eBay startups

[LicensedToTrade]

There is a thread in the General Business forum talking about an eBay business. It got me thinking that several years ago business forums like this one would be full of threads asking about how to set up an eBay business, sourcing suppliers, dropshipping etc.

Has anyone else noticed a steep decline in questions relating to eBay startups? Do many of you still/ever use eBay? Are most sellers on eBay now SMEs rather than bedroom bandits?

 

[eBaySpecialist]

In my experience the majority of eBay 'start ups' are now established businesses moving onto eBay, firstly to clear redundant stock and then selling new products alongside a website and their bricks & mortar stores.

eBay is a lot more complicated as it was years ago, it is turning into a science with Best Match search and detailed seller ratings determining where your item appears in search. A good reputation (amongst other things) as a seller now dictates the amount you're likely to sell and if your reputation isn't a good one then you're likely to be hidden from view.

 

[JEdge]

I used to sell a lot on eBay but stopped because of PayPal problems, i was thinking yesterday how much money i made and wondered why wasn't i still doing it. I am now browsing all the eBay threads looking for advice as its changed a lot since i was last on. i'm going to start selling again.

OT: eBay is mainly taken up my SME's now, due to the very low expenditure.

~Jack

 

[eBaySpecialist]

You have to look on the fees as a marketing cost, done the right way, for the amount of traffic/sales you can achieve it's extremely low cost.

Geeky stats ... 1 in 4 of the UK population visits eBay spending more than 2 hours on the site a month, well worth it.

 

[mike.davis]

It encouraged too many people who knew nothing about business (and weren't very good at business) to start "businesses", they didn't put in the time to learn, didn't want to put in the effort so they did what they knew - what they've heard before, and there small lack of understanding of business led many many of them to just sell it cheapest, after awhile they realized they weren't making any money (some longer than others) and stopped.

As eBay got too busy and too hectic, and websites got cheaper and easier too design many of them flocked to creating there own websites and are now messing up the pricing structures of many industries by selling cheapest, disappearing - yet the website remains, so the next startup copies there prices and so on.