Goodbye Bidville

[isabelladangelo]

Www.bidville.com will be dead in the water as of June 13,2008. I joined bidville about 4 years ago. I tried selling on it, opening a store, and bought a few things but it just never really caught on as the "e-bay alternative" it was supposed to be. Despite around 1m auctions, it didn't fit in with the u-bid business model and they are closing it down quickly.

www.etsy.com seems like it might be slightly better but it's still a "oh pretties! Not ebay!" type front and I'm afraid that, unless it becomes a lot more popular, it too will go down like yahoo, overstock, and now bidville auctions.

The thing is, I have noticed that although there are more auction on E-bay now than ever before on average, the amount of items being sold is down. I know I'm not buying off of ebay much anymore since they changed their policies. I might be able to find good cheap fabric there but I can also wait for a coupon from fabric.com and now what and whom I'm dealing with. (The guys that work at fabric.com are great!) I know they don't cheat on shipping and what they say the fabric is, it is. Besides, $4 linen? Beautiful!

So, I guess my question is, are on-line auctions slowly going the way of the do-do bird? Is there a day soon when we won't have ebay? Are craigslist and these online shopping malls finally getting their footing enough to be competitive against the e-bay giant?

Comments

[padawansguide.livejournal.com]

My dad sent me an article about how auctions on ebay have been taken over by the buy-it-now model of sales. So auctions may well be on their way out. It's a shame. I miss the early ebay days.

A shame about bidville - nothing seems to be able to really catch on to compete with ebay. Etsy isn't really the same thing since it's for a particular niche and isn't auctions. I hope etsy doesn't go away. At the same time though, it's hard to sell there because there is just so much stuff!

[nazrynn.livejournal.com]

I actually prefer Etsy over eBay for handmade goods and supplies for crafting, and sales have been fairly successful despite slowness due to gas prices, etc. Not sure if you've heard, but Etsy has received a LOT more attention from the media, and has been plugged by Martha Stewart and other magazines and blogs. I don't see it as going away anytime soon (there was just a Storque article on their growth).

Unfortunately, it sounds like Bidville imploded - a lot of auction house companies blossomed overnight at the news of the February sellers' strike, as a means of luring away the disenfranchised. Several of the places that didn't get CNN's attention or don't have catchy web-based advertising are falling by the wayside, because they're just not as visible as eBay is.

I have sucked up eBay's fees as a form of pay-for-their-name advertising, even though their "good name" isn't near worth what it used to be. Plus I limit my sales to maybe 2-3 tops a week, and while that hurts my chances of becoming a Powerseller there, I'm not planning on selling my soul to eBay, either. So I slip a business card or two with my Etsy address into it to my eBay customers, and point them to my shop....

Likewise, Etsy is providing me with the opportunity to join Street Teams, and do craft shows with other sellers who have similar interests. Nice to not have to rely on just SCA events to sell a few pretties.

Believe it or not, I don't like auction listings and I believe other buyers/sellers are gradually getting over it too. The store inventory format is cleaner. Buy It Now having a fee attached is ridiculous, too.

I'd go on, but I might give myself a headache thinking about it...