Opinions wanted. How would your perfect eBay alternative be like?

[GrannyT]

Originally Posted by TurtleCove

That's not the way an eBay union would work.
When farmers join a union, to get a better price for their milk, it didn't matter what "perks" the dairy offered them, or non union members....they simply kept dumping their milk down the drain until they got their demands met.

If only 20 or 30 percent of eBay sellers joined a union, they could break eBay's back. When the union members band together, to boycott eBay until demands are met, it doesn't matter what kind of perks eBay offered....the decrease from that 30% would be devistating for eBay. I sell all the items I have on eBay. When they offer fee listing days, or decreased rates, it's not as though I go find additional items to list.

"For every seller that boycotted eBay, another seller listed 10x more items." ... That simply isn't true.

Monopoly's like eBay, are best kept in check with competition. But, when competition doesn't work (as we've seen from the scores that have tried against eBay), a union is the way to go.

Imagine if 30% of eBay's sellers joined a union, and each of them paid dues of $25 a year. Do you realize the amount of bad press the union could threaten to buy with that kind of money, if their demands didn't get met? In addition to the lost revenue from auction witholding.

LOL - superb - OK you lot, send me your details and your $25 - I've just voted myself treasurer of the Ebay Sellers Union

[buzzmart]

Very interesting topic here.

All I want to say it, GOOD LUCK!

About 6 years ago, I had the same idea of creating an eBay alternative, and trust me I did not estimate the amount work that making a website from scratch would cost me in terms of money and time. So I suggest anyone who wants to start an alternative to double think it before spending ridiculous money and amount of time.

I believe I am one of the lucky few who kept to it, had a steady job to fund my alternative marketplace project and now I have a team of 5 people working with me.

Once you overcome the challenge of building the website, which is actually a challenge which will never end as ecommerce evolves, your biggest challenge after development is TRAFFIC.

With people who are SEO experts working for us, this still remains something that even we struggle with today after 1 year of launch.

Again, best of luck.

[newjerseymax]

I am in and this looks like a great thing happening. This biggest hurtle is believing that it can be done and ignoring those that seem to think the mighty ebay will never shrink. It has and will continue. We, people strive for something better all the time. It takes just one good idea to snowball into something fantastic!

Don't forget to create your own luck!

[imjustme]

Just in case you guys have been wondering, the development is still coming along nicely. Working on it day and night

[Cashew]

I'm IN



using the variation listing..

i ask in another thread about how we are forced to use the weight of the heaviest item as the default weight for all items in a listing.
It's costing us international sales even though we include a message in our listings advising international buyers to email us for a quote instead of using the shipping calculator.

It would be nice to be able to add the shipping cost to individual items in one variation listing.

example: one listing with multiple variations

small..8 oz....$3.40 shipping
medium..24 oz....$6.40 shipping
large...3 lb.......$8.62 shipping
jumbo....7 lb....$11.00 shipping
ect..ect...ect...

But as of right now E bay makes you choose the highest shipping because you only have one choice for that entire listing with variations.

When someone purchases the smallest item and the shipping should be $3.40.

You are forced to set all the shipping at $11.00 becuse of obvious resons.

that in itself scares customers away.


Good luck

[yaBeh8ater]

Been reading this topic for almost an hour now. So many great ideas. I have some stuff I'd like to see. If you have ever bought on webstore you would have noticed that large categories get broken down into different types in that category. My favorite being the video game category. If I search under video games it will give me a selection of what game system I want to look through.

Hope you integrate that. Also I'd like to know as soon as the site becomes available. I'll sign up first thing when it does.

[MichaelW]

Search function like ebay is good. Not like ioffer.

