As much as there’s no great love for either E, we’re fairly bankrupt for choice I think. Sellers have been treated very poorly by both in recent years, not that such isn’t deserved in certain cases, but the majority as always happens, has been punished because of a minority. That very minority though, seems to be running rampant and unchecked here at the moment. The inequities are robust and very apparent.
Many sellers are like us. They really don’t know what to do, or who to jump into bed with, if any in some cases, because many have just had enough and are starting their own websites. Good luck to them. I wish them every success.
Were still quite inventory rich, with many diversified lines we haven’t trotted out yet, because we’re just not sure of what to do. The other E is good for our vintage ‘stuff’, slow but good, because we do much better margin wise. We’re also 9/10ths of the way there in setting up their sponsored P website. Many will Pooh-hooh this, but it does have some advantages if you can get it hopping along a bit. Some don’t see them, and further don’t realise you can run a P site without listing anything on the other E, but still take full advantage of all the integrations. eBay is great for traffic, and there’s no SEO, or social marketing involved, but the traffic is not necessarily all good traffic. Now, especially if things happen the way they should in December for us, we’re struggling big time about concentrating on opening a store here, or persevering with the other E. I know it makes sense not to have all eggs in one basket, but it suits us better in the foreseeable future to lock down and consolidate. Tough decisions to make, otherwise much valuable time and effort is wasted. This hurts just as much as lost dollars when you are considerably time poor.
But, I’d suggest we’re not alone. Many would be crunching the same numbers and considering the lesser of two evils at the moment. There are others out there of course, but none that really take my fancy after some of the editorial and in depth user reviews I’ve read.
Most public owned ecommerce sites that I’m aware of are yet to strike that magical balance of satisfaction, to the extent it can be struck, between shareholders, the company, it’s buyers and its sellers. It seems such a simple equation to me, but then there would be much I don’t know and difficulties I can’t see I guess. But, I still harbour some doubts.
For now I think we all ‘hurry up’ and ‘wait.’ Wait at least awhile before we make the hard decisions. Although, many and then many more, already have. I hope it’s the right one for them.
Melina.
