... and I feel fine!

Well, it seems that eBay doesn't want us small & sporadic sellers, they want to be Amazon ... ('scuze me while I finish laughing at the potential success of that venture!)

Anyway, doll crafters are heading in DROVES to Etsy! Customizers, doll part suppliers, doll clothing makers, we're all high-tailing it Etsy's way!

To keep things simple the BJD people are all being universal in putting the "word" bjd in our descriptions and tags so we can be easily found by our customers.

There are options open to all of doll people, we just need to look ...

- - - - - - - - - - - -

This morning I posted on a board I help admin ...

thoughts on the eBay boycott and the subsequent mind-set change that a lot of us seem to be going thru ...

(Just proof-read thru this, if you can bear with me after 3 hours sleep and a Vicodin you can read anything, LOL!!!)

OK, first off; I've been laid up for the last few weeks, waiting for my gallbladder to be removed, and now post-op laid up (but almost all better, whee!) so I've had WAY to much time on my hands to think and read (if not always the energy to type).

All of us who are in mass exodus away from eBay have taken a big step in reminding the 800lb gorilla that it got to be so big on the backs of all of us little people. I'm not as large a seller as someone like our Grace (JPop), but she is considered a small seller by eBay and with eBay being slow to listen to reason (read: hasn't yet) all of the little guys are being pushed out. I for one could give a dung if the 800lb gorilla crashes off the Empire State Building at this point; it's bitten the hands that loving fed it once too often.

Have seen people post here and elsewhere with "where will I find my favorite insert odd item here without eBay???" The best answer; Google. Or Yahoo, or whatever your favorite search engine is. There are websites for everything! And if there aren't easily found websites there are often index sites geared to a certain hobby/collectible that gather URLs for you (I know, I manage a couple, LOL!) when you find 'em, bookmark 'em, they come in handy. Those folks selling bit by bit from their small websites are going to be SO glad to get business from all of us leaving eBay in mass droves!

So we're now out finding new avenues to peddle our wares or to go shopping.
Us crafters have Etsy (and Mintd and Dawanda and our own sites), for other doll folk there are doll auction sites - even free ones - cropping up, and there's always the forums.

I opened an Etsy store in August 2006 ... and let it sit much to my chagrin. But now I'm looking at it again and thinking how liberating it will be to sell there, and at the same time it will force me to not be so mamby-pamby in pricing; I know how much the materials cost and how many man-hours went into each item - I need to ask for that instead of trying to compete with Dollheart or any of the other mass BJD clothing makers ... and then *hope* that it brings more at auction. (And now it's downright embarrassing that I've had an Etsy store this long and have yet to list an item - gah!)

I could say I wish I shopped at Etsy for handmade goods but I haven't because I live in the middle of hand-made central. There are craft fairs, bazaars and shops specializing in local craftsmen's goods everywhere here in VT. But I've been poking away the last few weeks and WHEE-HEE-HEE!!! The selection is fabulous! Inspiring actually! And not just to me in my little family, but my oldest son (14) who has expressed interest in glass blowing and working with glass ... there are goods by glass-workers on Etsy that has his mind - and mine - churning in interest. My husband has said he'd get our son set up with a home annealing oven and lampwork supplies and now we're going to be learning as a family. THAT is cool; even my son is taking the handmade challenge!!!

Anyway, what I'm getting to is that maybe turning our backs on eBay and finding small/grass-roots venues to buy and sell and just generally hang out is NOT a bad thing. And when you consider this particular wing of dolls the "big" mindset is all wrong; BJDs are about small local meet-ups, customizing and buying from artisans rather than manufacturers.
When eBay became too big it lost that community feeling and that's something we as humans need, even online.

- - - - - - - - - -

As someone recently posted on the eBay Feedback Discussion boards; "It's the end of the world as we know it - and I feel fine!"

eBay is not the doll trader's friend ...

Or any trader's friend really.

eBay has made yet another batch of changes that I'll list and bitch about later in the post ... but it's forcing me to finally find another venue to buy/sell on.

