Reviving the eBay vs. eBid debate

[Stetson_1883]

I wasn't sure where exactly to post this topic but I noticed it hasn't been talked about in over 2 years. Recently Ive gotten pretty fed up with ebay, their high fees and monopoly over payments and decided to set up an eBid.net store. I paid a one-time $50 fee to list and sell my items for free for LIFE and set up a store (royce242) featuring some vintage cards. While they dont obviously have nearly the traffic eBay does, I cant help but wonder how collectors like us could shift eBay's dominance by supporting a website like eBid and posting some items for sale just to at least raise awareness of the site and show people it actually does have some worth while things to offer.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this topic?

I for one would like see more competition in this space.

[EvilKing00]

honestly didn't think they were still around. So after your post I did a quick search, for babe ruth and then for t205's. They have nothing there. I wouldn't bother, seems they have no inventory.

[DaClyde]

I did a blog post awhile back sort of on this topic. Using or not using other sites is sort of a double-edged sword. If you use them, you have to live with the limited site traffic. If you don't use them, they fail and the complaints about there being no eBay alternative are a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Non-eBay Card Shopping

[bn2cardz]

I would say that the problem with ebid.net is that no one really knows they exist and doesn't seem to show up in a google search for a particular card. For instance I used the exact title you have for the 1968 Bench card and most pages were ebay and not a sing ebid. So even in non auction settings like yours no one would find it unless they knew to look there.

[Stetson_1883]

I asked ebid (excellent, personalized customer service) about their attempts to gain exposure and they said that they "were working on getting on to google searches".

Who knows, but in the meantime, I will continue to post cards and hope for the best

[Leon]

I signed up several years ago but with the low traffic it just isn't/wasn't worth it.

[bn2cardz]

Originally Posted by Stetson_1883

I asked ebid (excellent, personalized customer service) about their attempts to gain exposure and they said that they "were working on getting on to google searches".

Who knows, but in the meantime, I will continue to post cards and hope for the best

Well they have been around long enough that they should have already figured it out. I could see using it to list some cards for sale in the hopes of it picking up some day, but the auction setting just won't work unless you can drive people to the site. I would suggest using the BST area to drive people to the site often to your sales if you hope to gain a following.