A site called Etsy

                Heard Of Etsy?

    A great many former Ebay sellers have moved over to this wonderful site. It is not for everyone. It a site to buy and sell vintage and or home made items. The best way to look at this site is to see it as a cross between Ebay and Amazon when both sites were worth being a part of.

For a flat rate of about 20 cents you can list your items. They charge about 3.5 percent for each transaction.

    If this place fits within your sales niche this is a great place to conduct business. The traffic is great and if your items are quality you can make a steady income here.

    There are some very successful sellers here. Many of them have been there for a while and have developed a solid following. I have been told by someone who does well there that the key to growth is having  high visibility, being very active on the forums and getting to know people. Also you should have your own website if possible so that you can steer traffic from there to your site. Face it you will still have to pay a final value fee no matter where you sell unless it is your own site and for those of us who worked at Ebay for years you never know when those fees will jump. So if you want to build your own website click here  and you will be shown a do it yourself tutorial for free.

    Lastly about selling there. Do not try to get into price wars. Sell your items for what they are worth. The buyers there understand better than at Ebay that quality items cost money.

    Look it, getting over having been suspended by Ebay or restricted by Ebay and or Amazon is not going to be easy, but once you have moved on to bigger and better things you will wonder why you were so concerned in the first place.

    Coming up soon we will talk about Paypal and its restrictions and suspensions. All of you should keep in mind that paypal and Ebay are part of the same company. If you are leaving Ebay behind there will come a moment when you will have to leave Paypal as well.

    Okay, good luck at Etsy and please feel free to post comments and if you wish to mention where you are selling now. There are a lot of Ebay alternatives and if you know of a good one let me know or if you have created one yourself let me know about it and I may invite you to write a guess post about it.

Plunderhere and Epier?

    Why Not Plunderhere?

    It is a small and still relatively unheard of site, but it is growing and I would put it in the same category of a site like Blujay. It is small, but a nice place to plant your flag. They allow you to import your listing from other sites so if you have the time why not do it. You could pick up a few sales here and if you have a website you can use it to promote it.

    Like Ecrater you can set up your own store front.  The 5 percent fee is charged only if or when you sell and item. The basic store allows you 1000 listing and who really need more than that.This is a solid little site with a lot of growth potential and another good reason to leave Ebay behind.




Epier?

       Epier is another alternative site where you can buy and sell almost anything from a baseball card all the way up to a new car. Here you can get a free store front. Just sign up and start listing  your items

     You do not pay here if you do not sell. Secondly there are no listing fees. No insert fees and no final value fees.

     There is a premium service where you will get 200 Megabytes of Image Storage Space. Your Own Integrated e-Commerce Storefront,  Not just a list like other Storefronts- Customize Your Store (ie-Your logo, your background, etc.)

        For an optional 5.00 fee you can be featured on the home page and category featured for 1.00 dollar.

       Neither one of these sites will be the answer to overcoming your ebay suspension, or restriction, but they can become part of the solution. At the end of the day the only lasting solution will be to build and grow your own website. When or if you are ready to take that step click here and visit my free tutorial on creating your own website. 

Ebay Suspended, Try Sell.com or Blujay

            Heard about Sell.com Or Blujay.com

    Sell.com has been around a long time and for those who first fleed from the borders of Ebay this is usually one of the first stops. I believe that it was the second stop for me. There are a great many good things about this site and some that I would change.

    First the traffic is okay. You will get views here and depending upon your price point you will get sales. Next the design, it looks as if it has not changed  since they started it. The look could use an updating. Don’t get me wrong it is not bad, but there are better.

    When you first sign up here your first listing is free that is a good thing. After your first sale you are gonna have to start paying for listing your products. This good or bad depending on how many items you sell and how long they take to sell. I would prefer the percentage based way of paying for your presence that most of the sites use. Now don’t get me wrong, I do not prefer the massive bite that Ebay and Ioffer take once an item is sold, but it some how feels more fair if both the seller and the site get paid only when there is a sale. If you want to pay up front you might as well buy a domain, some hosting and put up your own website. Check the link at the end of this post if that is something you wish to investigate.

    Overall I would say that Sell.com is worth the effort. Put some of your best selling items up for sale here and see what happens.