So far I've found links to these auction/seller sites ...

auction-warehouse.com
AuctionSddict.com
AuctionSaloon.com
Auctionweiser.com
BidVille.com
Bidz.com
BlackwellsLiveAuction.com
Blujay.com
BuyNSellIt.com
CashBackAuctions.com
dawanda.com
eBid.net
Ecrater.com
ElFingo.com
Etsy.com
FairAuction.com
iOffer.com
ItsGottaGo.com
Manions.com
Mintd.com
MSNAuctions.com
NorthWestBlvd.com
Ola.com
OnlineAuction.com
PlunderHere.com
PriceFire.com
QXL.com
RubyLane.com
Sell.com
SellYourItem.com
specialistauctions.com
Tazbar.co.uk
TheFreeAuction.com
TreasureSales.com
WagglePop.com
Webidz.com
WodAuctions.com
uBid.com
uTrove.com
Xuppa.com

need to find URLs for: Webidz, Biddersnsellers, BidUpToday & Midnight Auctions

Etsy has a good reputation, and just got a serious chunk of venture capital to grow with. I'm not sure about the rest, it'll take some time to do some research.

I joined this board to learn more about other auction sites and payment systems: Power Sellers Unite - yeah, started by eBay Power Sellers, LOL!

And because soapboxing is one of my favorite past-times I posted a comment to a NY Times article:

This is why eBayPal was a bad idea for consumers from the get-go.

The changes are both a smokescreen and pathway; sellers are focusing on increased fees and inability to leave viable feedback - as that is the immediate hurt, while forgetting that little blurb about how eBayPal can hold a payment in escrow for 21 days or until a buyer leaves positive feedback.

The justification for that? If a transaction/seller seems “at risk” - a very arbitrary judgment. This means (for example) that funds for the large $700 item that costs $200 to ship are being held because seller’s “star rating” is lower than the high mark eBay says it should be at - the star rating is another arbitrary set of judment calls from often difficult-to-please buyers. Now seller must front the cost of shipping and pray that the buyer doesn’t do a charge-back thru PayPal by claiming they never received said item (yes, this happens).

That float of held funds is the real reason behind these changes to the feedback system; the more “iffy” sellers the more funds eBayPal can garner interest on.

History lesson; when PayPal started it was a zero-fee service - that is back when it was x.com and up until shortly after purchase by eBay - it stated quite frankly that their upkeep was earned thru short-lived high-interest loans using the cash sitting in our acc’ts.

The changes in the feedback system and the increase in overall auction fees are purposefully pushing out the “small sellers” - some of us “Power Sellers” even. We’re the people with the odd/unique niche items that people flock to eBay for.

The only sellers that will be able to remain are the mostly automated Power Sellers who can afford the occasional deadbeat bidder and ludicrous negative feedback. Those sellers most generally offer mass-produced dollar store/discount electronics level goods. Not the neat “it” that people want on eBay.

Oh yeah, a goodly percent of eBay’s buyers?
The small sellers.

Think you're immune to the changes?
Just wait, your selection will decrease dramatically and next time you go to sell a batch of your collection to raise some cash and find yourself with a deadbeat bidder ... Ugh.

This rat is jumpin' ship now. Wish I could take my 9 years of excellent feedback with me.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - >>>

added later because I just can't shut up ... just posted this on a thread in the eBay Feedback Forum:

Mr Donahue;

Please note, all those small sellers that you and the powers-that-be at eBay are trying to push out to improve your bottom line ... are also your a large portion of your buyers.

If the small sellers need to leave to find greener pastures they will be spending their earnings elsewhere.

Negative bottom line improvement.

Feedback is the issue that people are roaring about here, but it's more than that; it's the too-large hike in final value fees, it's the the fact that a slightly low star rating will leave (small) sellers out of search results, and it's the fact that escrow is being forced down our throats.

You are the 800 lb gorilla. Your market is saturated, the people that want to buy and sell online are here already (if they haven't been driven off - and not by negative FB, those bad buyers just get themselves a new ID and come back).

Gordon Gekko was wrong, Greed is not Good, it makes you shoot yourself in the foot. Here's a novel idea, why doesn't eBay try recompensing stock owners with dividends? That would be better than sending your stock plummeting.

What eBay is doing - modeling itself after Amazon - isn't growing (it may, for a while), it's setting itself up to compete with another 800 lb gorilla. That's probably not a fight eBay can win.

Signed,
Just another Drop in the leaky bucket