A shop for eBay sellers to sell their stuff

[mightyboosh]

Hello everyone,

Here's the idea - A shop where eBay sellers can list their items. This is not in the form of links to their eBay listings but in the form of new listings in my shop. They can be selling the same item on eBay and then end their listing on eBay if the item sells in my shop. I would initially not charge a listing fee and provide a significant reduction to final value fees (say at least 50% less). The tricky bit is in making it easy for them to convert their listings from eBay to my shop. However larger sellers (the type I am mainly after) are likely to use the eBay Turbolister program which provides listings in csv file format if required. So would it be possible to create a plug in / add on that makes it easy for eBay sellers to list using csv files?

A question - why would buyers come to my shop rather than eBay, well for one my format would be tailored to the specific area of selling I am targeting, making it significantly easier for buyers to find what they are looking for and I also have a second aspect to my shop idea that should attract buyers from eBay but I will keep this last bit of info under wraps for now.
OK that's the idea, is it bonkers or does it sound at all feasible? If it is not a stupid idea would it be possible for me to develop this on my own using free software or do you think I would need to get help from experts. If outside help is required are there people willing to invest their time in this idea (for their own benefit) or would i need to pay for the help (which would be a problem as I am currently without any spare cash to invest myself).

I originally posted this question in dropship discussion but I guess it is more suited to this forum. Apologies if posting the same question in 2 forums is against the rules. Any helpful comments / suggestions will be greatly appreciated, including suggestions regarding the best place to post this question in this or other forums.

[seamus]

I think you're pitching at a seriously difficult market, plenty have tried and failed.

The problem you'll face is drawing in potential buyers and getting enough sellers on your site quickly in order to offer things for buyers.

advertising and marketing are what you'll need to invest in

[mightyboosh]

Thanks,

I know it is going to be a very difficult thing to make into reality but is it possible? I already have over a thousand eBay listings of my own in the specialised category that I am targeting and I could put these on my shop straight away to provide an initial stock. In my field I am quite well known and I think other sellers similar to me with significantly larger stock might be interested in another outlet if it wasn't too difficult for them to do and didn't cost anything up front for them. 

[seamus]

it should be possible, but how much work you will need to put into it to make it work is hard to say.

The only question really, is how to get the buying public on your site andspending their money.
all comes down to marketing and advertising again to get the punters in.

[Baa]

Have I got this straight?

You are not proposing an alternative site to eBay ?

You are proposing for retailers with large inventories to sell their items in your eBay shop at no listing and reduced eBay fees?

[scotserve]

OK that's the idea, is it bonkers or does it sound at all feasible?

(which would be a problem as I am currently without any spare cash to invest myself).

You have answered your own question - yes you are Bonkers

You would need to devote considerable time, effort and cash into even just getting this off the ground - free software? come on you would need a seriously secure environment, how are people going to pay remembering Paypal and Ebay are basically the same company.

So many people have wasted time and money in the pursuit on the Ebay Golden Egg IMO

[mightyboosh]

Hello again,

I am proposing an ecommerce shop that is not eBay but on which eBay sellers can list their products. If they sell on the ecommerce shop then they end the listing on Ebay. Hence no listing fee necessary. I am talking about a specialised area of eBay (collector orientated) which is not ideally suited to buyers trying to find what they are after, the ecommerce shop would make it easier for them to find what they need.

To summarise the seller gets an extra outlet for selling that doesn't cost them anything unless they sell their item and the buyer gets a clearer shop where it is easier for them to find what they are looking for. If the website took off it could eventually be a viable alternative to eBay that will allow sellers to consider listing new products on the website and not on Ebay. I know that as a an eBay shop owner it would be ideal to be able to list as many items as possible at no cost (the bigger the net, the more fish you catch).

So what I really need to know is are there any shopping carts or complete shop packages out there that allow you allow others to sell on your website? Surely setting up secure payment options  can't be too difficult can it? Don't all ecommerce websites have secure payment facilities?

[seamus]

if all the sales are done through your site then the payment processors preinstalled will dump all the funds into one account.

The problem you will have is seperating out each sellers funds and giving sellers their own account to let them list their items.

There are auction scripts about to get you started, but I doubt you'll find anything that will do the job straight out of the box, you'll need to do a bit of development regardless what script / cart / auction software you use.

