Its silly season again!!

[purpledragon]

We arnt even out of November yet and the idiots are crawling out the wood work im talking ebay fools here . To be honest ive had enough all ready trying to pandor to the overlord that is ebay and its unreasonable stance that the buyer is always right no matter what. Unfortunatly its a nesaccary evil without ebay i dont really have a business (and they know it) i do have a website but thats pretty much stalled right now god knows why i supect googles changes dont help. So heres my question i part with £500+ a month on ebay fees and to be honest if it bought the same income in id be more than happy to spend that monthly sum on the website instead so for you guys out there who get plenty of sales through your website how do you do it ? how about a few tips cause summuts gotta give and right now its likly to be my temper at this rate my other option is to say sod it and throw the towel in and get a job sweeping the roads (if there were any jobs round here ) seriously though i am at my wits end and if i cant improve on things im gonna have to seriously look at weather i carry on so id really appreciate some good advice
Brett

[jennywren]

I don't have a ebay account, I have my own website, but I also have a shop, and that has it own disadvantage, as local competition send their clients in to the shop and buy my design which I do on a magnet and then copy our design or use them for embroidering, some customers have unaware of copyright infringement they tell you, who and where grrrrr. We will be taken action soon but I find it frustrating that they do, so I really understand your frustration and have felt like jacking it in Our website brings in quite a bit, we don't use Google ads or anything, but the website did cost a lot to have done, but at the prices ebay charging, the amount you pay might go to having your own website do. Four months of your ebay account would more than pay for a really decent website, we paid 2000 and worth every penny. But it would be hard for you to start again and gain the reputation that you have on ebay. It's a catch 22 for you, but I would stay with ebay and slowly in the background build another website till your confidante enough to leave ebay. It will not be easy and we do get comfortable and in a rut when we have done things the same way for a long time, and you have to ask yourself are you ready for the hassle. You have nothing to lose trying to build another website and you won't know till you try, I my self would personally try as it would bug me not trying. Sorry for not giving you the answer as that only lies with yourself

[purpledragon]

Wise words there Jenny i have a website as i mentioned before unfortunatly my skills lie in making this stuff and not website design or optimization. I wouldnt leave ebay just yet as i say its my main income the website was building up nicly the first half of this year and was well on its way to being a contender to ebay and then google made changes insisting on bar codes and epns etc and it was like someone turned a switch off and the website sales stopped almost instantly and havnt really started again. I too have a physical shop but to be honest its a small town where more shops are closing than opening so it doesnt bring much in if im honest ebay income supports the shop as well. I suppose what i really want is someone to say "what you wanna do is this " but i doubt thats gonna happen it really is frustrating theres obviously customers out there for what i do or i wouldnt sell anything on fleabay its getting them to shop in my web site thats the hard part and as i type this i notice another neg feedback for an i phone case why ? because a tiny bit of glue tape is in the bottom left hand corner i even offered to replace i get the feeling they wanted a refund without returning the item agggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh enough is enough rage against the machine people revolt against ebay ........ it aint gonna happen is it
Brett

[Earl Smith]

http://www.incomedia.eu/en/index.html
http://www.websitex5.com/en/evolution-9.html
Hi Brett. I dont know if this will help , but I bought this website program a couple of years ago. I am an internet dummy and was looking for an easy to use web site maker so I could refer customer to it when they asked for info. I do not have a web reliant business but I get a phone calls from all over Germany ( thats where I am ). In my area I come out on the first page when you do a search. There is something in the program , dont ask me what, that helps my site come to the front. Ive written the relevant keywords and put in the codes for Google analytics and Google web stastistics, all can be got through the program, thats all Ive done to promote it.
The program cost about 70 pounds. It has free on line help and is very easy to use. Might be worth a look.
But dont give up Ebay. 500 pounds a month sounds a lot but think what you would pay in shop rents, rates, ele, water etc etc.

[frazzle]

You don't say if you have a Ebay shop or just the normal way of selling, best to have a Ebay shop you would find your fees would come down a bit i gave my ebay shop up a year ago but listing buy it now was 20p instead of 40p and i found i saved money and my fees were around the £100 mark, what i did when i made a sale on ebay i sent details of my own website i.e. business cards my website grew so i was able to drop the ebay shop.

