If you’re en eBay seller, you are more than likely having your ups and downs. If you’re an OLA seller, you might be enjoying sporadic sales, however, not quite what you had expected for this time of year.
While many can point to the economy as the reason for the decline in auction sales, this is NOT necessarily the case. Let’s have a show of hands. How many auction sellers start their auctions off at just $1.00 with no reserve? How many open their auctions at $5.00 with no reserve? See the point? It’s not the economy affecting auction sales, as much as the constant changes the larger auction sites have instituted in order to quash auction sales in favor of a Buy Now environment. What is also hurting sales are competitive ads appearing within auction listings.
When auction sellers list their items and then have to compete with ads at the top or bottom of their listings, which send traffic to their competitor, it can be a recipe for disaster. I have always thought that if an auction site wishes to use my listings space (space I pay for) to rotate ads, then I should be able to decide if I want those ads on my listing page and/or have the option to restrict certain url’s and/or enjoy a share of the revenues generated from ads appearing within (or even near) my auction listings.
On Bidjit, we allow non-auction related banner ads to rotate within our listing pages, however, we have a standing policy, which prohibits ads from finding their way into seller listings or, on landing pages for check-out. We consider auction seller listing space as ”sacred” ground.
However, if a Bidjit user wishes to add a banner to their listings, which links directly to their off-Bidjit store or to another retail site, so be it! We believe that if you took the time to put up a listing, the space is yours to do with as you please. Just keep it clean:-)
