ConsignBay Online Auctions

ConsignBay Auctions....A fresh new approach to Online Auctions!
If your reading this right now your looking for an alternative auction site other than the obvious high fee choices, and we were doing the same thing.

We have been with ebay since it began in the 90's. The first thing sold was an Italian mosaic pendant that jumped from $12.00 to $67.00 in the last 3 minutes of the auction. I got a rush similar to winning a jackpot on a slot machine and found myself hooked on that feeling. I began listing anything and everything, the joke here was never let anything sit around too long because Mom will put it on ebay.

I was working full time, doing all my ebay stuff at night. I was doing this alone, it was a nice hobby for extra money and I loved every minute of it. As I was telling everyone I knew about the glory of ebay I was being asked to sell other people's items charging a small commission and it snowballed from there. I made up flyers, business cards, placing ads in local newsletters in my area. When I realized I was making more money with ebay than at my current job position I gave notice and walked away. No more corporate white bread demanding employers for me. I was finally going to be my own boss!

I was now going to people's homes by appointment, taking pictures, writing descriptions, measuring, collecting all the info to bring home and get the auctions listed. It worked out well for the most part but not having the item physically in my possession, I would run into occasional problems. They wouldn't be home when it was time to ship, they weren't happy with what it sold for and not let me have it, or the biggie they gave it away during the week it was listed. Some people didn't take this as a serious business which was now my sole source of income forcing me to change my policy, write up new contracts, and take the items with me to have them here to pack and ship. Things got out of control after that change. I was always worried about their precious items sitting in my house, fear of breakage, plus all the new clutter being added to my own clutter. It was loosing it's charm to me and I didn't like that feeling.

In 2008 my son had the best idea and we opened our own storefront location, ConsignBay right around the corner from my home. The rent was good, the location was good, and cha-ching we did good. People were coming to us. Word of mouth was our best advertiser! We did appointments and walk-ins making a lot of people happy by making them money the most part from stuff just laying around their house. We sold everything from cars, boats, motorcycles, fine collectibles, gold, you never knew what was going to walk through the door! The charm was back, the fun was back, and we were our own bosses running our own business. What more could you ask for? I had the space to store these items, I had a packing and shipping department, I had help with emails and listing, all was going well for us.

But, and there's always one when it comes to me, there were things we didn't take into consideration. If the items sold we charged 30% commission. If they didn't sell we charged a flat 4.99 fee per item or collection at time of pick-up. Most people never came back to the store so I was out the fees and I became a free storage unit for all their junk! As I was listing more and more items some being big ticket sales my ebay fees were averaging between 300.00-500.00 dollars a month! I would hang onto things longer to list the following month so more fees were not added to the current invoice. I was now making my customers wait even longer to sell for them, and a few were not happy. With the listing fees, the FVF's, unhappy customers, things just started to slow, including our profit margins.

My relationship with ebay was always a good one, until we opened the store. I found myself getting warnings, then in October of that first year I opened my ebay pages and everything was gone! 4 pages of listings just vanished. No emails, no notice, just gone. I thought ebay was shut down maybe for updates or repairs so I didn't get upset just then. About an hour later they notified me I was suspended for the months of Oct, Nov and December possibly longer for a policy violation. I still to this day have no idea what I violated. I called, I called my power seller assistant, I wrote emails, never getting a clear answer. My biggest sale time of the year was pulled out from under me. I was devastated. I now had to get in touch with everyone who left items with me explaining to them I was out of business for awhile not being able to list, disappointing them. Most were counting on the extra money for the Holidays and vacation trips. I cried for most of those 3 months. I hated ebay, and decided I wanted nothing more to do with them. I was a heartbroken power seller feeling betrayed, depressed, with no income coming in. Because of the suspension people opened dispute claims with ebay and paypal, all items had been shipped but I still lost almost 800.00 in disputes even though merchandise was received as promised. I was hit with negative feedback for the first time ever in my ebay career. People panicked thinking I shut down after taking their money scamming them. That was not the case but nobody seemed to understand that after receiving an email from ebay that I had violated policy and feel free to open a dispute to acquire refunds for your purchased items from this seller. I actually had a buyer forward this to me saying she was sorry but ebay told her to open a dispute which she did. I checked the tracking on her item and it had been received 2 days before that. So ebay told her to scam me!

I spent those three months frantically searching for another auction venue to list on. I found a few of them but never successfully sold anything through them. I was also very surprised to find forums full of people like me who wanted out of ebay, trying to sneak back into ebay, telling similar if not the same story I'm telling you now. I was not alone it seemed, for some reason ebay was letting go of sellers with no actual explanation why. Some say there looking to clean up their act, have big box corporations list with them, get rid of the "flea market" look. Wasn't that the sole purpose of ebay from the gitgo? I was paying high fees every month with no questions asked, as were alot of the other sellers I met along the way. We were making them money and this was how they treated us? Where's the logic?

The end of January that year they re-instated my account but stripped me of my power seller status. I no longer had 100% positive feedback, and I was limited in categories I could list in. Having no other choice I dove right back in, sold everything brought to me, and had my power seller status back in no time. I was free to list everywhere, business picked back up, and my ebay fees were off the charts forcing me to raise my commission fees, unsold item fees, and turning away the smaller ticket items focusing on bigger sales. That kind of defeated my goal purpose, disappointing people who walked in with something that wasn't worth listing, making me feel badly about it. Something had to change.

So rather than invest our money supporting ebay we made the decision to invest in ourselves by starting our own auction style website ConsignBayAuctions.com. It's very exciting and now I can say this is the best decision my son and I have ever made. So look around, read about us, see how we can make selling and buying a good experience for you at a much lower cost than the big auction sites. One flat monthly fee, unlimited listings with no FVF (Final Value Fee) under $5,000.00, free bulk lister software, reverse wanted ads bringing sellers to you, fast easy registration and listing, reputation stars so you can buy and sell with confidence, and customer support 24/7. That's a promise from me. Maybe we can give ebay a run for it's money!

Follow your bliss!
Nanette Mentone