[socialgiraffe]

Hi Brett

Have you thought about looking at local businesses and trying to get in their with some business gifts?

A simply flyer that can be handed round to the small companies might generate some nice income.

I would recommend that you select local companies (national ones tend to use people like Merchandise Mania) and give them a nice price on say 36 mugs. Could be perfect for this time of year as a business gift and generate some nice income. You know the sort of thing I mean, their logo and contact details etc. I would also put on the flyer something about personalised gifts just in case Mavis from accounts thinks that she needs something for herself. You could also offer a discount to employers for purchases perhaps.

With regards to ebay, I agree with you but there is not much that can be done. You either lump it or leave it. There is no point in getting frustrated with them becuase as you already know, they are too big already and all it does is wind you up, which is never good.

£2000 on an all singing and dancing website I think is pretty cheap. I have an idea floating around in my head that would require a website, it has the potential of selling a bucket loads of items, however so far I have been quoted £5000-7500 for the website plus £500 monthly maintenence.

[purpledragon]

You don't say if you have a Ebay shop or just the normal way of selling, best to have a Ebay shop you would find your fees would come down a bit i gave my ebay shop up a year ago but listing buy it now was 20p instead of 40p and i found i saved money and my fees were around the £100 mark, what i did when i made a sale on ebay i sent details of my own website i.e. business cards my website grew so i was able to drop the ebay shop.

Its an ebay shop i have and earl ithanks for the links i'll take a look. To be honest i dont think £500 is an awful lot i do have a physical shop also so im well aware of the costs of running a shop rent electric etc. ahnd if im honest for £500 a month i get an income out of ebay they do all the marketing etc for me cant complain about that its the onesided ness of ebay and their inability to listen to reason for example in my discussion with an ebay rep yesterday i said you ahve to admit its a helluve a coincidence that a customer has changed their mind in a message yet when it gets to feedback its changed to "its a poor quality item" he agreed with me but said they cant act on coincidebnces so i said what if i find what this person is selling and i buy then leave neg feedback the rep said ahh well we'd probably close your account as that would be a bit of a coincidence wouldnt it, but you have just said you cant act on coincidences ???? he struggled to answer that one. Like i say its not ebay itself i have an issue with its the whole stupidness of some of the customers and how ebay deal with that. To joe public giving me a negative feedback because i wont accept a return of a perfectly good item doesnt seem such a big deal but to me its my livly hood and ebay have that control in the palm of its hand anyone here is welcome to view my feedbacks you will see theres a huge list of very happy customers yet because of acouple of awkward ones my business is going to suffer the system is shit simple as.

[phoenixalpha]

I also have an ebay shop and I found that the recent changes which focus almost exclusively on the customer being always right are annoying in the extreme. I hate the fact that top listing status and above average can be as little as one or two customer bad reviews in a thousand over a three month period. Its gone from the sublime to the ridiculous. I had a customer complain about a product which I sell hundreds of each month. I offered a full refund including postage. Customer said that the product was of poor quality and shoddy customer service - and refused the refund stating "lesson learned never to buy anything from you again". So I contact ebay stating customer is potentially an issue and lo and behold negative feedback. Its a total farce at times. The fees have gone through the roof and everyone is undercutting everyone else for the sake of pennies. Hell I've even had legal issues with people ripping off my own designs and then having the audacity to contact ebay to remove my items as it infringes their "copyright".

My thoughts are just to shrug it off, and keep going. An actual brick and mortar shop is too pricey and a good website is still a gamble. Ebay provide a solid foundation and its a step on the ladder at the moment. There really is no one else that provides such a service for such niggling issues.

[Earl Smith]

I see what you mean now Brett and I feel for you. All it takes is one stupid customer and it could ruin your business. Why oh why Ebay cant filter out the idiots, I dont know. Their attitude of "The customer is always right" is a bit one sided. After all, you are a customer of Ebay are you not?
Good Luck and keep smiling....

[socialgiraffe]

Hi Bret

On the rare occassion that I have sold on ebay and received negative or even neutral feedback I have always replied to the feedback with something along the lines of "one negative in one thousand positive feedbacks shows customer is in the wrong for this post"

Not put it too eloquent there but you know what I mean.