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Post Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 7:59 pm 
 

serleran wrote:I don't really bother with searches, to be honest. I typically do "ending within an hour" or "started within 12 hours and is BIN." Everything else is just junk on there, and never works right.


The problem I just found was that the "started within 12 hours BIN" was not showing all the BIN listings. Some items would appear at one time, then disappear when I checked again and some took over 12 hours to appear at all. Some items I searched for specificly would show up once. Then when searched for again wouldn't. These items weren't bid on or sold, the ebay search engine just wouldn't show them consistantly.

  

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Post Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 8:07 pm 
 

Yeah, well, I haven't even been to eBay much (maybe once/ week) since the change -- used to at least look at something each day, but now the view and engine is pure manure. I'll just sit here and snipe on what others post about. Screw finding stuff on my own... hehe. ;)


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Post Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:24 pm 
 

. wrote:The system used for searching now filters product based on the quality of the seller experience (as reported by other buyers), the qualtity of revenue generated by the seller, and the previous results those keywords have returned that have resulted in searchers watching or bidding upon. The bigger the seller you are, the more often your product will appear in search results, and small time sellers will still feature, but will be either be placed farther down the list (say page 7) or filtered out as not likely to generate revenue.


If I were a smaller seller, I'd dump general product for niche product. No way in hell you are going to be found unless you are on the first page.  You should be selling items only listed a dozen times tops, and nothing that has over a page of listings.

I find that most of my listings are front and center, maybe because I've got a priority listing due to feedback, etc, but mostly because I try to get the keywords to help me.

Mike B.


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Post Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 9:32 pm 
 

. wrote:No. Other than the fact that the buyer is present during the transaction, eBay makes all it's money off of the seller. The buyer contributes nothing to eBay whatsoever. And in most instances, people buy on eBay because they cannot buy cheaper or easier elsewhere, so there is no need to pander to buyers at all.

If you say eBay has no market without buyers, the same is true for sellers. Buy their entire funding comes from sellers only. So that pount is eronious.

As regards all the other points, whether a buyer can find what they are looking for or not, they have no choice. eBay has an absolute monopoly over the entire market. Furthermore, buyers have been pushing eBay to bias their policies in favour of the buyer for the past five years. If there is a change that in some ways inconveniences buyers, then maybe it's about time. As with all other changes, this will do very little to damage eBay as a company. It may be a welcome change to an otherwise dull experience.


Ian is correct, although I would disagree the fisting of the seller has done little damage to Ebay. Since this campaign began their stock price has dropped $40 a share (compared to Amazon's stock, which has risen), and they are having horrific sales volume and buyer/seller retention problems.  On top of that they have just had the three worst quarters in the company's history, and it must be emphasized that Amazon who is basically in the same business has had much better results during hte same time period.  They did irrepreable harm to their company in the last 24 months by letting Amazon first get a foothold then a commanding lead in the business.  Look at Ebay now, their money comes from paypal and Skype while their core busines is a joke and rumors on Wall Street are they'd sell it if it wasn't such a successful platform for Paypal.

What Ebay screwed up is simple: most primary sellers were also buyers, but most primary buyers wer NOT also sellers, if that makes any sense. When thousands of sellers left ebay in the last year, they took their buying dollars with them.  Predictions say they will drop auctions entirely except for "specialty" items in the next few years anyway, concentrating on their stores setup instead.

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Post Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 2:34 pm 
 

Ok, I just did a search for "judges guild" and it popped with just 6 auctions. I have neve seen that few before. Usually runs about two pages worth of stuff.


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Post Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 2:41 pm 
 

bbarsh wrote:Ok, I just did a search for "judges guild" and it popped with just 6 auctions. I have neve seen that few before. Usually runs about two pages worth of stuff.




Hit the "Worldwide" button, and you'll get quite a few more.  The default location filtering is a little more restrictive than it should be, I find.  (The default appears to be "Only on ebay.com" -- which means that auctions listed through any of their sub-sites like ebay.ca or ebay.co.uk won't show up.)


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Post Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 3:27 pm 
 

Problem is Amazon is so shite.
You cannot list an item for sale unless Amazon beforehand get a memeber of their staff to sancion the item and check that it is a legal product and the process takes 8-10 months.
As a UK seller, I am not allowed to sell CZ:UW for example, because it is not a legal product. As far as Amazon are concerned the product is fake and I am trying to commit fraud by listing bogus items on their site. They are trying to varify that the product is real and legitimate, but it has to go through their research department and still has not been agreed upon by the committee that control sales.

Bottom line in there is no way of selling RPGs as a business on Amazon. The same goes for every single other item under the sun with the possible exception of mainstream paperbacks which have pracically zero margin because you cannot compete with Amazon on price.

