10% off if you help us rip them off

Has ebay hit the self destruct button again or is this just the funny season when all the nuts come out to play?

Ebay create a system where you can get better discounts if you have higher DSR's ( those stars on ebay feedback) And then set up the a second system to make sure you can't ever reach that goal as they will give a buyer 10% off their next purchase if they hand out lower stars to a seller.

So if you are happy or not you are better off giving out lower stars, as you get ten percent off your next purchase, still to find out if these can be combined, so you can get twenty, thirty or even one hundred percent free. Nothing would surprise me with ebay.

This is only in the US at the moment but will spread as all crap ideas from ebay do, but who is coming up with this stuff?

Another great idea from those great people at ebay, is to say yes we know that if you only offer item collection that paypal is not for you, but we will still force you to take the payment through paypal, as if a buyer wants to rip you off then they should be allowed to, (as long as we get our fees at the end of the day then who cares seems to be the thinking there.)

And for those of you selling eBooks and such ebay are about to bring in a rule to stop the sale of electronic media. But the clever part about it is, that they can kick you now and even suspend your account, and the fact they have not changed the policy yet, have not publicized the fact that this is going to happen, or even changed their system to prevent you from listing them, does not matter, as all good sellers will now have mind reading skills, and they will get rid of those bad sellers that do not.

Am I missing something here, has ebay decided they do not want any sellers or buyers, have they some other use for their servers that we do not know about?

Why do ebay not just allow us to promote our other auctions and websites on our listings? If they do not want the custom, all the other auctions will be happy to take us off their hands?

Please if anyone can shed any light on this I would love to hear from you, as these people have me stumped, why would anyone want to destroy a billion dollar business?

And ebay talk about disatisfaction

Ebay paypal policy changes

And ebay say we are bad traders? When has any seller tret their customers like ebay are doing now and have done in the past to their customers.

What I do not understand is how they plan on keeping the top sellers, why would they stay and take this crap for more money than they would pay if they followed the rest of us to the alternatives?

If you think of the fees we pay ebay and paypal, then how much must they pay, so by the same standard how much would they save if they made the move?

Does anyone know any of these top one hundred sellers that ebay think are so dumb they will stay with ebay when everyone else is taking the lower fees?

How dumb do you have to be to allow yourself to be included in that list no wonder they are staying quiet.

We are the top one hundred sellers on ebay and no we don't want
Lower fees
More protection
Less interference.
Better customer services.
The fact that a lot of their custmers come from the rest of us so they will loose them if they stay.
Why would they want to stay?

I mean really would you say yes I am that dumb?

I really do understand smaller sellers like my self that have to make sure they do not loose earnings but still intend moving, but the top one hundred, the amounts staying with ebay must be costing them, just does not make any sense.

If anyone knows any of the top one hundred, ask them the question and let us all know how they see this?

Added a small section of a Auction search engine.

Live Alt Auction Search

Have added a small section of a Live Alternative Auction search site I am playing round with. And it is still a work in progress so do not expect too much.

It is just an option for the main script I have been working on so I have not done much to it in the way of style, so please do not complain about that.

Its just Javascript so nothing major but maybe you can let me know if it works for you.

Had a problem using some of the auctions I wanted to add but still trying to find a way , as some of them are sites I intend selling on.

You can select up to four sites at once, that will open up on the same page so you can use it as a comparison site.
For buyers perfect to find the sellers you lost touch with on ebay or to search out those bargains you have been looking for.
For sellers a perfect place to check out how your things look when compared to others. Especially usefull as we step into the new market place and we each have to change or methods.

The auctions on at the moment

Etsy
eBidUK
Blujay
iOffer
Tazbar
eCrater
OnlineAuctions
RubyLane
Overstock
Specialist Auctions
Amazon

There is also a google search that you can find bellow, it has all the listed auctions I can find but as it is not that good at finding what I know is there I changed the settings to web search with the selected sites priority. Still not sure how good it is but does seem to bring up some of the sites that are not on the list.

Feel free to use it or just watch as I may be adding more auctions to it when I have more time.

If you use it and have any problems could you let me know so it can be fixed?

Ebid US and a few of the others may be added again if I find that one alone is not showing right for the user.

Have added the links to the other search engines that I know of so as to offer the user as many options as possible, at least until MOAAS is up and running again.

And an update on that is on the PSU site, that I suggest you check out.

Also working on adding more sites as soon as I get time.

Thanks

Javascript Countdown code for boycott day

If you want your own boycott countdown the code is at Javascriptkit website

Just search for countdown

Have tried to put this one and a few others in my Sig on the PSU but does not seem to like javascript and also has size issues.