    Next is a nice little site named Blujay.com. It is free to set up your store here and they take a very tiny bite of your final sale. I like it for what it is. It is bare bones basic in its design and your account set up. This site is not ranked in the top ten of alternative sites, but I have done surprisingly good business here. I have kept a footprint of ten to twenty items here and some months I have racked up double digit sales. It is not for everyone, but if your price point is low you could do well here.

    The cons about this site are: first the traffic. It does not get a great deal of traffic. It is not well known. The look is about as appealing as a plate of mash potatoes. There is not much that you can do to separate your items from the rest of the crowd. Even if you spend the money to become featured you are still not going to gain much in the visibility department.

    Since Blujay.com is free to join you might as well set up shop there.

    With each store that you put up you are occupying more online space. Your products will be seen by more people. Maybe never as many as saw them on Ebay, but you will no longer have to depend upon Ebay for your lively hood. You will be creating many sources of income. All of these sources in the end can lead you to the day when you have your own website and become the boss of your own business.

If you wish to explore setting up your own website I would like you to click here and watch
a 50 minute tutorial video that will explain step, by step how to get a domain, buy hosting and then set up your own website.

    Doesn’t that sound cool? My own website. The day will come when you will no longer say I work for Ebay or Amazon, instead you get to say that I work for myself at my own website.

    If you need more time that is okay. We have other places to visit and other options to explore. Down this road there are more sites and beyond them is the valley of online classified ads.

How About Bananza?

                Selling On Bonanza(formerly Bananzle)

    The first thing that you will notice is that this is a great looking site. It stands
out from the rest of the crowd.  You will have your own booth where you set up and
edit your sale items. They have a monthly site feature called a Rush, where if you
choose to join your items will become part of a massive full site sale.  You will discount
your items from 10 to 50 percent and this sale does generate a lot of extra attention.
    That is the good thing.  The bad is that though the site does have traffic, sales
have been slow there for almost everyone I have come into contact with.  Visually and
customer service wise it could easily be the best of all the Ebay alternative sites. I like
everything about it better than Ebay with the exception of profit. This site needs a
massive marketing push. It could be so much more than it is.
    So as a place to work I would say yes.  Go ahead and open a booth.  Now if my
plans for you have not become clear yet allow me to help you see the whole picture. Your
road to Ebay independents is one of opening a number of stores at a number of locations
with the end goal of opening up your own site where all the traffic and sales will
belong to you. This will not happen over night and you are going to have to take
baby steps to get there, but once there you will never have to deal with Ebay or being
Ebay suspended.
    If you feel as if you are ready to try to open your own business and build your own site
I would like you to click here. You will be sent to a site where you will learn for free to build
your own site. The video tutorial will take about an hour, but it is either learn it in an hour
or spend hundreds of dollars to have someone else do it for you.
    Of course if you are not ready yet I think that we will visit Sell.com and Blujay next.

A Place Called Ecrater

                Ebay suspended,
 Ecrater.



