Small business sites?

[martin griffith]

I'm considering starting a site to sell some widgits
I had a look at
http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/
quite nice, but this is only available in the US.

Any recomendations for a EU based site / similar system.
For some unknown psycholigical reason I dread and fear Ebay systems,
so any alternatives would be appreciated




martin

Serious error.
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[Winfield Hill]

martin griffith wrote...

For some unknown psycholigical reason I dread and fear
Ebay systems, so any alternatives would be appreciated

Sadly the alternates don't have as many customers... eBay
isn't so bad, but their PayPal subsidiary can be bad news.

PayPal is preferred by buyers, in part because of its deep
integration with eBay, allowing minimum-click payment and
winner's item-list payment indication. That may be why it
is used by most sellers, but some *refuse* to accept PayPal.

The problem is PayPal has direct access to your bank account
and credit card. It's their sudden withdrawals and arrogant
attitude that have led to some rather serious complaints.

http://www.paypalsucks.com/ http://www.paypalwarning.com/
http://www.paypalwarning.com/WallOfShame/Default.asp
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/paypal_01.html
http://paypalsuit.com/ http://www.ygoodman.com/paypal.asp

 

[martin griffith]

martin griffith wrote...

Sadly the alternates don't have as many customers... eBay
isn't so bad, but their PayPal subsidiary can be bad news.

PayPal is preferred by buyers, in part because of its deep
integration with eBay, allowing minimum-click payment and
winner's item-list payment indication. That may be why it
is used by most sellers, but some *refuse* to accept PayPal.

The problem is PayPal has direct access to your bank account
and credit card. It's their sudden withdrawals and arrogant
attitude that have led to some rather serious complaints.

http://www.paypalsucks.com/ http://www.paypalwarning.com/
http://www.paypalwarning.com/WallOfShame/Default.asp
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/paypal_01.html
http://paypalsuit.com/ http://www.ygoodman.com/paypal.asp

thanks Win.
Its your last paragraph that worries me,
I'll wait to see who else uses non ebay/paypal services




martin

Serious error.
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[Product developer]

thanks Win.
Its your last paragraph that worries me,
I'll wait to see who else uses non ebay/paypal services




martin

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

Ebay is the only way to fly and Paypal is still the best payment
method.

If you want to reach a global audience and make transactions smooth
and straight forward go ebay and paypal together. Ebay also does a lot
of advertising with Google, linking hundreds of keywords to the site
which benefits the seller.

The other auction sites never seem to get anywhere and Billpay and the
other paypal wannabees are convoluted at best and will result in less
business than if you use paypal.

We use ebay to liquidate old equipment and to buy project specific
test equipment now and then. After 225 or so transactions I have had
no problems with ebay or paypal especially the banking part.

You have to realize that with the tens of millions of transactions
that pass through ebay and paypal there is going to be some
complaints.

 

[Joerg]

Hi Martin,

Check with the larger web hosting companies. This one is large and here
is their subsidiary in your country:

http://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/...F584714D7CABAAC01601136AF3.TC32a?__frame=_top

Scroll to the bottom (E-Shops). Maybe that's all you really need, along
with an agreement with a credit card processor. The main thing is that
you provide a secure method for people to key in their card info and I
believe this provider can furnish that.

Now I guess everybody is wondering what kinds of widgets you want to offer.

Regards, Joerg

 

[Frank Bemelman]

thanks Win.
Its your last paragraph that worries me,
I'll wait to see who else uses non ebay/paypal services

It's not that bad, Ebay and Paypal. You could give it a try
at least. There's no need to give your creditcard or banking
account out of hands - at least not for receiving money.

It's also possible to place simple pieces of html om your
own web pages that link to paypal, and create a very simple
shopping cart that way.

Another option is a complete webshop running on your own
website. A free open source solution is www.oscommerce.com
and not too difficult to install/maintain.

But for starters, I'd put it on Ebay and see what happens.
At least that guarantees that you have an audience

 

[Rich The Philosophizer]

martin griffith wrote...

Sadly the alternates don't have as many customers... eBay
isn't so bad, but their PayPal subsidiary can be bad news.

PayPal is preferred by buyers, in part because of its deep
integration with eBay, allowing minimum-click payment and
winner's item-list payment indication. That may be why it
is used by most sellers, but some *refuse* to accept PayPal.

