New Ebay rates!! Ouch!!

"Su/Cutworks" wrote in message
...
I think for a while still I'll list on eBay simply because of their
coverage
but we're getting buried in the junk and they don't seem to care. It will
be harder to get people to JustBeads at first, and I do think that for
some
sellers their sales will suffer badly because they won't have the volume
of
people past their 'doorstep' elsewhere. It's a chicken and egg thing now
I
think with JustBeads, will they bring in the casual buyer or will it take
a
concerted effort on the part of the lampworkers to get the word out to the
larger world that there's a site for beads? And how much money is
JustBeads
willing to invest in advertising, not to the bead world but to the other
parts of the buying public?

I know it really sounds silly, but I just can't be doing with justbeads. I
find it really clunky to browse. The main thing though (and this will sound
really, really daft) is that I can't view the prices in sterling! I like
eBay because it does that for me. No other website does that! It means I
don't spend far too much money because I haven't worked things out right in
my head.

Charlie.

1. Ebay has dismal customer service. Their Live Help is all but gone,
you
can't call them and their email response time is usually non-existent.
It's
been that way for at least three years now.

I can't speak for the US customer service, but the UK one is excellent
(from
my experience). They've always been helpful when I've emailed / phoned
them.

It's non-existent, here, unless you are a big time seller. Even
Powersellers (who have their own 800 number to call) have been disappointed
in their customer service.

3. At this time, they are the only game in town (really, there's no
equal
competition, but that will change hopefully) so they can charge whatever
they want and get away with it. Monopoly. Almost as bad as Microsoft.

So someone needs to rival them. The problem is, that no one can do it
well
enough - just like Microsoft.

Sure - I'll agree with that.


4. They cater heavily to larger businesses now, where 4 or 5 years ago,
they
catered to the people that got them started - mom and pop businesses and
people selling things out of their home.

Well, that's the market they've chosen to hit. They're the people that
make
the most money for them.

They didn't choose to hit this market until very recently. They started out
catering very heavily to smaller businesses. It was that way for years, and
then the smaller business basically got stomped on a couple of years ago
when ebay began to completely change their entire way of doing things. This,
to me, is completely unethical.


5. They've already raised their prices very recently.

And so did Somerfield (supermarket) raise their chip prices recently, but
they did it again. All companies do that. I raised my bracelet prices
twice in a row very quickly. I felt I was giving a service/product and
wasn't getting paid enough for it. Perhaps I'm greedy. We're all human.

There's a big difference between a one-person business and a huge
corporation. The comparison here makes no sense to me.
Ebay gets paid enough - they are the most successful web company in history.
In a floundering economy, they flourished.

6. Their "Stores" set up is awful. No exposure, klunky maintenance,
still
have a lot of bugs even though they have been trying to fix things since
they started "Stores" a couple of years ago. Better than they were at
first, but still not worth the price increase.

This one I agree with. Their stores are awful. But I guess if you
promote
it enough then it will pay for the time you spend on it.

That depends on what you're selling. MJ promotes her store very well, but
she's going to have to close now because of the rising fees.

7. They keep acquiring companies, and keep building in features that they
think people need, but are worthless. (My Ebay 2.0, Anything Points, to
name just a couple) Instead, they need to concentrate on fixing the
glaring
errors that still exist after YEARS)

My eBay 2.0 is a good feature. I like it anyway. Anything points aren't
over here so I can't comment. People moaned when they took over paypal
though, but it made things so much easier.

My ebay 2.0 was not received well by many, because the changes were
gratuitous and hard to figure out. And it was completely unnecessary. The
former My Ebay worked just fine. My ebay 2.0 came about when they were
having the biggest problems with their billing department here in the
states. People were Not Happy. And we were forced to accept the new
platform.

9. Their pic hosting department is TERRIBLE - and they charge money for
it!

So why do people use it? Free webspace is not hard to find and we all get
basic free graphics programmes with out PC's/Macs.