    The page layout is not great.  It is pretty standard.  You can not do many ad ons
or anything in the way of banners.  You do not have the option of setting your items
apart from the rest.  That said, there is not much to complain about here at Ecrater.
    You can list for Free there.  You have sort of your own mini webstore and you
can list as many items as you wish.  In as many categories as you want.
    Ecrater uses Adsense and they are willing to share revenue with you.
    Did you get that one?
    Share revenue with you.
    Depending upon how many items you have up and how much traffic you
generate this can be a good thing.
    On the other hand because of the ease of signing up and posting the market place
is a bit flooded in some key categories.  The competition is stiff.  You are going to
have to go lower margins on your price points to get some separation from the competition.
Because of the limited traffic you are going to go through dry sales periods, but if you
have a hot item or two you can generate a lot of sales quickly.  Ecrater has become a
place where the bargain shopper goes for items with a set price rather than having to
deal with the auction set up at Ebay.
    One more con about the site, customer service is not great.  If you manage to get
someone it will feel as if you are talking to someone, but not an actual human being.  Not
saying a robot responder.  It will feel more like an alien who has not completely grasped
the concepts of logic or reason.  Do not get me wrong they are ten times better than Ebay
because they will actually respond rather than sending a form letter that tells you absolutely
nothing.
    Many former Ebay sellers look to Ecrater as the first and best alternative.  I will not
go that far, but on this move that we have undertaken this site is one worth planting a
flag upon.  I am suggesting that you set up shop here.
    What?
    Is this it?
    Is the journey finally over?
    Are we moving in?
    Yes and no.
    Say what?
    Rent a room here.  Or as I look at it, a display case.  Let’s put up some product
here.  You can list everything that you have.  After all why not, it is free to do so.  I do
not believe any of us can earn a living here, but we can make some money here.
    The answer to your question is that we are not moving in.  This is not our final
stop, but if a friend will let you stick around without paying any rent and will actually
give you a few buck (Adsense) to sleep on the sofa then why not.
    If you have not figured it out yet.  The moving on from Ebay plan involves multiple
stops along the way.  We are not going to be able to do it all at once, but it will get done.
We will not stop and we will not fail in our mission to achieve freedom.
    Summing up, Ecrater is a solid place to hang a open for business sign.
    We are not done yet.
    So let’s go get some items from the trunk of the vehicle, leave them here for sale
and then we can hit the road again.
    Our next stop is a place called Bonanza.
    No, no, no, cut that out.  There is no massive ranch run by a old man and his
sons.  Paw and little Joe will not be there.  Although it is located on the  west coast and
does have a west coastal laid back kind of feel about it.
    Will you please stop humming the Theme music.
    If you would like to bypass this journey and create your own website please visit me by
clicking here
     I can offer you free help with building your own website and the full video tutorial will
take about an hour.  If not then fine, let's go visit Bonanza next. 

Ebay Suspended, How About Your Own Website?

Ebay Suspended,

    If you are visiting for the first time I thought that I would give you a little pep talk.
    You are not alone. Each and every day of the week and almost every hour of every
single day Ebay is issuing restrictions and suspensions. You are not the first person
and you will not be the last. Someday there will be a kinder and gentler replacement
for this monster, but until that day comes we will have to engage in work arounds.
You are going to have to learn to live without Ebay.
    Try to get back on.
    Go stealth if you have to. This works for many, but not for all.  I am here to
offer you ideas for some alternatives and what to do when or if stealth fails or
you are suspended again.  The good news is that there will be a day when you
are totally independent.  You will have you own websitevisit here and be your own boss.
If you are not ready these post will help you take steps toward that day.
     If you are ready then why not  visit here  and learn how to build your own
site in an hour or so.
    Good luck and do not worry this road is not as long as you would believe. 

Ebay Suspended, Let's Talk Ebid

    Ebay Suspended

Ebid.
    Not much traffic driving in here.
    No worries, the sellers parking lot looks pretty full.
    Come on, let’s go inside.
    I have been kind of looking forward to this, another auction site.
    Page design is solid.  Easy to set up an ad.
    You can do this for free here or you can sign up for the all
purpose lifetime membership.  At the moment it will cost you 49.49
for this membership.  I do not honestly know whether or not this membership will help you will sales here.  I am not at this moment willing to risk the money until I have more evidence that it is worth it.
If Ebid could promise a quarter of the sales traffic that Ebay offers
then I would be willing to pay twice that much to join.

      Let’s look at the pros and cons of working here.

    Ebid is a Google marketplace partner, but lately who isn’t?

    Registration here is Free.

           Minimum listing fee is Free.  The maximum fee is 0.05.
    Minimum final value fee is Free and the max is just 3 percent.
    That is the good.  The bad is there does not seem to be enough
traffic to promise steady sales and by steady sales I mean at least one
sale per week.

    They use Google Adsense and unlike some sites they offer you
no control over the ads and no share in the revenue.  It also seems
that this site has attracted a great deal of over priced and out dated
stock.  I am not saying that many of the sellers here are lazy, but the
free listing seems to equated in some eyes that it is okay to flood the
place with junk that only a drunken lunatic during a lunar eclipse would
be interested in.

      Ebid could become a strong rival of Ebay if it believed
in itself.  Do not get me completely wrong here, I understand that Ebid
does much better business in his home base the UK than it does here
in America. You could do worst than setting up shop here. Here is a link
if you wish to visit and sign up and try it.



    We are looking for a new place to do business and despite the
look and feel of this place Ebid at the moment is not going to be it.

    Back to the vehicle.  We have a promising place to visit.

    Have any of your ever heard of Ecrater?