| Hi Robert
The trouble is that these are very difficult times and sales are really hard to achieve for many sellers. You cannot realistically expect sellers to spend their time and effort and tie up stock by listing on a site where, as you indicate, nothing is currently listed. At the very least you need to get some friends and aquaintances to populate the site with a few items and get a few sales to inspire confidence in other sellers and to draw buyers in. You also need to publicise the site.
But all of this is very difficult to achieve. The fact that listing etc is free is not an attraction in itself as there are plenty of established sites that offer the same deal. Already some fairly well established smaller sites have disappeared in recent months eg the UK Bidz site, and most surprisingly Bideasynow, a site which seemed to be making a lot of progress. And, of course, the international QXL-Rickardo group decided to shut the long established QXL UK operation as they couldn't make money from it.
As both a seller & buyer I've tried to support smaller sites but some of them have closed, others have very few sales to make it worthwhile and most important as a buyer rarely can I find the thing I want on the small sites! It's all these problems you're up against and as the economic situation declines sellers are more & more likely to concentrate on the few sites where sales actually happen; ebid of course being one of them. |