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.