Amazon is in no way in the same business as eBay. eBay are in the business of trying to get sellers to sell things (they try to extort as much money from them as they can). Amazon are in the business of selling wholesale like Walmart of any other seller. They do not even pretend to give a f"ck about any third party seller who likes to play barnacle for a bit.

With eBay sellers make money.
There in no way to make money from Amazon. Share price is irrelevant in the discussion as Amazon's turnover is not affected by whether or not sellers and buyers manage to agree to sell to one another.


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Post Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:12 pm 
 

. wrote:Problem is Amazon is so shite.
You cannot list an item for sale unless Amazon beforehand get a memeber of their staff to sancion the item and check that it is a legal product and the process takes 8-10 months.
As a UK seller, I am not allowed to sell CZ:UW for example, because it is not a legal product. As far as Amazon are concerned the product is fake and I am trying to commit fraud by listing bogus items on their site. They are trying to varify that the product is real and legitimate, but it has to go through their research department and still has not been agreed upon by the committee that control sales.

Bottom line in there is no way of selling RPGs as a business on Amazon. The same goes for every single other item under the sun with the possible exception of mainstream paperbacks which have pracically zero margin because you cannot compete with Amazon on price.

Amazon is in no way in the same business as eBay. eBay are in the business of trying to get sellers to sell things (they try to extort as much money from them as they can). Amazon are in the business of selling wholesale like Walmart of any other seller. They do not even pretend to give a f"ck about any third party seller who likes to play barnacle for a bit.

With eBay sellers make money.
There in no way to make money from Amazon. Share price is irrelevant in the discussion as Amazon's turnover is not affected by whether or not sellers and buyers manage to agree to sell to one another.


Plenty of people (even some I know) make money on Amazon.  Some people even make MORE money on Amazon than they did on Ebay.  It's a different buying market, though.  More newer items, etc.  Some items do better on Amazon than ebay, and vice versa.  Remember not to narrow your perspective to just one niche...used RPG items...which admittedly is probably not a good category to break into with Amazon. One of my wife's friends has a business selling Dr. Who books and other SF items, and makes some big money on Amazon. I don't know if they do the roleplaying thing also, though.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=castle+zagyg&x=10&y=22

That being said, I find two CZ box sets on Amazon USA, as well as a slew of other RPG and Castle Zagyg products. Perhaps the problems you are having are with Amazon UK; Amazon USA seems to have many RPG listings as well as other related categories. I think the problems you are seeing are specific to your country; heck, Killjoy got a Warrior of Mars last year on Amazon!



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Post Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:30 pm 
 

bbarsh wrote:Ok, I just did a search for "judges guild" and it popped with just 6 auctions. I have neve seen that few before. Usually runs about two pages worth of stuff.


Yer not doin' it rite.  :P

I just did a search (and I am not searching International either) and it came up with 29 auctions.  If I click "include title and description" it comes up with 55.  Additional Items from Ebay Stores: 291.

Make sure you arent spelling it "Jujez Gilled" or something like that.  :wink:


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Post Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 4:51 pm 
 

bbarsh wrote:Ok, I just did a search for "judges guild" and it popped with just 6 auctions. I have neve seen that few before. Usually runs about two pages worth of stuff.


I get 28 for auction and 243 when I include ebay stores

  

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Post Posted: Wed Jun 17, 2009 5:15 pm 
 

Badmike wrote:Plenty of people (even some I know) make money on Amazon.  Some people even make MORE money on Amazon than they did on Ebay.

Yes, I agree that if you sell memory cards and you import them from Tiawan in boxes of 1000, then Amazon is a good place to shift them. Same could be said for many consumer items with a very short shelf life, and for most books that you'd buy at Borders.

But I would challenge anyone in our market to try to make it work on any other website than eBay. RPGMarketplace had promise, but it was way too difficult to navigate or use to be of any interest to the majority of people. Hense we all get spam e-mails and don't go there to buy anything. Maybe one day they'll change it but I don't think they owners of the site care much about it.

We are each stuck with our own terretorial dictatorships at Amazon, and in the UK they decide what you can and cannot sell according to committee. It is absolute and there are no exceptions. There is no way at all to sell CZ:UW for example because in the UK it's not a legitimate product. How can anyone do business where every single item you sell has to be pre-approved  by Amazon head office, and you have to absorb tracking and packaging into your overhead, because you're not allowed to charge the customer for it, but you have to take liability for the goods ariving in perfect condition and be able to prove it?

Where in the whole of Amazon's business is there any interest in the seller? They contribute nothing to the company's business, and that is why the company don't give a shit about them.

Mind you, it's far easier to commit fraud and get away with it on Amazon. So there is money to be made if you're willing to break the law.


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Post Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2009 10:45 pm 
 

New evil eBay search tip:  turn off eBay's suggestions in your search box, and you can actually still save your browser-based queries!  Yay!


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