The problem is PayPal has direct access to your bank account
and credit card. It's their sudden withdrawals and arrogant
attitude that have led to some rather serious complaints.

http://www.paypalsucks.com/ http://www.paypalwarning.com/
http://www.paypalwarning.com/WallOfShame/Default.asp
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/online/paypal_01.html
http://paypalsuit.com/ http://www.ygoodman.com/paypal.asp

Just for the record, I have not had any unexpected experiences
with Paypal. It was kind of interesting to watch my on-line bank
balance in one browser window, go to the other browser window
and click "pay", (on ebay/paypal, of course), and flip over to
the other window and watch my bank balance change.

I got one of those "we need your password to check your account"
spams from somebody using paypal's name, but I had already fallen
off _that_ turnip truck. ;-)

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Rich The Philosophizer]

Ebay is the only way to fly and Paypal is still the best payment
method.

If you want to reach a global audience and make transactions smooth
and straight forward go ebay and paypal together. Ebay also does a lot
of advertising with Google, linking hundreds of keywords to the site
which benefits the seller.

The other auction sites never seem to get anywhere and Billpay and the
other paypal wannabees are convoluted at best and will result in less
business than if you use paypal.

We use ebay to liquidate old equipment and to buy project specific
test equipment now and then. After 225 or so transactions I have had
no problems with ebay or paypal especially the banking part.

You have to realize that with the tens of millions of transactions
that pass through ebay and paypal there is going to be some
complaints.

I _have_ bought and paid for bum stuff, but I chalk that up to
tuition. School of hard knocks, and all that.

In every case, it was clear up front that "we make no warranties",
etc., so I spent my money knowing that I was risking it.

One very weird thing happened - I bought a "40 gigabyte" drive,
and paid like $25.00 - a very good deal. A 15 GB drive showed up.
I emailed them, and asked, "This isn't the drive I bought - what
do I do now?" They emailed back, "Oh, that was a shipping ***up -
go ahead and send it back, and we'll replace it." While I was
waiting for the replacement to show up, I started getting emails
from people saying "Have you bought anything from this guy? We're
initiating a class action suit, since he's a thief and ..." on and
on and on - bottom line, I'm out $25 bucks, and haven't bothered
to follow up on any of it. (the alleged replacement drive never
showed up.)

Tuition.

But, I reiterate! That is the _one_ and _only_ "bad" experience
I've had with ebay.

Well, one other thing. I went to _give away_ a used book[0], and
got an email from ebay staff, saying that they'd been asked to kill
my auction because of a copyright infringement! I wonder how in
Hell selling a bound book, bought legally at the bookstore, could
possibly infringe anything! What got copied?!?!? But I let it go,
since all I wanted to do was _give_ the damn thing away. So that
was weird, but I finally found some sucker to foist off my
Redmond^H^H^H^Hhat Linux books onto.

It was some guy in these NGs, but I haven't seen any posts from
him in awhile. Hmm. I wonder if those Redmond^H^H^H^Hhat books
killed him?

Cheers!
Rich

[0] I listed it with a buy-it-now of $0.01.

 

[Daniel Haude]

On 9 Nov 2004 06:18:25 -0800,

Sadly the alternates don't have as many customers... eBay
isn't so bad, but their PayPal subsidiary can be bad news.

Can't you just transfer money to somebody else's bank account? That's how
it's done in Germany, where PayPal is basically unknown.

--Daniel

 

[[email protected]]

On 9 Nov 2004 06:18:25 -0800,


Can't you just transfer money to somebody else's bank account? That's how
it's done in Germany, where PayPal is basically unknown.

A similar thing in Australia. Direct bank deposit seems to be the
prefered method, and a majority of sellers it seems will only accept
that method.
On my auctions I offer direct desposit, PayPal and PayMate, yet I have
not had a single person want to pay by PayPal or PayMate yet. Why pay
some third party a fee when you don't have to?
Of course direct deposit does not work well outside of your own
country, where PayPal still rules.

Dave

 

[Rich Grise]

A similar thing in Australia. Direct bank deposit seems to be the
prefered method, and a majority of sellers it seems will only accept
that method.
On my auctions I offer direct desposit, PayPal and PayMate, yet I have
not had a single person want to pay by PayPal or PayMate yet. Why pay
some third party a fee when you don't have to?
Of course direct deposit does not work well outside of your own
country, where PayPal still rules.