That's no excuse for having an inferior product. If your going to charge
for service, you should have......good service.
Free webspace is increasingly hard to find. Personally, I pay for mine.
And who says everyone gets free graphics programs with the purchase of a PC?
It depends on where you buy it and how much you pay. Nothing is free.

Ebay Pros:

1. Their VERO program is great, I speak from personal experience.

Me too, definatly a good thing and easier and cheaper than legal action.

2. Their auctions are still fairly decently priced for a lot of people,
although the rising price for "extras" on the auctions makes it hard to
sell.

You know, I believe your basic listing fees are still cheaper than ours,
and
our auctions genrally fetch less money. (I believe, I haven't cheked out
that current exchange rate for a while).

What's the point here? I haven't compared international rates. And the US
dollar is not doing well at all, anyway, so I think this is no longer true.

Feel free to add to the list.
It's not that ebay is horrible - it's just that people who have been
doing
business with them for awhile can see that the money they are charging is
not going to help the problems that exist.

Maybe, just maybe, they've got something up their sleeves.

I'll believe that when I see it.

--
Kandice Seeber
Air & Earth Designs
http://www.lampwork.net

Why do people keep saying they're the only game in town?

JUSTBEADS is in town too. And personally I like them very much, as a
customer. I ALWAYS check out their auctions.

Tina


"Kandice Seeber" wrote...
Ebay Cons:

3. At this time, they are the only game in town (really, there's no equal
competition, but that will change hopefully) so they can charge whatever
they want and get away with it. Monopoly. Almost as bad as Microsoft.

I prefer Just beads to eBay, because they specialize in beads. To me, it's
like going to a bead store instead of a department store, even though eBay
does currently have more beads listed. Not just for lamp work, but all
kinds of beads.

Tina


"Su/Cutworks" wrote...
Kandice wrote:

Yep - exactly. Lampwork Beads as a medium is starting to move away from
ebay, even though that used to be the best venue for it online (bead
shows
being the best venue offline). A lot of artists are moving to their own
websites now. And I am sure Justbeads is on the verge of becoming more
and
more popular, if the buyers follow the sellers.

The trick is getting the buyers to follow the sellers.

I think for a while still I'll list on eBay simply because of their
coverage
but we're getting buried in the junk and they don't seem to care. It will
be harder to get people to JustBeads at first, and I do think that for
some
sellers their sales will suffer badly because they won't have the volume
of
people past their 'doorstep' elsewhere. It's a chicken and egg thing now
I
think with JustBeads, will they bring in the casual buyer or will it take
a
concerted effort on the part of the lampworkers to get the word out to the
larger world that there's a site for beads? And how much money is
JustBeads
willing to invest in advertising, not to the bead world but to the other
parts of the buying public?

I prefer Just beads to eBay, because they specialize in beads. To me,
it's
like going to a bead store instead of a department store, even though eBay
does currently have more beads listed. Not just for lamp work, but all
kinds of beads.

Tina

Me too, exactly!!!

Plus, from the seller side, their customer service is fantastic. You get
a real human being, named Bob, to help you out. Can't beat that!

KarenK

Tina wrote:

Why do people keep saying they're the only game in town?

JUSTBEADS is in town too. And personally I like them very much, as a
customer. I ALWAYS check out their auctions.

Because of the volume of non-beaders who might stumble across lampwork and
fall in love with it. JustBeads is for people who know beads and know that
it exists. If you're not a beader what are the odds you know about
JustBeads at all? I certainly didn't but I knew about eBay and that's where
I found my first pieces of lampwork other than here.

There's no comparison as one is a very dedicated, tightly focused site and
the other is a huge yard sale.

Right now we have half our beads on JB and half on eBay, and the eBay ones
are getting far more interest. It's just a question of how many people go
past our shop window.

-Su

--
Tillerman eBay shop: http://stores.ebay.com/thetillermanbeads
Tillerman on JustBeads:
http://www.justbeads.com/search/ql.cfm?s=tillermanbeads
Tillerman website: http://www.tillerman.co.uk

KarenK wrote:

I prefer Just beads to eBay, because they specialize in beads. To me,
it's
like going to a bead store instead of a department store, even though eBay
does currently have more beads listed. Not just for lamp work, but all
kinds of beads.

