Thoughts From A Rejected TOASA Applicant

[xppman]

I moved in the last few weeks to a great mountain top location in Western N. Carolina.
Been real busy getting the shop set back up, moving and taking care of business.
I've been getting good sales too so the pressure has been great to do it all in unison.

My last shop got flooded in mid July (about 3 to 4 inches of water standing in the floor and yard), making it very difficult to operate although I still found a way as orders were coming in quite steady.

I was renting so I took many pics of the situation (documented it all very well), and told the landlord of my dilemma and the land lords let me out of the lease and returned my deposit.
(Seems this was NOT the first time this other place has had this problem so I was told by a few neighbors)...

Almost didn't happen that way, and we were all set to move back to our home in Florida (grrrrrrrrrrrr), when a dear friend found this cool place. Now I walk out on my deck and see a gorgeous view of the city below and a spectacular view of some high peaks just past the city.
My shop is three times larger and is working out great and I just rented my house out in Florida too.



I'm back in my true element. In the country, away from the noise of the city yet minutes away from all my new suppliers, the post office, and all the convenience of the city.

In short I'm loving it and am a very happy camper these days. 

Besides other than that "sell through tool carp", all is as it always will be as far as feebay and the OAI landscape is now as far as I'm concerned. It's all pretty much been said and feebay will NOT change until more and more of us at least minimize the $$$ we give them.
I'm glad to see many are doing just that.

Sorry for the thread hijack.

[Anita]

Happy to hear all is working out for you Xpp!

WHAT A VIEW!  I can't imagine seeing something out my window other than cacti and palm trees.  Boooooooring!

[bargainbloodhound]

I can't imagine seeing something out my window other than cacti and palm trees.

If I woke up tomorrow and saw cacti and palm trees outside MY window I would be very afraid.  :twistedevil:

[bargainbloodhound]

This one is good...more complaints about TOASA, complaints about TOASA's deleting of posts on the Overstock boards, allegations that a TOASA member sent vulgar emails to several people who criticized TOASA's policies:

http://forums.auctions.overstock.com/vie...php?t=9727&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0


EDITED to add comment:  The reason we're criticizing TOASA is because they're not an independent sellers movement...the governing body of TOASA are  drinking Overstock puppets. 

Overstock Sellers did try to form an independent sellers association earlier this year in April called OASA.  Overstock rejected all attempts by that group to promote themselves as a sellers association and instead turned to (and worked closely with) the people who now govern TOASA to form a sellers association which is anything but an independent voice.

[ginger]

Overstock Sellers did try to form an independent sellers association earlier this year in April called OASA.

I missed that one.  Have a link to that drama?

:gingersmiley:

[thentavius]

Ooooh. Threatening emails. Very professional!

I suppose by even posting to this thread, any application I send to TOAST will be TOAST.

Does my avatar look worried?

[ginger]

Does my avatar look worried?

I don't see how this is any different/more beneficial than what we did on FAS with the eBay stores link swap.  Everyone copied/pasted the code on their "me" pages.  I guess the participants weren't screened and preapproved though. :

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=ginger link=topic=211.msg949#msg949 date=1124825424]
I don't see how this is any different/more beneficial than what we did on FAS with the eBay stores link swap.  Everyone copied/pasted the code on their "me" pages.  I guess the participants weren't screened and preapproved though. :
[/quote]

Its not any different, and its probably less beneficial...hmmm, I just glanced at the Alexa traffic rankings: FAS 39,000, toasa 2.5 million...translation you don't get much benefit if no one sees your link. I don't think putting the toasa logo in item descriptions provides much benefit either since there is no identification of toasa members included in the search/category pages like there is with the TM/BS program.

The other problem I have with toasa is that the "leadership" seems rather clueless about the direction their selling "environment." is moving towards.  One toasa leader said their goal is to "work to make Overstock the best person to person auction site it can be".  Since every move Overstock has made seems to indicate it wants to be the next uBid (i.e. business to consumer) rather than the second coming of eBay circa 1999 (i.e. person to person)...I think some of these people could be in for a rude awakening down the road.

Since Holly (head of O Auctions) has already publicly stated that "O does not provide a level playing field, has no plans to provide one, and does favor large sellers", I think that unfortunately the only sellers group that will ever have any actual pull on O is probably one like Pesa which represents the type of volume sellers O is courting...and Pesa is already active on O and their members are getting a lot more thrown their way than toasa or any other group representing small sellers could ever hope for. 

[bargainbloodhound]

After 1-month TOASA's membership is now 77--a number which is highly unlikely to help small sellers gain any leverage when you consider that PeSA which is also active on Overstock has 800 members...and O has been bending over backwards to recruit large sellers (even large sellers who were named in a class action RICO lawsuit [along with ebay and PayPal] and NARU'd from eBay).

About the only "power" that the little inbred boardies group that runs TOAST has been able to gain is the "power" for its executive board to be moderators of the TOAST forum on the Overstock Message Boards..while this might not be anything that helps small sellers, it does help TOAST's leaders who spend their days posting pictures of coffee and donuts on the O boards.  :twistedevil:

There also seems to be a problem with the TOAST web site--namely that the seller banners do not rotate and so the people who gain the most are those whose banners are at the top of the first page...yep, you guessed it the leaders of TOAST. Sellers who were not among the board buddies of TOAST's leadership and joined later are unlikely to get any benefit from having their banner on page 10 or 99.  :blinkie:

FYI-  we did apply over a month ago but never heard back from TOAST...probably because there was no way they could send a rejection email since we more than met all of the WRITTEN criteria for membership...the criteria we didn't meet was the unwritten requirement to have a permanent Overstock Kool-Aid IV hooked up. 

[amy]

The  drinking  O puppets known as TOAST haven't approved a single new seller to become TOAST since late August.  The number of TOAST members is still only 77.  Did they run out of board buddies to approve or did most O sellers just not apply to become O TOAST puppets?