[biggesmalls]

Originally Posted by bigmoe

ebay wouldnt be as big without ⊗⊗⊗⊗,thats why everything is so cheap ,i would never buy from ebay,ebay hong kong wouldnt exist without ⊗⊗⊗⊗ ,i sell replicas thats where the moneys at and all my customers are more than happy with what they get,if companys like gucci,nike,ralph lauren,etc didnt have such high rip off prices there would be no need for ⊗⊗⊗⊗.if you dont sell knock offs what is it you sell that you make so much money off to spend all the time making stealth accounts

This post was stupid i learnt my lesson

[bubbles70]

The one thing I would recommend is mandatory tutorial upon opening an acct. Some sites make you take the tutorial after you have made the mistakes. I found that I assumed often and that i did not have enough information before I became a seller. Most of my mistakes were truly because I was uninformed. Live and learn right? Also 1 last note. I personally do not think account should be banned forever. I truly think 6 months to a year will really teach people a lesson. As we all know EBay was a large income source for all of us! I'm a single mom with 2 jobs and Ebay really helped me pay my bills. Thanks for listening!!!

[imjustme]

Just to let you guys know, we've implemented many of the suggested points. It's still in development but it's looking better every day. The item variation and combined shipping fees is a tough one, as not every seller will specify the weight of the item, and some people will obviously charge more for shipping than others. Also, the official weight rates of the different post offices may not be available to be calculated correctly, especially for sellers outside the United States. So we're still looking into ways to solve that the best possible way.

One of the points we will focus the most is the communication between the marketplace and the sellers/buyers. One of the weakest points of eBay is communication. When you send a question or have a problem, you're most likely to get a canned answer that doesn't really fix the problem, but simply buys eBay more time and drags out the issue.

Another thing we'll look at is seller verification, in another way than simply using credit cards to verify the identity, or sending in documents. Since credit cards don't mean anything other than the card number exists, and documents can easily be forged. If you have any thoughts on this, I'd welcome them

[freedomplz]

Yes, verifying a sellers identity can be a tough one as everyone on this forum knows. Some sites ask you to sign up through facebook. The incorrect assumption is that each person has just 1 facebook account. This method provides a low level verification of a persons identity.

[imjustme]

Originally Posted by freedomplz

Yes, verifying a sellers identity can be a tough one as everyone on this forum knows. Some sites ask you to sign up through facebook. The incorrect assumption is that each person has just 1 facebook account. This method provides a low level verification of a persons identity.

We're definitely not going with Facebook logins. In my opinion, every company should take care of their users' data themselves. Depending on Facebook may create more problems in the long run, especially once people start moving to something else, as it happened with MySpace before.

We're leaning towards SMS verification at the moment, as it's about the same as credit card verification. Credit card numbers don't mean anything with VCCs being available, and phone numbers are about equal. It's easier for people to give out their mobile number than their credit card number, though.

[Cashew]

I have had a few problems with buying an item and then when i go to pay, it says that this seller won't ship to P.O boxes.

I always look for that issue whenever i buy or bid on any items in their description and shipping details. It happens when i win an item in auction mostly.

If Eba y would implement something to tell buyers whenever they go to buy or whenever they bid that this seller won't ship to P.O. boxes. Even tho that particular seller don't mention it in their description.

Or even better,dont let buyers with P.O. boxes even make a bid or purchase.

It is a real pain in the ass when you have to contact the seller and try and fix the issue after already winning the bid or committing to buy and then can't pay through pay pal.

I have yet had one seller figure out how i can pay through paypal when they have the restriction set for no P.O. boxes.

I did find the ADD this buyer to NO RESTRICTIONS list but that didn't seem to work either.

Finally, i had them give me their email and i sent the payment directly to their account. Then they have to manually mark as payment received in ebay. At least that worked.

But when you run into that seller that just refuses to sell to you because of a mail box number, its just a real pain.

good luck

[baloch]

The problem is that most people just start selling without understanding how things work or how they should solve problems.

I think you should have online seminars for new sellers and buyers that they must attend. It could be automated video or interactive flash presentation. It could show how to resolve issues with payment or shipping or disputes and what is right and what is wrong.

