posted on February 1, 2011 01:54:19 PM new
I recently set up a bidStart Store which mirrors my eBay store. It took about 10 minutes to register and flip the switch. I was persuaded to give it a try by the other postcard sellers who have joined the site recently - quite an impressive list. bidStart has been around as a stamp site for several years but only recently has encouraged postcard sellers. They are certified eBay developers and synch the site instantaneously. When an item sells on bidStart, it moves to unsold on eBay and vice versa. At a featured premium store level sellers have access to some state of the art marketing tools (newsletter with addresses gleaned from PayPal, coupons, mark down sales etc). I haven't used any of these features yet but intend to do so soon. bidStart puts most of its advertising $ in paid Google search. They have a shopping cart and the ability for buyers to enter coupon codes for discounts. Payments can go to PayPal, Google Pay, Moneybookers and of course checks and money orders are acceptable. I've sold several items since starting last Friday. It's been seamless.
There is a community discussion board just for postcard sellers with many good marketing ideas. Stefano Nies (scview) is a big cheerleader as are several other large eBay (and former eBay) sellers.
Evidently eBay is fully cognizant of what bidStart is doing and has given its blessing (today's eBay is not a place to sell collectibles and one could say that we are considered a thorn in its side). If enough sellers go to bidStart and bring their buyers, perhaps someday we can all kiss eBay goodbye. For the forseeable future I will be selling on both sites but if marketing efforts work, I may pull a large part of my inventory off of eBay and just use it for auctions or in the least rotate inventory. Anyway, just thought I'd share and invite any other postcard sellers to take a look.
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posted on February 1, 2011 02:23:08 PM new
I forgot to mention that bidStart has a "chat" feature so if you visit my store and see me online you can say "hi". I don't plan on enabling chat all the time (you can go invisible) but will keep it on today.
posted on February 1, 2011 03:06:59 PM new
I think it will be great for you!
I had also registered last week as I had decided to list my Souvenir spoons on there and as I have several categories on EBay and am only doing one category on BidStart I wasn't able to just have them import and synch from EBay.
I have been gradually cancelling or letting expire some spoons on EBay and am listing them manually so it will be a very slow start for me. It is a category that they do not have many listings in so I am looking forward to seeing what happens. I shall also keep some on EBay too for now.
I love some of the Features they have and it is so easy and Customer Service were so responsive they sent one answer to me at 1.30am...and it wasn't a canned answer!