If you are looking for a diferent style then you can type code javascript countdown into google

The making of the Holy Grail or the Auction Search Engine

The making of the holy grail or the auction search engine

I have been partaking and watching some of the discussions on the making of the new MOAAS, (A Search Engine for Auctions that showed promise but suddenly faltered with no word of why.)

But some people seem a little lost in what we are asking of the search engine. I will try answer as best I can.

A normal search engine like Google and yahoo do not really go searching the web every time someone asks them to find something. They have already found it before you asked by sending out small programmes called spiders or bots that search the web scanning every site they find and mapping out the important details, and all that info has to be stored on a massive database or should I say lots of massive databases all over the world.
The reason they are so up to date is they have a lot of spiders running twenty four seven, as spiders are what they call low impact, which means they only use up small amounts bandwidth so they do not interfere with the running of the website.

They also have things like google base that you may know as google products search. Where people submit the info for their products, or the auctions they are selling on hand in the info for them. But this is only for items that have a fixed price and some auctions will only hand in items that fit specific criteria.

So when you ask for the latest mobile phone and google search for it, they are searching the database not the websites.

This is not really great for what we want but could be used for some parts of the search, such as fixed price, as long as we had enough spiders to keep it up to date. If the item is no longer available every time a customer searches for it then, they will stop using the search engine.

There are also other methods to search sites. You may have heard of meta search, that is closer to what we want but still has problems as it can produce massive amounts of data and if you look at sites like AuctionLotWatch that use this method, they will only scan the first page due to the amount of data it creates and the fact live searches can be slow if it tries to take on too much.

There are also the JavaScript searches that you can see with Alfie search or the Ebid searches that you can find on the PSU. These work by making use of the sites own search commands as if you were on them.

Problem with those is that not all sites can be searched, as some have coded search commands, it is limited by the number of sites that can be opened at once, it is controlled by the auction sites own options, there is no real sorted comparison and finally not everyone will allow JavaScript on their computer due to the fact it is heavily used in popups and can have security risks.

So what is the answer?

For me the perfect search engine (if we can’t have the auctions extending their own search engines) will scan the auctions like javascript but show the results in the same way google or a comparison script will show from the database.

But we can’t have that, as like I said live search is too slow at the moment but we could possibly request a compromise if we can get the auctions on board and try to get them to make a standard search criteria of search options. BIN, Auction, Ending Soonest, Newly Listed and all the other things we are used to, or more importantly our customers are used to. This would give the search engine a frame work to search under and the customers the option to thin down their search

Then after the user selects their preferred criteria we have a search engine that searches the first couple of pages the same way AuctionLot watch does. But at this point the server in normal circumstances will become dormant as the user reads the data it waits for the user to start pressing buttons or links.
So what if the Search Engine used this time to start searching on the next two or three of pages building a mini cache for the user sort of a smart search.
If we also had spiders doing the work, then some of the items could be drawn from the main database if there are a lot of fixed price in the search then all the better.

Now there have been a few other questions on why the search sites that are available now are not up to the job and do not seem to be covering the bigger auctions.

Again I can only offer what I see and make an educated guess but it could be a few things.
Database issues they just do not have the space.
Cost Issues, they have tried to charge for the service and failed.
Spider Issues, the spiders can be prevented from searching a site.
This can happen if the spider is not acting in the right manner, sticking its nose where it is not supposed to be, or is drawing on resources, as the person has set the spider up wrong, or as in ebays case with one company, the site thinks the search engine is detrimental to its business.
The only other issue that I can think of but there are probably a lot more is they are not searching the sites and are only using file upload like google product search, which is no use for auctions.

What you can do now if you are a seller?
If you sell fixed price items and you do not fit the criteria of your auction (ask them first,) then you could start making use of google base and sites like bidfind that will allow you to upload a csv file with all your fixed price items. If you do not have fixed price items, then would it not be possible to add a few just to make use of this service. And draw customers into your other products.

I think I have to stop working on this now for a little while, as it has started to cost me money, while I am doing the auction search stuff I am getting behind in the listing of items and stuff. I still have not had time to list on the new auctions, which I have to get round to as you see in the countdown on the top time is running out.

Summer discount

Added the summer discount to the website, that was originally called the Boycott discount, but we decided against it. But it still runs up until the 1st of may and is set up to draw people to the website and the alternatives I have selected.

Update on the Holy Grail

A group is trying to make it.

After nothing being done with MOAAS they are trying to see if they can make a new search.

For me I am looking at a simple javascript version, although I have been looking into other things, but hopefully someone will come up with something that works.

Added some links to online Game sites

Added a few links to game sites to the blog, for those of you with time on your hands and nothing to do, while waiting for the changeover.