[teedon]

Very interesting.Look forward chinese version coming out asap.

[newjerseymax]

It would be cool to pay for number of listings in advance no matter the value of product.

50 listings (up front and final value) = $100
100 Listings (up front and final value) = $175
something like that.

Also would be great if we could pick how many days to list. like 1-60 and we enter the number. It bugs me that I cant list 2, 4, 6, etc days... So simple but ebay does not have it.

[Deal buyer]

any updates on when this ebay killer is going to be released. i suggest you open the marketplace up to the facebook community, abit like an app, but more intergrated. you would get loads of traffic from there

[imjustme]

Originally Posted by Deal buyer

any updates on when this ebay killer is going to be released. i suggest you open the marketplace up to the facebook community, abit like an app, but more intergrated. you would get loads of traffic from there

There's no ETA, as we're still working on implementing some of the features that were suggested here. In the coming few months for sure, but no exact date.

The Facebook integration is a tricky point. A lot of large retailers (JC Penney and others) that have recently opened their Facebook stores have closed them down again because it simply didn't work for them. People just don't have shopping in mind when they visit Facebook, so the actual conversion rate may be quite low.

Another problem point with Facebook signup is that the website (us in that case) would not see much more than the person's first and last name, which can be a big security hole for buyers and sellers. We wouldn't know the address, phone number, nothing. It's why sites like eBay and others likely don't use Facebook signups.

Still, we'll integrate it to some extent with Facebook, but also not Facebook-dependent.

[Deal buyer]

Hmm, yeh. I hues that's where your website would come in won't it.people these days are usually always logged in on Facebook, I gues it would require marketing won't it,
Remember the marketing technique Facebook used, th econstant email you used to get from Facebook from people on your friends list who joined up. I guess that proved to be exemely successful didn't it.
It all comes down to marketing I guess. And to fill the security whole, you would just get them to add their extra details and make your own database when they sign up on your app.
People don't o onto Facebook to shop, I nderstand that, but can you remember when people didn't go online for Facebook? Or eBay!

[BubbleTea]

Originally Posted by TurtleCove

That's not the way an eBay union would work.
When farmers join a union, to get a better price for their milk, it didn't matter what "perks" the dairy offered them, or non union members....they simply kept dumping their milk down the drain until they got their demands met.

If only 20 or 30 percent of eBay sellers joined a union, they could break eBay's back. When the union members band together, to boycott eBay until demands are met, it doesn't matter what kind of perks eBay offered....the decrease from that 30% would be devistating for eBay. I sell all the items I have on eBay. When they offer fee listing days, or decreased rates, it's not as though I go find additional items to list.

"For every seller that boycotted eBay, another seller listed 10x more items." ... That simply isn't true.

Monopoly's like eBay, are best kept in check with competition. But, when competition doesn't work (as we've seen from the scores that have tried against eBay), a union is the way to go.

Imagine if 30% of eBay's sellers joined a union, and each of them paid dues of $25 a year. Do you realize the amount of bad press the union could threaten to buy with that kind of money, if their demands didn't get met? In addition to the lost revenue from auction witholding.

I don't mean to put you down here, but as a matter of fact, if you think that forming a union is the solution, then why don't you implement it??

I have no doubt that if you form a union against eBay, there will be loads of people joining.
Just google eBay suspension etc. and you will find loads of forums and blogs with loads of users crying over their stories of how they got suspended by eb.

I think there is a chance this would work. There is a chance anything would work and in my opinion, I think anything done against eb is better than nothing done at all.

So I support the new online marketplace by imjustme and I support you too if you form a union.

But if you just sit here and tell someone who is doing something that he is wasting his time, and then talk about how great a union would be but do nothing to make a union, then you are not only not being not part of the solution, but part of the problem.

So please, form your union if you would, and convert that negative energy into something positive instead.

[TurtleCove]

Point very well taken.
Thanks for the input.

[rsot]

eB sellers forming a union...ever been part of a union?