Tina

Me too, exactly!!!

Plus, from the seller side, their customer service is fantastic. You get
a real human being, named Bob, to help you out. Can't beat that!

The problem is not what a great site they are but how people find them or
know about them. I knew about eBay, everyone does, it's so heavily
advertised and is now part of the international culture such as it is.

JustBeads is great, I think they have a solid base and excellent customer
service but they're preaching to the choir mostly. The trick is to bring
MORE non-beaders into the fold.

-Su

--
Tillerman eBay shop: http://stores.ebay.com/thetillermanbeads
Tillerman on JustBeads:
http://www.justbeads.com/search/ql.cfm?s=tillermanbeads
Tillerman website: http://www.tillerman.co.uk

When I say that they are the only game in town, I mean that they have no
real competition on a large scale. Justbeads is tiny in comparison, and
they get far less traffic. I am not saying that they are not worth looking
into - what I am saying is that they are not a real threat to ebay. Maybe
in our own little category - **maybe** - if people can get their customers
to follow them there. But from the standpoint of quite a few handmade bead
sellers, Justbeads still doesn't offer the same potential sales-wise that
ebay does. It's not a nice thought, but it's true.
There are some sellers that do well on Justbeads, but on the larger scale,
there just isn't enough traffic yet. I am sure in the coming months as
people switch, there is a chance for Justbeads to become a better venue for
sellers of beads.


--
Kandice Seeber
Air & Earth Designs
http://www.lampwork.net
"Christina Peterson" wrote in message
...
Why do people keep saying they're the only game in town?

JUSTBEADS is in town too. And personally I like them very much, as a
customer. I ALWAYS check out their auctions.

Tina


"Kandice Seeber" wrote...
Ebay Cons:

3. At this time, they are the only game in town (really, there's no equal
competition, but that will change hopefully) so they can charge whatever
they want and get away with it. Monopoly. Almost as bad as Microsoft.

Ebay's prices are also still a bit higher for handmade beads.
Good for the buyer, but not for the seller.

--
Kandice Seeber
Air & Earth Designs
http://www.lampwork.net
"Christina Peterson" wrote in message
...
I prefer Just beads to eBay, because they specialize in beads. To me, it's
like going to a bead store instead of a department store, even though eBay
does currently have more beads listed. Not just for lamp work, but all
kinds of beads.

Tina


"Su/Cutworks" wrote...
Kandice wrote:

Yep - exactly. Lampwork Beads as a medium is starting to move away
from
ebay, even though that used to be the best venue for it online (bead
shows
being the best venue offline). A lot of artists are moving to their
own
websites now. And I am sure Justbeads is on the verge of becoming more
and
more popular, if the buyers follow the sellers.

The trick is getting the buyers to follow the sellers.

I think for a while still I'll list on eBay simply because of their
coverage
but we're getting buried in the junk and they don't seem to care. It
will
be harder to get people to JustBeads at first, and I do think that for
some
sellers their sales will suffer badly because they won't have the volume
of
people past their 'doorstep' elsewhere. It's a chicken and egg thing now
I
think with JustBeads, will they bring in the casual buyer or will it take
a
concerted effort on the part of the lampworkers to get the word out to
the
larger world that there's a site for beads? And how much money is
JustBeads
willing to invest in advertising, not to the bead world but to the other
parts of the buying public?

Yes, that's a huge, huge plus for them.
I just hope someday they have the resources to improve their interface.

--
Kandice Seeber
Air & Earth Designs
http://www.lampwork.net

I prefer Just beads to eBay, because they specialize in beads. To me,
it's
like going to a bead store instead of a department store, even though eBay
does currently have more beads listed. Not just for lamp work, but all
kinds of beads.

Tina

Me too, exactly!!!

Plus, from the seller side, their customer service is fantastic. You get a
real human being, named Bob, to help you out. Can't beat that!

KarenK