A collector orientated site with multiple sellers could work, but pitching it as an alternative to ebay is going down the wrong road IMO

If you can build a decent site and get sellers on there, then again, as i said at the start, its all about getting the buying public on there. All else is secondary. First and foremost you need to be able to get people buying from the site.
Any offers you give to sellers isnt going to get people on your site buying, you really do need to look at this from another angle,
how will you get buyers on your site, thats the only thing you should be thinking about.

Building a site to do what you need is quite easy to be honest (fair amount of work, but its still easy if not time consuming)
and it sounds like even on your own, you should be able to put a fair amount of stock on the site, and if you attract sellers and get them listing stuff, then all is good and well, but the same question remains, how will you get the buying public on your site and spending money?

Thinking that if the site is built, the buyers will turn up will get you absolutley nowhere, you need to be able to guarrantee sales, that there is where you win or loose.

If you can develop a decent marketing plan and advertising strategy (you will need to spend some money on this, free advertising wont get you enough sales) then the idea will work fine.

I'd steer clear of auctions though, I would have the site as straight prices and pitch it at the collectors market.

its really a straight ecommerce store with multiple sellers, nothing unusual about that, and if pitched at the right market, I dont see why it couldnt work.
I think the only reason people are questioning it, is because you are comparing it to ebay, and looking at it as a viable alternative when you shouldnt be.
An ecommerce store with multiple sellers, selling collectable items will work fine, aslong as you get the buying public in and spending.

[mightyboosh]

Thanks Seamus,

Your reply gives me some encouragement. I wonder if you could point me in the right direction regarding the type of software I would need to develop? Are we talking about something like a Joomla based site built from scratch or is there something similar to a Big Commerce type website that I could alter to make it possible for users to have accounts? if you do not have the answers could you point me in the right direction for where I could find them? 

[seamus]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/simpleauction/

there is that for a starter.
You could use joomla, there are modules for joomla that will get you started, or depending on how good a coder you are, you could take pretty much any cart software and add in the ability to have multiple sellers and tie the sellers accounts into seperate payment systems.

But as Scotserve quite rightly stated, security willl be a major issue.
You'll need to spend a fair amount of time researching and making sure you can create a site that functions properly (thats the easy bit) and is properly secure

[PewDrop]

Was this what you have in mind?
Specialist Auctions is a site for selling collectables etc, well established amongst collectors and sellers.
http://www.specialistauctions.com/

[scotserve]

So what I really need to know is are there any shopping carts or complete shop packages out there that allow you allow others to sell on your website? Surely setting up secure payment options  can't be too difficult can it? Don't all ecommerce websites have secure payment facilities?

When I mentioned security I did not mean just the payment side of things but if you are using free software then there is an inherint security risk that the scripts can be compromised - remember open source is open to everyone not just the good guys, my worry for you is that trying to set this up on a shoestring budget will IMO end in failure - I would hope you could prove me wrong but over the years i have seen so many try things just like this and without adequate funding for marketing it falls over and dies quickly - even those with a little money behind them struggle. Pewdrop has mentioned a competitor more akin to what you want to do than Ebay - why not look for a specialised niche on the collectors front and build from there.

[Rainee Bows]

The marketing of anything that relies on a lot of traffic from the public to be successful , that isn't a niche is going to be horrendously difficult unless you have a huge pot of money lurking somewhere , from experience the time required to build the traffic to a level where people make sales and everyone doesn't end up seriously disappointed and losing faith in your service could be the biggest problem you will have to overcome ....


Good Luck ......

and if you get it going remember we have a small business network you can get involved in

Rainee x

[PewDrop]

I don't know how well you know the serious collector's market.
I'll just give you a bit of my knowledge.
The need to get that hard-to-find item to complete a collection can become obsessive, to the point that some collectors are willing to break the law to get what they want, just look at bird egg collectors for example.
Serious collectors move in circles, you need to be in those circles to be a successful seller, trying to get into those circles is not easy, once a collector has found a reliable supplier then they tend to stick with them.
I am lucky to be a supplier to a particular collector niche, I don't have a website for the business, it's all done by emails.
I started selling on eBay a long time ago and noticed a lot more collectable items in my niche were appearing, too many in fact.
They turned out to be replicas made in China being sold as the real thing, even down to replica boxes. It didn't take collectors long to realise that these were fakes, something you can't copy is the smell of an older item (I suppose the fraudsters are working on that). eBay is not the happy hunting ground that it once was for serious collectors.
A new site will be difficult to market to serious collectors, the only chance you would have is selling to those that are just starting out in collecting, eBay has that market cornered.
Surpriingly, Ebid has a collectors niche that is well respected in collectors circles, one of the few areas that ebid is successful in.