New Ebay rates!! Ouch!!

Where does the encouragement to start at $.99 come from. As a buyer, I've
always disliked seeing an unrealistic price stated. And hate it even worse
when there's a Reserve; I feel lied to.

Tina




"Su/Cutworks" wrote...

That's the one thing that's always bothered me, the constant encouragement
to put a .99 starting bid on things. If you KNOW your beads will sell for
a
lot it's not as scary but for us we cannot afford to do that. It's
something that eBay constantly harps on, lower starting prices actually
encourage bids but I don't see that as a practical approach for the
middle-range of beads. It is honest to worry about how you are going to
sell your work, and reasonable.

Su/Cutworks wrote:

Neither do a lot of the incredibly talented artists out there. But there
are other avenues to use, such as websites which can make a difference. The
online world is significantly different than the first time I typed in
http://www.somethingweirdisoutthere.... and to be honest I thought that www
was a fad. I did. Honest. But at the time I was on a teeny IBM with 64mb
on the hard drive!!!! And 4mb of ram was fast enough to take you to the
moon and back.

-Su


HAHAHAHA I thought it was a fad too! I was in love with Usenet (gee, I
still am!), and I distinctly remember saying "So the difference is you
can put pictures on this "World Wide Web"? That's stupid; what's the use
of that? It's basically television on your computer. It's not even
INTERACTIVE."

Then along came eBay, and I said, "What kind of idiot is going to bid on
an auction on the *internet*? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard
of!".

Su/Cutworks wrote:
Charlie wrote:


Does anyone know if the UK shop listings have gone up? I know many fees
were lowered for us, but can't find anything about the shops.


Not at present, ours are still £6.

For now.

-Su


So yours were quite a bit higher than ours, to begin with.

Tina commented:

Where does the encouragement to start at $.99 come from. As a buyer,
I've always disliked seeing an unrealistic price stated. And hate it
even worse when there's a Reserve; I feel lied to.

Here's an active thread on WC on the .99 cent thing. Interesting opinions.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=243512


For myself, I use the .99 listings occasionally for housecleaning
auctions....items/sets that haven't sold after a few tries but that I
think have merit. I group them together and literally let my buyers set
the price. It's a risk, certainly, but a little money is better than no
money at all if I don't list them. Much as I love all of my beads, I
simply can't find a use for everything I make. G

KarenK

"Su/Cutworks" wrote in message
...
Charlie wrote:

Because you can't sell in sterling on JustBeads?

If you have a Paypal account, you can sell in USD. It's the market,
there's
no reason to insist on sterling if your customers are not in the UK.

Well, I'm funny like that. I know that if I sell a bracelet for £20 then I
will get £20 no matter where in the world that £20 comes from. If I sell a
bracelet for $40 to a US customer who pays through paypal sometimes I might
get £18, sometimes I might get £25. If I sell to a UK customer through
paypal in $ then paypal convert that money twice, take two currancy
coversion fees (once when the £-$ and once when the $-£) and then, THEN
charge me fees for the privaledge of them charging my commision twice. It
just doesn't cut it for me. I don't feel I should have to do business in $,
I don't want the pound to dissapear. Frankly I would rather see my business
go under than see the pound dissapear, and the more the people of Britain
use other currancies such as the dollar or the Euro the more we see our
individuality and our heritage (! yes, that's right!) go down the drain. I
could well be wrong, but this is my feelings and this is the way I was
brought up. I live in Britain. I want to do business in my currency. Of
course, many problems will be solved when I start to take credit cards. I'm
working something out with my Natwest business manager now.

There are two jewellery categories. Contemporary and vintage.

Ah, I hadn't discovered those. Comment taken back.

I use my Paypal account the same way I do for anything else. Paypal does
a
direct debit from our bank account.

But again, I have to pay that commision by having a lower rate of
conversion.

Just my opinions, they might be wrong, they might be radical, but hey,
they're mine!

Charlie.

"Su/Cutworks" wrote in message
...

There are two jewellery categories. Contemporary and vintage.

Just want to point out too, there are exactly 0 beads in each of the
jewellery categories. Justbeads (by definition) is a place for bead buyers.
Most bead buyers make their own jewellery from their beads. Why would
people who can make their own jewellery buy it, unless it's something really
out there, and difficult?

Charlie.

