not want to accept Paypal, and they were dumbfounded and did not know what to do. They knew nothing about how to integrate my merchant account. They told me I have to wait for T&S to contact me. The next morning I called them again, and was once again told to just use Paypal and recieved a pitch on how they were safe and secure. I asked to speak to a manager, and they told me the manager was not available. I then called again and they finally got to the bottom of things. I listed a couple of items, and after the first one ended, the buyer told me there was no way for him to pay. I called ebay again and they told me there was a "Pay Now" button in the email that was automatically sent to them after the auction ended. The buyer told me there was nothing there. I got this same response from every winning bidder that day. I called ebay and they once again told me that I should accept Paypal for payments until they get the situation fixed. I told them I would not pay for the listing fees so far and they told me I have to pay them, and that it is like listing an ad in the paper and the listing fees are non-refundable. The next day they told me that they fixed the problem, and then I listed a couple items, and everything seemed to be good, until the first auction was down to the last minute. The account was blocked by Paypal, and I was informed that they needed more information on my Paypal account in order for the account suspension to be lifted. I called ebay and they told me the block was from Paypal. I called Paypal and they asked for my SS# and receipts for the items I was selling. I told them I never opened a Paypal account, and they told me regardless, they would still need the information in order to lift the suspension, and until then, the account would remain blocked. I called Ebay and they told me there was in fact a Paypal account linked to my ebay account and that there was nothing they could do. Now, I NEVER opened a Paypal account nor did I link it to my ebay account. To me, this is yet another shady desperate attempt by Ebay to force new members that do not know any better to use Paypal to accept Paypal so they can make money from every angle. When I call them and tell them this whole scenario, they ask me if there is anything they can help me with, otherwise the phone call will be disconnected. They no longer respond to my email regarding this and they told me that if I keep contacting them through ebay live chat that they would bring up charges for Harassment. What a way to run a company. I also notice that when you post ANY negative comments about ebay that are valid in the ebay forums, the comments are removed and you are banned from posting in their forums. They are trying to cover up anything negative about their company, but truth be told...,check out Ebay and Paypal on the Better Business Bureau and see all the complaints they have since January. There are well over 10,000 of them. Ebay soon will be a thing of the past and they will continue to lose thousands of members a week to Amazon, just like me.

I've been selling on eBay on just over 4 years and have noticed my sales slow down to about 20% of what they were 2 years ago.

I sell books and eBooks on ebay and eBooks from my website.

About 18 months ago ebay restricted the sale of digital downloadable goods to the classified ads only. We were given about 8 days notice to remove all of our digital products (eBooks). I removed them all about 200 listings, for which they had charged the listing fees. No refunds! Shortly after the policy change I was suspended from ebay for feedback manipulation. Even though I had removed all the listings that would have been in breach of the new policy, i was still suspended for selling them before the deadline. I phoned ebay to discuss the problem and was told to phone back in 30 days as nobody would talk to me whilst i was suspended. I was one of thousands. When I got my account activated again I couldn't keep up the amount of sales needed to remain qualified as a powerseller and as a result lost that status.

Now ebay are introducing another policy change for Books, as of october 19th all book sellers have to make their first domestic postage free of charge. Meaning even more dents in the profit, if there is any left.

I would like to find a good auction site that allows the sale of eBooks, so that it can be automated, and that doesn't have silly policies that mean i have to post things at my expense.

Yeah I used to sell ebooks also (a variety of stuff -- religion, history, recipes, first aid, etc.) and was disappointed when eBay arbitrarily changed their digital download policy. I'd also be interested in knowing of good alternatives.

you ll be welcome to sell your ebooks on dynabid www.dynabid.org

free registration
free listings/upgrades
free store upto 20,000 items
final value fees 1%

buy it now-auction-make offer formats available

Hi Dynabid, that all looks very interesting thank you. I will be having a good look at your site later today.

Thanks for letting us know about it.

Regards, Barry

no probs ebooks have done very well on the site

I am happy with eBay but I hope they can lower the fees.