Who Sells Where? Multi-Channel Poll Results

by: Digmen1

A great poll - thanks for running it.
I did not see it.
But will look out for the next one.

I was surprised at the low showing for etsy in view of its high sales figures.

I was also surprised at the high ranking for bonanza.

Good to see ebid.net up there as they hardly ever change their polices. But it would be good if the released an API to help multi channel sellers.

by: Shopatusm

I am really surprised how high Bonanza ranked!  

by: mimi51

Bonanza never found its way.  It's lost in the woods.

by: EventHorizon1984

This poll will reach many, and they'll point to results they want to highlight.  But consider the number of participants.  

''We also heard from almost 700 of you!''  8 July 2013 EcommerceBytes

Compare that to the ''Sellers Choice 2013: Merchants Rate Top Online Marketplaces participation:
''Over 11,500 online sellers participated in the 2013 Sellers Choice survey - eclipsing last year's total by over 4,000 respondents.'' 3 February 2013 EcommerceBytes

That ''700'' represents 6% of the EcommerceBytes participating seller pool.

When you're dealing with a small sample from a diverse population, which itself is a small sample of online sellers, ''surprising'' should be replaced with ''it's a wonder anything made sense.''

/*

''They told me computers could only do arithmetic''
Grace Hopper (1952)

by: FREDDY

Surprised !!!!
Found it hard to believe that ebay ranked so high. Also, Etsy and Bonanza a tie. I found that one hard to believe. Dropped Bonanza because I got tired of tweaking account and NO results. Etsy, on the other hand, provided some results. In fact more results with Etsy that ebay.

by: RCL

I think many sellers who boast of their multichannel selling and own websites still rely on eBay--just embarrassed to say so :) It is REALLY hard to get a personal website to match eBay even on its WORST day.

by: Moonwishes

Considering the complaining about ebay that I see here constantly (and the majority of posts here are about ebay)I'm surprised it isn't in the basement, but it is still up there. Many are apparently not willing to let go and go elsewhere or else maybe it isn't as bad as everyone makes it sound (although I left it long ago before I got another ulcer). I use two channel selling after only using one for awhile and that is what keeps my sales numbers up currently. While for several years all my sales were generated through ecrater, once Google started messing around with their search, we seemed to lose visibility as well as other smaller sites having the same  difficulty.

I'm not sure how anyone can keep track of more than 2 venues to sell on, as a person does need time to sleep and eat. It is the multi-multi-channel sellers that drive me crazy. They do a dump of all their inventory on any free or cheap site (such as ecrater) that will let them, don't do anything else but go dump on more sites. Their store's appear unfinished, if someone does buy many times the sale is missed because they never saw the order, they end up giving ecrater and the other sites black eyes and tend to make buyers think all sellers there are just as bad. Their using so many venues backfires on them anyhow since they can't maintain keeping track of them. Better to only have a couple sites and work them well than to try to sell on 10 sites and do a very poor job of it.  

by: mysongsdesigns

Did not even see an open Poll opportunity but am surprised that eBay is as high as it is.  

by: mysongsdesigns

Never saw an open poll for voting. Hate I missed it. Surprised to see eBay still ranking high.  

by: GoodK9

Perhaps the poll should be re-opened to let others participate.  Just a thought (and yes, I did answer it the first time around).

by: Digmen1

Yes I agree, the poll needed to have much more publicity and to be open for longer.

I check in to this site every few days and I never saw it.

Perhaps they could have emailed all members?

Still 700 replies is probably enough to get a gauge on things.

by: juliawww

Hi Mysongs, Good and Digmen, not to worry...we will do the poll again soon. I agree, it could have been open longer and been better publicized. That's my bad..the next time I do this I'll plan it ahead longer.
Having said that, I thought 700 was a good number of you, and a fair sampling, but you're right..compared to the 11,500 of the Seller's Choice poll, it's not much.
Although, with Nielsen ratings-type think, a sample is supposed to represent a larger grouo. Hopefully we'll get a lot more voters in the next poll. I also forgot to include Buy.com. If any of you think other marketplaces not mentioned here should be added, pls. post a comment here or email me at julia@auctionbytes.com.

Thanks! :)

Julia

by: Nolle

never confuse blog comments with reality.

only 700 voted, but how many write on here?  12 regularly, and maybe a handful more.  so if you were basing things on comments here, nobody is selling on ebay, and those that are, aren't selling anything.  

far from reality.  

i'd say very few sellers rely solely on their website or small sites like bonz.  almost 1/2 do this, but this isn't where most sales come from.

some use amazon very successfully, selling more there than anywhere else.  very very product dependent.

anyone selling successfully on craigs is selling the kind of stuff that has no business on ebay or most online sites to begin with. it's a local thing.

i think 95% of etsy sales are done by 5% of the sellers.  might not be true, but every time i look on there i find sellers with thousands of sales, or just a few, and all the good stuff is by the best sellers.  about 90% of the stuff on etsy is total homemade junk.

ebay is still the most hated and yet most popular site for most things.  they have lost ground in some areas to amazon, but there were things amazon always did better, like new electronics.  for better or worse, bay is still king.  

by: Basset

Shoot, I don't remember if I took this poll or not!

Bonanza:  Although easy to learn & list stuff on-  No sales. Crickets chirping - nothing listed there now.  I did try to learn the bells & whistles, google stuff set up & working.   I don't have time or desire to monitor any sites ''social'' pages.

eCrater:  Sales this year - 1.  I have been on that a few years with about 6 total sales. I really like eCrater, for its ease & simplicity. But that does not pay the bills. Right now I have only a few items there - because the rest all sold on eBay.


A few months back, for experiments sake - I listed the same items on all 3 places to see what happened. Well, if it was a horserace - the eBay nag would be the horse to bet on. The items sold on eBay & all I ever did was end items on the other two venues.

Now, I have different items in each venue.  At random I will end an item in eCrater and list it on eBay. It usually sells within the week if not the same day.


THAT is why sellers like myself are still on eBay.  

Sometimes the ''I can't believe you are still on eBay'' and ''why can't you see the light'' litany comes across as a put-down. The people who sell on eBay are not idiots - it is where their sales are. In looking at Julia's poll, apparently I'm not the only one with the above results.

by: elpereles

I'm very surprise with Bonanzle/Bonanza, but they are very good moving people to polls. Congratulations!

For the topic as far I can tell. It is more easy do multi-channel when you have duplicates items.