The Javascript games have very little impact on your resources but they are basic. Still ok to while away some time though and I believe you can add them to your site.

What the hell are ebay playing at?

I seem to be hearing this over and over, as people look on bemused and dismayed at change after change from ebay. (All in the name of safety.) But I think the main reason they can’t see what is happening is because they are not looking at the whole picture, and instead are just looking at these changes alone.

I have made it no secret that I was already leaving ebay before all this and this was kicking off as I was finalizing my online store. So maybe I have some idea what is going wrong with ebay, or at least I will tell you the way I see it.

When ebay first started making their changes, I like most people thought it was just greed, and I suppose to them it was working as the changes to them were making the bottom line shoot up. But they failed to look at the people it was hurting, which was us, both buyers and sellers. Before it tended to be the stupid that got ripped off, as they failed to read and assess what was clear to most, but now no matter how clever you are, you can be ripped off, shut down for fun, spite or even competitive malice.
Paypal will protect you. No they will not, buyers are being ripped off by rouge traders and sellers are being ripped off by rouge buyers. It is all such a mess and just keeps getting worse.

It was the introduction of the DSR’s that swung it for me and made me realize what it is that is wrong with ebay, and that is they have not got a single ebayer among them. They really do not have a clue what is happening inside their own community. This is because ebay is being run by statisticians and accountants, who see ebay as a brand like any other.
You can’t look at any business like that, we are all business people even the granny clearing her wardrobe, once she steps onto the auction stage, she is in business to make a profit. So we all have some idea how you have to keep your finger on the pulse and assess the situations as they arise but take away any info but your accounts and you will see what ebay is using to make decision after decision. But it is worse for them as due to the fact that none of them know the business outside of those books. They have no way of stepping back bad changes to the point that they had a working model, as they have no idea how it worked.

Ok ebay of old was never perfect and they were not making the billions they are making now but it all made sense. Anyone could sell anything, and you had to take precautions but they were never outside of what was possible, as they are now.

I have watched ebay change things for the worse over and over again and each time they try to change something else, to try and counteract the damage of the last change, it just keeps on getting worse.

The answer to this for me was to get out, hopefully leaving some of the scum behind that along with ebay had made ebay an unhappy place to be. But before coming to this decision I asked everyone I could, ebay, their forum and anyone else that I could think of: How do I run a business like this?
None of them had an answer

So what do we do now?

Get on with it is the best answer, start looking to see if you have the capital or the option to build a website of your own. Look at the alternative auctions, pick a few and try them out. See if you can get your customers to move with you and the best way to inform them.

This will all take time and will not be easy, as we are all finding out, but if we make use of the people around us and some of the great resources that are available such as the PSU, then we will all come out of this better for it and hopefully better off.

But now it is time to only mention ebay to inform and always end any mention of ebay with an alternative auction. No one cares which you chose or if you are still selling on ebay and have to wean yourself off but I would suggest you select a date and try to make it out by then.

I have selected the may 1st date, as have a lot of other people due to the fact it is when the other changes come in. Who wants to be around ebay then?

Whatever you choose good luck and I may see you either on the site or on ebid, tazbar, epier, blujay or plunderhere. Like I said end it with an alternative.

The perfect Auction search engine or the Holy Grail?

Maybe it is a holy Grail and does not exist, as all the ones I look at have too many limitations.

The google seacrh is too limited and will not step out of the cache, although the igoogle searches that I have seen, have been a lot better they are basically using Javascript and I could do that myself

I can knock up a javascript one that would search them all but it is limited as it will only open the searches of each auction in a seperat window or in frames.
It has no options for newly listed etc' and not everyone uses Javascript.

I found another that runs on PHP, HTML and Javascript that claims to be able to do it and is a meta search. But testing the free version it is not looking promising, as it has none of the auctions in its search field, and you think they would have atleast added ebay if it was able to do it.

Also tested out a microsoft Live search tool that looks like it is set up for single page search rather than a full site.

I have loaded up a comparison script and I'm looking to see if it can step past the cache, but at the moment it is not looking good, as it is also demanding data in the form of a CSV file, which means every auction would have to be constantly scanned and the amount of space required would be massive.

Hopefully someone will find the perfect Auction search engine soon or this will be a harder struggle than it needs to be

No link back to this blog from my site

Sorry but this blog does not link back from my site. So if you want to hang on to it you will have to bookmark it or just search out hotandvintage on the psu forums

Selected Auctions

I am adding to my list of selected auctions and trying to get stuff listed on them but so much to do at the moment and still trying to find the perfect search engine.

At the moment I have Ebid, Epier, Tazbar, and Blujay. Still have to list on the last three and add more to Ebid.