Lori wrote:

I hate to be negative without also giving help for solutions, so what
needs
to be done to get more buyers to JB? Some things I can think of a

1. Offer promotional materials to sellers that also do bead shows
advertising JustBeads. Just a little card holder or sign in their booths.
Tucson is coming up, you know.

That's a major issue, getting the sellers to be more involved. Since it's
not eBay and is for beaders, it is easier to get the individuals more
personally concerned, and get them to help out with promotion. I have a
link on the front of my website showing my auctions, and if JB offered some
sort of promotional package I'd use it too.

2. I've seen their ads in the bead magazines. I think a spiffier one
might
do some good.

Absolutely. It's just not in the same league with the bead artists it will
be attracting. So many of the adverts in the mags are stunning, and it
takes very little effort to produce one good, simple, clean, elegant and
professional bit of artwork that can run forever. And it needs to be BIGGER.
1/12 of a page is not sending out the right signals to the customers.

3. Maybe not possible, but, talk it up on beady internet forums. Yes,
that's time consuming but that's the market a lot of times.

It's cheap advertising for them. More online participation can take an hour
a day if they want, rotating through the various beady forums. And the
result would pay for itself, I think. There are free places to post ads,
even here if they're regular and not daily, and on the other rec.crafts
sites such as rec.crafts.marketplace. Free is good, and only takes a few
minutes to whap out a quick post.

Customer service is already top notch.

Anyone else have any ideas? Maybe Bob will read this. Not that they're
looking for feedback, but hey, I know I always like to get feedback, even
if
it's hard to hear sometimes.

They should be looking for feedback, and they should be reading what is
being said because it is mainly positive, helpful and encouraging. And
useful.

I'd really really like them to succeed because I do like the idea of a
focused auction site for beads. They've done better than other auctions
sites that are run by individuals so the potential IS there. I also
understand that sellers need to make a living and honestly, it's not up to
the sellers to make them successful. I don't think it's up to my buyers
to
make me successful. It's up to ME.

Absolutely, sellers can help pitch in for the short run but in the end they
have to pull their socks up and go for some serious advertising in the right
places. And not just advertising but the right kind of adverts. And
they're losing the chance to catch the away-from-eBay wave.

-Su

--
Tillerman eBay shop: http://stores.ebay.com/thetillermanbeads
Tillerman on JustBeads:
http://www.justbeads.com/search/ql.cfm?s=tillermanbeads
Tillerman website: http://www.tillerman.co.uk

Tina wrote:

Yup, this is absolutely true. Personally, it's a risk I would take; and
investment I would make. But..... I don't sell at auctions, so I know
that
devalues what I say.

But you know how they work, so your thoughts are as valid as anyone else's
and you're a consumer too.

I know Bob has read this group and replied before, I hope he's reading it
now. And that's another issue, he could post here and keep his name in
front of the public which is cheap advertising.

-Su

--
Tillerman eBay shop: http://stores.ebay.com/thetillermanbeads
Tillerman on JustBeads:
http://www.justbeads.com/search/ql.cfm?s=tillermanbeads
Tillerman website: http://www.tillerman.co.uk

Diana wrote:

Just for kicks today I used yahoo search with the keywords *lampwork
auction* and Just beads came up first. But, if I hadnt heard of
Justbeads
here first I wouldnt have known it was there.

Exactly!

And that's what they need to work on. Heck, a once a week post here
reminding people of the great artists who sell on their site would be a
start.

-Su

--
Tillerman eBay shop: http://stores.ebay.com/thetillermanbeads
Tillerman on JustBeads:
http://www.justbeads.com/search/ql.cfm?s=tillermanbeads
Tillerman website: http://www.tillerman.co.uk

Tina wrote:

I do think that the best of all is to get exposure through auctions,
either
place, and do most of your sales on your own site. That way your regular
customers get first pick at higher prices but less risk. Like Kalera
does.
Kim Miles does that too.

Which is what we'll do when the next sets of beads are ready for listing.
We'll put them on the website and get the shopping cart warmed up. That
will help us know what's working and what isn't.

This has been a really useful discussion for us, there are many alternatives
and finding the right ones takes a bit of work but once it's done we hope it
will be a good result for the effort. We know we're just starting out and
not 'names' yet but eventually all this work will pay off. Fingers crossed.

-Su

--
Tillerman eBay shop: http://stores.ebay.com/thetillermanbeads
Tillerman on JustBeads:
http://www.justbeads.com/search/ql.cfm?s=tillermanbeads
Tillerman website: http://www.tillerman.co.uk