The largest population in the World and Taobao.com

You may have heard of the country, China?

It's a little unknown place with a population of around 1.3 billion. Er yes, the largest population in the world in fact. In fact around 20% of the planet. My basic Maths says that's 1 in 5.

1 in 5 represents a huge market for trade and potential customers wishing to purchase products.

Never a company to miss an opportunity, eBay tried to open a branch of its Auction website in China. It failed. With such a huge potential customer base, I hear you ask, how did they fail? The answer... Taobao.

Taobao is an online market place founded by Ma Yun (Jack Ma) in 1999 and is part of the Alibaba group. A Chinese company, that already has such a strong grip on the Chinese marketplace, that nobody, not even the mighty eBay, can seemingly get a look in.

So... with such a strong marketplace and huge world customer base, why doesn't all and sundry list their items there? The one stumbling block? A pretty big one actually... the whole site is in Chinese.

Want to get rich? Learn several forms of Chinese is my tip. Admittedly not an easy task, but in decades or maybe just years to come, it could well be worth the effort.

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www.jenkin7 - www.jenkin7.com
Giftware & Collectables

Goofbay inceases your chances of Winning eBay Auctions

I will try not to make this sound like an advert, because it most definitely is not one.

A little while back whilst bidding on eBay auctions, I was finding I was being outbid in the final few seconds of an auction. I would be winning for quite some time and then time and time again, another user would win the item at the death. Initially I just accepted this as part of the process, but then it just started to get plain annoying!

I decided to try and use the same strategy by bidding right near the end. I found this very tricky to time right, sometimes I wasn't available to bid and other times, I just forgot.

Then I found an Auction Sniping tool called Goofbay.

Goofbay offers a FREE auction sniping service. If you open an account with them and fill in the required details, Goofbay automatically bids on your behalf with your maximum bid. You can even set the bid to happen within 2 seconds of the end. Nobody has much chance of responding to a bid placed 2 seconds before the end.

I was dubious at first and little concerned about typing in sensitive information to people I didn't even know who were running a Free service. To apply the bids for you, Goofbay require your eBay password.

I need not have been worried at all. The service worked beautifully and I was now winning items at great prices!

If you are experiencing similar problems and always being outbid right near the end, I would strongly recommend Goofbay. I found their service to be both safe and extremely reliable.

Placing the snipes is also very easy. You just need the eBay listing number, the amount you are willing to bid and when you want to bid. Not only that, Goofbay will send you emails when the bidding has gone above your entered amount!

Overall, I have been very impressed.

www.goofbay.com

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay, Ebid, Tazbar

Hello there, and welcome to another one of my blogs concerning the goings on at eBay.

There have been more changes on the eBay auction site in the last 12 months than at anytime during their history. Theses include, changes to the way the Feedback system works (Buyers can't get Negative Feedback no matter what), changes to the Search Engine, and changes to item international visibility to name just a few. These changes combined with the current global credit crunch going on is making it very difficult for many sellers.

Some blame the state of the economy, others put the blame for loss in sales entirely down to eBay and state they are immediately moving to alternative auction sites to progress their business. eBay can prove expensive in listing fees if you are not getting the sales.

Unfortunately, rival auction sites like eBid and Tazbar, simply do not currently have enough traffic. While it is perhaps alluring for a struggling Seller to go there, when the average buyer thinks of Auction sites, they naturally just think of eBay. Unless a major mover like Google or Virgin enter the fray, this is unlikely to ever change. ebid and Tazbar simply do not have the money for advertising to take on the mighty eBay.

Below is a graph (source:Alexa) of web traffic between eBid and Tazbar.



As you can see eBid is a lot busier than Tazbar. But lets put this in to context. Lets compare eBid with eBay.com.



As you can see, in comparison, the eBid traffic graph is barely registering. From a business point of view then, compared to eBay, eBid and Tazbar are simply not worth the effort. Sellers are flocking there, but sufficient Buyers are not. It is a lot cheaper to list items on these sites, but does it make sense to pay cheaper rent for a shop in a Mall that nobody goes to?

Currently, eBay has no serious rival, and I think they are well aware of the fact.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay: 5p listing day... again !!!

Tuesday the 8th July sees yet another 5p listing day on eBay. This is incredible. Never before in the Auction site's history have there been so many cheap listing days in quick succession as they tempt Sellers to list more.

Are eBay really now this desperate? Are eBay in trouble? Surely they would not have this many special days in a normal year. This follows on from several rounds of money-off vouchers to some chosen Buyers who pay with PayPal.

One thing that can be said, with the natural drop in sales due to global recession, at least they are doing something. To be honest, a company as big as eBay is due to be criticized what ever action it takes and there are some who will always view with suspicion, saying that eBay do not care if an item sells because they still make money from the listing fee. It is true, eBay is a lot different to the site it started off as, but all things change... that's just natural business evolution. It is up to each Seller to decide whether their business model best suits it or would be more profitable else where.

For those interested on Tuesday, 8th July 2008, Insertion Fees are just 5p for any listing using the Auction-style, Auction-with-Buy It Now and Buy It Now only. Tuesday is a rather odd day to choose, by if you select to have a 5 day listing, this will bring your auctions to end on a Sunday which is one of the better days. Please remember though, due to the cheap listing day, the market will be saturated so... it is a bit of a gamble.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay: 5p Listing Day 12th June

It seems as if special listing days are coming thick and fast on eBay.co.uk at the moment.

On Thursday June 12th 2008, Insertion Fees are just 5p for any listing using the Auction-style, Auction-with-Buy It Now and Buy It Now only (fixed price) formats in an eligible category on eBay.co.uk.

If you have something expensive to list, put it on ebay on the 12th. If it doesn't sell, then you've only lost 5p. Seems like a good deal to me. If your item does sell though, don't forget to send it by trackable means so you are fully covered through PayPal.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk

eBay.. so, who leaves Feedback first?

Buying or Selling on the auction site eBay?

So, who should really leave Feedback first? Buyer or Seller? It shouldn't really feel like a shootout at High Noon, but if you've used the Auction site for a decent length of time, occasionally it can feel that way.

In an ideal world, a seller would sell an item at a profit to make a living. A buyer would buy an item they liked or needed and leave happy and no feedback or red-tape would be documented anywhere. In these modern day times, this is a bit of a unachievable utopia. The Internet is a large faceless arena where you can be trading with just about anybody in the entire world.

As per usual, I'm perhaps slowly drifting off topic. So who should leave Feedback first then?

Well... recent changes on eBay within the last couple of days have perhaps made this blog rather moot. It doesn't make too much difference who leaves Feedback first now as Sellers cannot leave Buyers any Feedback other than Positive. It does rather unbalance things a bit and makes the value of Buyer's Feedback somewhat irrelevant. Imagine if you were a film critic, but if you saw a really bad film, you were not allowed to tell anybody about it. In this example you can see that the new system is maybe bordering on the ridiculous.

However... having just written the above paragraph, I can still see some business logic to this change. Buyers can now leave truthful Feedback without the fear of being left negative retaliatory Feedback in return. In theory this should expose a lot of the unscrupulous sellers. In theory. Without the fear of Negative Feedback, Buyer confidence goes up and therefore eBay generate more income.

Will this new Feedback system work? It's too early to tell. In the short term, Sellers are probably going to find things a bit uncomfortable. However, if over time, there are more Buyers on the site, good Sellers can only eventually benefit.

eBay plan near the end of the month to open a special hub for Sellers to protect them against Feedback extortion and underhand Buyers exploiting the new system.

So who should leave Feedback first? PASS.

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www.jenkin7.co.uk