HiBidder Database Implodes, 95% of Listings Lost

[mandy]

I'm updating bbearthesockpuppet's HiBidder site stats for him. 

bbearthesockpuppet wrote on June 14th:
Just noticed the helpful stats:

HiBidder site stats:

SITE STATS
Members: 901
Total Sales: $8968.29
Items Sold: 551


0.1 sales per member per month
The average member who lists on HiBidder can count on a whopping $1.67 (167 pennies) in monthly revenues

HiBidder total site sales June 14th-October 15th
Members 2100
Total Site Sales 6/14-10/15 $6,823
Items sold on site 6/14-10/15 1,863
Average sales price: $3.67

Monthly sales $ per member: 81 cents
Monthly Items sold per member: 0.22

Be prepared to starve and live in a cardboard box if you're pinning your hopes on HiBidder being your savior.  

[thentavius]

Be prepared to starve and live in a cardboard box if you're pinning your hopes on HiBidder being your savior.

Hey, it builds character.

[landofsmiles]

[quote author=thentavius link=topic=5129.msg27830#msg27830 date=1161015530]

Be prepared to starve and live in a cardboard box if you're pinning your hopes on HiBidder being your savior.

Hey, it builds character.
[/quote]

Are you quoting Newt Gingrich now? 

[thentavius]

LMAO!!!!!!!

Hey, at least they've still got a cardboard box.    ;D ;D

[amy]

0.1 sales per member per month

Monthly Items sold per member: 0.22

The owner is probably telling users in typical small auction site bullsh.it speak that "Sales doubled in 4 months!"  :

81 cents monthly and 0.22 items sold does explain why their forums are unviewable by nonmembers.  The reality of HiBidder is nothing like the hype about the site that was spammed on boards this summer.

[Alskling]

WHAT TO DO!!!!!!!!! They're all corrupt and run by morons. Is eBay REALLY the only show in town? Unfortunately, I have a ton of eggs in the eBay basket, which not only makes me nervous but I have to take heart medication each month when my monthly invoice appears.

IS THERE ANY ST. ELSEWHERE THAT'S WORTH A F*&%K? ECRATER? SHOPPAL? BLUJAY? What do you people out there recommend? I'm so sick of the evangelical auction bunney bullets, impoloding servers, and snake oil salesman, I could  for days and still not be purged of all the stuff these master scammers feed me.

WHAT DO YOU SAGES OF E-COMMERCE RECOMMEND?   

[xppman]

Back up is your friend.
ALWAYS have back ups of your work.
Either on disc multiple sites and / or on your hard drive.

Preferably ALL THREE. 

eBay SUX and is NOT the only game in town.

Get a website going.
We will help you.
But for me personally, if you point your domain to eBay your on you own. 

Didn'y u start a thread about this? I left some comments... so come on lets us help.

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=Alskling link=topic=5129.msg27963#msg27963 date=1161090180]
WHAT TO DO!!!!!!!!! They're all corrupt and run by morons. Is eBay REALLY the only show in town? Unfortunately, I have a ton of eggs in the eBay basket, which not only makes me nervous but I have to take heart medication each month when my monthly invoice appears.

IS THERE ANY ST. ELSEWHERE THAT'S WORTH A F*&%K? ECRATER? SHOPPAL? BLUJAY? What do you people out there recommend? I'm so sick of the evangelical auction bunney bullets, impoloding servers, and snake oil salesman, I could  for days and still not be purged of all the stuff these master scammers feed me.

WHAT DO YOU SAGES OF E-COMMERCE RECOMMEND? [/quote]

I'd recommend setting up a website (in your case an easy to use ready to go one like ShopPal, PrestoStore, or Monster) and gradually moving your business to it.  Set a goal of moving 10%, then increase it to 20% when you hit the first goal etc.  The people who try and move everything at once always wind up back at eBay.

Other Auction/Mall Venues: WP and HiBidder are fairly typical of what you'll find. Sellers selling to sellers to keep their spirits up and very few buyers.  Bullsh.it artist site owners  whose only advertising consists of forum spamming, limited technical knowledge, site owner's like Ewaey who has closed and reopened 4 times in 2 years, dishonest site owners like WorldAuctions, etc.  As a general rule if you see an auction site being heavily promoted on the boards it is usually because they can't afford to advertise any other way.

There are some auction/mall sites where you can do very well but they all have catches:

Amazon Marketplace: IF you sell media items (CDs, books, dvds) you can do better than on eBay and the selling prices are higher than on eBay.  If you don't sell media items don't expect to do very well.

Overstock: sell through is much lower than eBay's but it's still 10 times better than any of the small sites.  New items sell best...used won't.  Look at the top searches on the front page of their auctions and you'll get the idea.  Overstock has openly stated they don't present a level playing field.  Larger sellers who qualify for O's Trusted Merchant program (minimum $1000 combined sales from any online site and you must join BuySafe) have their items included in the main store search which receives 10X more traffic than their auctions.  Trusted Merchants have a much higher sell through than non Trusted Merchants.  The subscription plans are very reasonable.

uBid: On the positive side the buyer to seller ratio is definitely favorable: over 4 million registered users and only 1500 sellers, and there are lots of sales.  On the negative side: if you're not a large seller with a warehouse (selling in the categories uBid offers)  don't bother applying.

Craigslist: strictly for local pickup.  The WP idiots spamming it are wasting their time because people don't go to Craigs looking for/or wanting mail order.

There are a few other specialized sites where sellers also do well: Alibris and Abebooks for books, Sedo and Afternic for domain names,

Summary: websites are the best bet unless you fit into one of the narrow groups of sellers at the auction/store sites I listed.

[Alskling]

Very good advice, Bloodhound, and kinda reconfirmed a lot of what my gut feeling and guesstimated thinking was also telling me. The ewaey promoter is spamming the PSU board like crazy, and I'm fearful the WP seller who posted he wants to close his store, is going to fall prey to his BS. Any time I see the words "something nobody else has" "unique" or "bigger plan", I cringe and want to pound some sense into those people through my monitor.  There are also a lot of WP cheerleaders over there (because I had a store on WP I know who they are), that will undoubtedly go on and on about how life is like a bowl of cherries and anybody who wants to leave is a fool.

I would never do as some, which is close down one store to start another. That's just suicide.  I don't know if anybody's had a chance to view my eBay store, Designers Bargains, but the items I sell are all new (apparel & shoes), although some of them are new old stock which came from a boutique that closed after being in business for many years when the owner/manager retired after inheriting the business from his mother. A good percentage are high-end Italian, French and American designer items. Almost everything is totally unique and I have tons - probably about 40,000 items, as it came from a variety of retail outlets throughout the southeast. I'm not trying to promote my store here, just get some opinions as to where such an inventory might fit.

Since I haven't the time, ambition or expertise to create a fancy site on my own, the advice I'm picking up is that Shoppal might be a good option. I get the feeling that Overstock would work best if someone had 10 or 20 pairs of identical jeans in different sizes. If I'm wrong, please enlighten me. I've never shopped there, but I did look at it not long after opening and thought the prices were high. But maybe it's changed.

Thanks again.

[thentavius]

Overstock does seem to work better for different types of items. "gently used" products don't sell well and neither do really cheap products.

All the advice here is fantastic. Set up a website and use it as your core. Let all of the auction or mall sites serve as satellites that attract new customers to the core.