Sellers Impacted by Shift to Paid Search

by: sasikat9

Using the words Bonanza and traffic to their website is almost as funny as a barrel of monkeys....

The one thing Bonanza really really lacks is buyers.

If they are attracting traffic its got to be the sight seeing type which are useless.

by: DingDong

It's so true that Bonanza and traffic don't mix. It's all the SELLER's tweeting, the SELLER's facebooking, the SELLER's promoting and the SELLER's coupons that bring any traffic to Bonanza. The SELLER's pay Bonanza membership for "so call" promoting for their booths.
Since Bill Harding has a profitable selling site, why are they advertising the Bonanza site as a whole.
Why to do expect from gamers Bill and Mark.  

by: Anonymous Annie

This will hurt my business. I'm very worried.

by: TheUglySweaterShop

Glad we focused on Wanelo instead.  

by: JoJo

Our website took a hit when Google shifted to pay to play.  And we did rely a little bit on traffic from the Find, but more on Wanelo.  It's unfortunate to lose one more source of traffic.  Facebook has become less than useless for us as a way to promote our items.

Pinterest works.  Sometimes.

Quite honestly, Etsy and Amazon work the best for us.  And when I think about how I search for items now it's not surprising.  Used to be I would start on Google.  But with the pay to play stupidity I can't seem to find what I want, so if it's a typical item I go to Amazon and if I'm looking for unique, Etsy.  I skip Google altogether.  And sometimes I might see something cool on Wanelo or Pinterest.

by: Moonwishes

With those Google changes in 2012 and the years following my sales on ecrater tumbled to half of what they had been and then even more. Rather that laying down and being walked over, some of us ecrater sellers are fighting back with not only promoting our own stores heavily but promoting the ecrater marketplace as well, much on Pinterest or their social media of choice, to get the word out about ecrater as a site to buy on. As I have gone through pinning, tweeting and G+ things from the ecrater marketplace, I have been stunned by the broad amount and types of goods that we have for sale and it is important for people to know we are here and we have no plans to go down without a fight.  

by: bb6

I use to load things to The Find but I didn't like that they only showed a certain limited amount of items from the feed that you sent them. This is definitely a punch to the gut for small sellers because any free traffic was better then non.

@sasikat9 that gave me a good laugh.

@moonwishes If you are going to spend so much time promoting and advertising why would you do it on a marketplace? Why not build your own website, so that someone doesn't come pulling the carpet out from under you once you have done all the ground work advertising and driving that traffic to your store. You say your not going down without a fight but if Ecrater was bought out you could be hung out to dry.  

by: Rexford

So what does Facebook intend to do with The Find, or did they just buy it to shut it down?

We're getting regular sales listing on eCrater and LOVE it but zero sales on Bonanza.  For all of the effort Bill Harding reports he puts into this site I don't know why it's not working but it isn't.  eCrater on the other hand is a stress free god send that works, as long as you make your listings Google Shopping friendly.

I was greatly disturbed by Ina's news this morning that Google will penalize sites that aren't set up for mobile.  Google is all for net neutrality....but to me, this flies in the face of that thinking.

by: A-Non-A-Mouse

@rexford: the original ecommerce article explains what FB says it intends to do with the Find, but it still does in effect shutter the site and the access/exposure it gave small online sellers in the face of larger, well heeled competitors who can afford Google Shopping. The site was obvious competition to FB's 'pay to promote posts' scheme. This move is obvious greed on Zuckerburg's part. Apparently he's not wealthy enough so he needs to impede exposure for the millions of small businesses around the world.

I refuse to use FB for my business, and deleted my biz page there a few years ago when they first began using their algorithm to limit post exposure, even to those who voluntarily choose to follow a page.  I have no beef with paying for a service that's worth it, and don't know how well it operates now, but it definitely wasn't worth it at that time as their biz pages were buggy, poorly configured and not well supported; in other words not worth paying anything for.

I'm also not sure what net neutrality has to do with Google penalizing sites that aren't optimized for mobile, though. Net neutrality is a totally separate issue from what Google as a search engine requires sites to do in order to provide best results to the burgeoning mobile marketplace, with the percentage of online transactions occurring on mobile devices nearing 50%. Sounds like they are lighting a fire under those who need to react and respond to this reality sooner rather than later. The larger sites have been working on responsive delivery for some time now.

by: elpereles

I'm surprise see Facebook buy The Find.

Lets be fair. The Find was only a good idea and concept for sale the site. Because as far I remember in all these years the implementation, performance, promotion, rules/requirements, and search were a piece of trash. Did somebody here check the search? It was a piece of trash.

The Find had the change to built a powerful ''alliance'' with small sellers and Alternative marketplaces. But they never worked seriously the issue.

So I'm not surprise with the comments of the Bonanzle/Bonanza CEO about The find. I agree they can make more traffic from the ''army of sellers'' than the find.  

by: ebay refugee camp

The wealthy want you to pay for searches and it will turn into the large retailers only, just like brick and mortar stores. Small businesss will disappear.

by: funkygrrl

I think I used to get traffic from The Find on my old Etsy store.  I don't know if it impacted Ebay sales or not.

