ebayauctionguy
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posted on July 14, 2003 10:54:57 PM new
I've been listing some good furniture on ebay (pick-up only) and other large unshippable items but I can't give the stuff away because local ebayers aren't looking. And I'm in a highly populated urban area. I get emails from people out of the area who happen to stumble upon the auctions and they practically beg me to consider shipping the items to them.
Ebay needs to wake up and start promoting local transactions. Ebay would be a great way to buy or sell furniture, appliances and other large items if ebay would start encouraging everyone to buy locally.
How about free listing days for local, no shipping/pickup-only auctions and then lots of promoting to bring in the buyers.
[ edited by ebayauctionguy on Jul 14, 2003 10:57 PM ]
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neonmania
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posted on July 14, 2003 11:07:33 PM new
So let me get this right.... ebay should give you free listings for something with a very small possibility of recieving closing fees due to the extreme niche but should nevertheless spend large amounts of advertising to promote it. Why? YOU decided to limit the market and thusly limiti the posible bids so why is it ebays responsibility to spend money on an advertising campaign intended to benefit the smallest demogrphic of their sellers.
If you want to sell something to someone in your are a and have them pick it up there is the neat venue called a NEWPAPER is which to do it.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Edison
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neroter12
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posted on July 14, 2003 11:10:12 PM new
Or there is always the local flea market or garage sale. (Some dealers do pretty decent at the flea markets week after week.)
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fluffythewondercat
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posted on July 14, 2003 11:35:59 PM new
Not so fast, guys.
The whole reason for eBay creating regional listings in the first place was precisely the situation ebayauctionguy describes.
Yet, does anyone search by region? I know I never do. I see there are over 100,000 items in my region, the SF Bay Area, but it would never occur to me to look for large items on eBay.
Regional searching is probably an underutilized feature and it wouldn't hurt eBay to promote it.
I am not a bathtub full of brightly-colored machine tools on Vendio.
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AuctionAce
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posted on July 15, 2003 12:16:52 AM new
If you're looking for a piano or sofa you sure as hell search locally on ebay. Ebay use to promote the local listings on their home page but that seems to have disappeared about a year ago. The amount of common furniture and appliaces on ebay must be very small and ebay doesn't give a damn anymore.
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"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error."
- Andrew Jackson
[ edited by AuctionAce on Jul 15, 2003 08:51 AM ]
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neroter12
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posted on July 15, 2003 12:26:54 AM new
You are probably right Fluffy. Couple of times I did do a search by region but only because I wanted to see if anyone I bought from was also selling on here (like that would really tell ya something) but other than that, I dont search by region at all. Somebody in here mentioned that they know of some who do because if are knowledgeable about the zones for postage and want to save money.
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chathamsue
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posted on July 15, 2003 03:23:39 AM new
By promoting regional sales & waiving the listing fee eBay would in all likelihood gain much revenue by the gain in the final value fees. Listing fees are nominal on high ticket items. Then if the purchase was paid for by paypal they would gain even more $$. Sounds like a good plan to me!
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Twelvepole
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posted on July 15, 2003 06:06:40 AM new
Actually I do look regionally first on some items, there is a way to search that way...
However, a Newspaper advertisement might be the best way to go if you are unwilling to ship items... Of course maybe you will get a good bidder that will come and pick up.
But seeing how many complain here about bidders not reading auctions.... how many auctions will you have ruined because the winner is across country or even overseas?
AIN'T LIFE GRAND... 
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drcomm
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posted on July 15, 2003 06:55:01 AM new
It probably wouldn't help someone like me, considering where I live.
I do know it would be great to sell difficult to ship items locally. I had a guy come and pick up an Empire turntable and I was all but doing cartwheels that I didn't have to ship the darned thing.
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stopwhining
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posted on July 15, 2003 06:55:02 AM new
people who are looking for autos,boats and houses search by region.
so do people who look for furniture,appliances ,exercise machines.
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neonmania
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posted on July 15, 2003 08:45:57 AM new
I think you guys are misunderstanding me. I think that the regional listings have their use and for some things are very good, however, I think it would be fisically irresponsible for ebay to pour large abouts of money into an advertising campaign that appeals to the smallest demographic of buyers.
I'm not objexcting to the concept - I'm objecting to the prosposed ad campaign for something that proved to not be very successful (as evidenced by the movement of the Go Regional search engine to an undisclosed location  ) If ebay is going to invest in another ad campaign I would hope it would be something slightly less cheesy than the Do It Ebay onone out there right now that would benefit a larger percentage of their sellers.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Edison
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AuctionAce
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posted on July 15, 2003 08:55:46 AM new
I agree with that post. But ebay could at least mention regional selling here and there on the home page and that would be free. Maybe ebay dropped the emphasis on Regional Sales because they feared it may confuse some new users or potential ebayers.
If ebay had their TV show they could explain this stuff to the people and take away some confusion and generate some more sales. 
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"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error."
- Andrew Jackson
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ebayauctionguy
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posted on July 15, 2003 09:53:44 AM new
Ebay could put the newspaper classifieds out of business if they wanted to. It costs about $20 for a classified ad. There's not enough space for a description and so you have lots of people call just for a description. People make appointments but don't show up. It's a real pain in the @ss.
With ebay, you get to describe it all you want and add photos. No haggling and the bidder makes a commitment to buy and often pays before the item is picked up.
Neon, I was suggesting having the regional free listing days to jump start those type of listings. There has to be a large pool of sellers before you bring in the buyers. It's a small demographic because ebay has never really promoted it well.
Ebay might not make a killing on regional listings but getting great deals on furniture and appliances will make ebayers very happy and more likely to bid on other auctions.
Neon, you sound a bit defensive. Are furniture sales your turf?
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AuctionAce
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posted on July 15, 2003 10:40:30 AM new
You can get some really get deals on regional deals now. Very few ebay sellers utilize it, possibly for fear of an out-of-area buyer bidding or the many emails that may come asking to ship out of area even when auction says local only.
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"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error."
- Andrew Jackson
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neonmania
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posted on July 15, 2003 01:37:57 PM new
::Neon, you sound a bit defensive. Are furniture sales your turf?::
Not even close, besides I have not had a local customer in I don't know how long. I just spent a long time in marketing and the first thing I look at is expenditures vs potential payoff in regards to specific advertising campaigns and there is no way I could figure that this would justify it the expense. You don't advertise to the smallest potential demographic. You advertise to make the widest logic sweep and then internally "upsell" your other options. The fact that ebay has removed a lot of the Regional search options from their formerly prominent location shows they felt that that space and their profit margin was better served by going in a different direction.
~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Edison
[ edited by neonmania on Jul 15, 2003 01:39 PM ]
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ebayauctionguy
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posted on July 15, 2003 01:45:02 PM new
How much does an email cost?
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neonmania
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posted on July 15, 2003 03:57:05 PM new
Time and bandwidth wise they can be quite expensive. Ask Bill gates who is trying to devise a program that will simply pout an extra "bounce" in email paths. If done successfully the added cost to most spam sending companies will make it cost prohibitive and put them out of business.
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I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
- Thomas Edison
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