I wonder if that's really true. I know, in the US, there's an account
number and a routing number - the routing number identifies the bank,
and it's 9 digits (on my account), so there's only enough for
999,999,999 different banks. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[martin griffith]

Hi Martin,

Check with the larger web hosting companies. This one is large and here
is their subsidiary in your country:

http://order.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/...F584714D7CABAAC01601136AF3.TC32a?__frame=_top

Scroll to the bottom (E-Shops). Maybe that's all you really need, along
with an agreement with a credit card processor. The main thing is that
you provide a secure method for people to key in their card info and I
believe this provider can furnish that.

Now I guess everybody is wondering what kinds of widgets you want to offer.

Regards, Joerg

thanks for that,
well, I will be selling both left handed and right handed analogue
widgets, with the odd (maybe even) 8051 included




martin

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

 

[Winfield Hill]

martin griffith wrote...

well, I will be selling both left handed and right handed
analogue widgets, with the odd (maybe even) 8051 included

Tell us more! We want to know more!

BTW, one serious issue in this scene is how your customers
will find you. If by word-of-mouth (satisfied user telling
his colleague), or Google searches, etc., then you can use
whatever web sales scheme is most convenient. But if you
want new customers to stumble across your product, you'll
need a wider venue, and something like eBay is appropriate.
Often folks will search on eBay, and not use Google at all.

 

[martin griffith]

martin griffith wrote...

Tell us more! We want to know more!

BTW, one serious issue in this scene is how your customers
will find you. If by word-of-mouth (satisfied user telling
his colleague), or Google searches, etc., then you can use
whatever web sales scheme is most convenient. But if you
want new customers to stumble across your product, you'll
need a wider venue, and something like eBay is appropriate.
Often folks will search on eBay, and not use Google at all.

Morning Win

Hopefully it will be word of mouth, and the first prototype should be
available at about the same time as the new edition of AoE(sorry)

I've just bought a new house, so getting the workshop up and running
will be the 1st priority, well, after the Hifi, anyway.

Goto to dash, got to try out my new windsurf board



martin

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

 

[Rich The Philosophizer]

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 21:59:42 GMT, in sci.electronics.design you wrote:
[something]

martin griffith, may I ask a favor of you? If you were to set your
newsreader to echo the OPs name, then the continuity of threads might
enjoy a certain degree of enhancement.

Of course, having observed my BS for lo these many moons, you know
that I can strike you down with a bolt of lightning if you refuse
to bow and scrape in fearful thrall to my will. ;-) All I have to
do is evert the Hypertorus about the 5th dimension again.

;^j
Rich

 

[martin griffith]

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 21:59:42 GMT, in sci.electronics.design you wrote:
[something]

martin griffith, may I ask a favor of you? If you were to set your
newsreader to echo the OPs name, then the continuity of threads might
enjoy a certain degree of enhancement.

Of course, having observed my BS for lo these many moons, you know
that I can strike you down with a bolt of lightning if you refuse
to bow and scrape in fearful thrall to my will. ;-) All I have to
do is evert the Hypertorus about the 5th dimension again.

;^j
Rich

Arghh, dont strike me down
ah, found the correct menu (at last), let see if it has worked




martin

Serious error.
All shortcuts have disappeared.
Screen. Mind. Both are blank.

 

[Nico Coesel]

martin griffith wrote...

Sadly the alternates don't have as many customers... eBay
isn't so bad, but their PayPal subsidiary can be bad news.

PayPal is preferred by buyers, in part because of its deep
integration with eBay, allowing minimum-click payment and
winner's item-list payment indication. That may be why it
is used by most sellers, but some *refuse* to accept PayPal.

The problem is PayPal has direct access to your bank account
and credit card. It's their sudden withdrawals and arrogant
attitude that have led to some rather serious complaints.

Hmm, I'm using Paypal without automatic withdrawals. They are pushing
to use a credit card, but you can also do without it.

 

[Rich The Philosophizer]

On Tue, 09 Nov 2004 21:59:42 GMT, in sci.electronics.design you wrote:
[something]

martin griffith, may I ask a favor of you? If you were to set your
newsreader to echo the OPs name, then the continuity of threads might
enjoy a certain degree of enhancement.

Of course, having observed my BS for lo these many moons, you know
that I can strike you down with a bolt of lightning if you refuse
to bow and scrape in fearful thrall to my will. ;-) All I have to
do is evert the Hypertorus about the 5th dimension again.

;^j
Rich

Arghh, dont strike me down
ah, found the correct menu (at last), let see if it has worked

Poifick!

;^j
Rich