08-01-2008, 06:22 AM
Quote:I think the reason people try sites that aren't established is because they don't like the prices or experience they're getting from the existing sites, and/or they have the vision to see how great new products become successful old products.
The people who make up the majority of users on newer "eBay alternative" sites also tend to be overwhelmingly smaller sellers (many of them "hobby sellers") because they have less at risk by trying a site where the payoff could be months/years away.
Larger sellers, who tend to have fixed monthly operating costs that must be met, don't have the option/luxury of listing on a site and hoping "if they (sellers) build it (list) they (buyers) will come". I can't afford to devote time and resources to any channel that won't produce immediate results, and most other businesses/full time sellers are in the same situation. Plus there's the matter of lack of integration with 3rd party tools (in our case Fillz for media sales on 7 venues llike Amazon/Alibris/Play, etc and Stone Edge for our websites) and the extra time (and money) that would be required to manually process/fulfill orders as a result of that lack of support.
It's not a matter of not wanting to support new sites, it's a matter of it being financial suicide for many of us if we did.
Quote:I had no clue that because I mention a particular e-commerce product, Web site, or service in a news piece or round-up style story, that people look at it as a seal of approval
Many auction sellers do view a site's mention in any auction related publication as a seal of approval and will try a site based solely on it being mentioned in an article. A large number of them will join without bothering to do any further research on the site. I also think many auction sellers place more blind faith in the opinions of "experts" (and even in the opinions of other forum posters) than people in other industries do because a significant number of eBay/auction sellers began their selling careers without any real background in selling or running a business, and many of them are relatively clueless about the ecommerce world beyond eBay (which is why so many auction site owners are able to spend $210 on a cheap auction script like phpProBid, announce their site as the next eBay on PSU, and immediately have sellers rushing to join a site that has nothing going for it other than the owner's ability to spew BS).
No time to unproductively list and chat.