I wish eCrater had a different name.  Such an ugly, horrible name. I don't want to go there just because of it.  Sounds like a place you'd find garbage.  I wonder how they came up with that one.

by: Rexford

A-Non-A-Mouse, I know what net neutrality is.

My point is that Google supports net neutrality so that Internet service providers and governments treat all data on the Internet equally, yet they have no issue manipulating placement in search based on whether a site is configured for mobile or not.

by: L

About a month ago, I read about Bonanza on eCommercebytes decided to give them a try. I used their tool to download my eBay & Amazon listings. Right now I'm averaging one sale a day. Which is one more than I had before I decided to give them a try.

The references here to eCrater made me want to give it a try, too. But I see that Shipstation (which I love) doesn't work with eCrater as a marketplace. Comments, anyone?

I realize this is a separate topic, but is anyone using Sears.com as a marketplace with some success?  

by: iheartjacksparrow

@funkygrrl - I don't know how they came up with the name, but back in 2007 when people were posting on eBay's forums about other places to sell, everyone would refer to eCrater as "the Moon" (as in craters on the moon). Maybe someone thought sellers would be "over the moon" about an eBay alternative and decided eCrater would be a good name.

by: comet

@JACK SPARROW---When these names were used on ebay forums the posters were sanctioned and had their posts removed because they DARED use a "competing" sites actual name.  The "Moon"; The "River" for Amazon;  the "Ranch"  for Bonanza. I can't remember what Ruby Tuesday was called!

This allowed us to post about these places and NOT be shut down.

You also could not say "Happy Holidays"  or "Happy Birthday"  or a lot of other pleasentries;  if you were on a Forum where you had repeat posters that got to know each other you could NOT say things like--Have a nice vacation; Congrats on the new baby---etc.  ALL of these were censored and apparently "Violated"  some code at ebay that said ALL convos that did not DIRECTLY address some EBAY cheerleading were to be SHUT DOWN and in some cases suspended or BANNED from posting. You also could not post about anything that happened OFF ebay like national events---Not even to say "Oh that was terrible so sorry to hear that your country had a big earthquake"  etc.

Just shows you how Big Brother that site got.

I don't know how eCrater got it's name---I know that eBay is supossed to be "Pig Latin"  for--something.  Maybe the word "Bee"?  AS in--Busy As?  Dunno.

AS for MY ---ahem---sales---I have Pinned and seen as far as I can tell no change.  Hard to get something from--nothing.  I see lots of items the same or similar selling for MORE than my items---

I am not a fan of ETSY after my one n only buy there but may have to reconsider.  I have looked at both eCrater and Bonanza and neither one seems to actually have items listed of the type I sell so I am not sure how many BUYERS this would attract.  The complete and utter FAILURE of EITHER of these sites to PROMOTE their BUSINESS is---distressing. How do you know if they are going to be there tomorrow if they won't even spend a penny to get the word out that they EXIST?Z

There is a HUGE void waiting to be FILLED by some one bold enough to open a NEW and SIMPLE and FAIR auction /sales site.

Any takers?  

by: Rexford

Comet says '' The complete and utter FAILURE of EITHER of these sites to PROMOTE their BUSINESS is---distressing.''

Comet, the owner of eCrater charges very little, he's practically doing volunteer work.  Listings are free, you only pay a small amount per sale.  I paid our fees today for last month and I was astonished at how low they were for the very good sales that I got.  For his virtually free platform, you have to do your own promoting, but if you take the time to use Google Attributes (and eCrater makes this so very easy) your items will show up in Google Shopping.  Not knowing what you sell I don't know if it will work for you but we are very pleased.  When I do Google Images searches for various products that we sell our items are getting outstanding visibility.

by: OmiGosh

Wish I had the know how to make an auction site.  Like early early eBay before big brother got involved.  I own the domain schmebay.com and would love to compete but to afraid of what type of programming that would involve. Right now that site just points to my eBay site.  That used to be my userid. eBay's legal department said I couldn't use the word ebay in my user id but I could separate the two words.  I became schme.bay for about 10 years and then the legal department stepped in again.  Said I couldn't have the word ''BAY'' in my user id .. I said many people have ''Bay'' in their userid and they said they would shut me down if I didn't obey.  So I changed my userID and my sales became 1/10 of what they used to be.  I now list using my roommates userid because I am tired of fighting with big brother.

by: gizmo

@comet  I am actually doing well on ecrater, with all sorts of items. I can promote my own items threw links & such. I have yet to be charged any fees , due to my own , I want to say , putting my Http out there. Its my store , with my own personal address. Thats the advantage. Plus they have rss FEED , WHICH COMES IN REAL HANDY.
Id also like to say , I would gladly pay the 2.9 % fee , if google brought me business. Which I am sure it will.

I recently started a couple months ago , I now have 40 items on , higher $ items , & have sold 11 to date. Great site. No stress , great people , 0 headaches , & return customers at 10% off.

by: elpereles

I don't about the origin of the eCrater name. But as far I can tell about the Find and eCrater. It was very rare see or find eCrater stuff in The Find.