The Twitter Effect...except for on-line auction sites!

I recently heard about how the so-called "Twitter Effect" basically killed the movie "Bruno" with almost immediate negative reviews posted and circulated like wildfire within hours of its opening.

So I wondered...how big is Twitter with the big auction sites and on-line stores like eBay and Amazon.

Well, let's look.

Here is a quick list of some of the bigger (and lesser-known) names in the field.

Company (twitterid) #followers
Amazon (amazon) 5,278
Amazon Gold Box (amazondeals) 14,452
Amazon mp3 (amazonmp3) 816,910
eBay (ebay) 1,685
eBid - no presence
ecrater (ecrater) 180
bonanzle (bonanzle) 561
CQout (CQout) 2
blujay (blujaydotcom) 51
OnlineAuction - no presence
Atomic Mall (atomicmall) 17



I only included twitter IDs that were the "official" ones, skipping the rest (such as fan sites and personal pick sites), and I also skipped some of the more technical IDs of these sites (such as Amazon's Kindle news and updates ID).

OK, now I have to admit that the # of followers for these sites may not be a great indication of their popularity, but I think it is rather telling about the demographics of Twitter and the demographics of the sites mentioned above.

For example, can I assume from these numbers that...

1. Amazon didn't just jump the bandwagon, they have the lead float in the parade. They obviously have embraced this technology and they know that younger people + mp3's + music downloads = a potentially profitable source of sales.

2. eBay has not quite fully embraced Twitter. Griff is on twitter as well (ID: ebayjimgriffith) with a not-to-impressive 281 followers.

3. Scrappy upstarts ecrater and bonanzle are getting their presence known, but slowly.

4. The rest? I think I can assume most of their sellers, if asked about twitter, would say don't need it/it's not for me/it won't help my sales/it's just a waste of time/etc.

Agree? Disagree? Think I'm nuts for spending any time at all on this?

Let me know what you think.

Bonanzle vs. ecrater: the battle continues

So...some fellow bonanzlers have already counted out ecrater as heir apparent to the coveted #3 spot right behind ebid and ebay.

Well, guess what happened?

As of this evening, ecrater has a rather firm hold on #3, with bonanzle falling behind. At one point Bonanzle was up about 50,000 listings over "the moon". Now they are about 14,000 listings behind.

Any lesson here?

Well, first, do NOT count out any competitor unless you can visually see them gasping for breath and they are just a very distant shadow behind you. 50k listings is nothing to gain or lose when you have 70-100,000 sellers on each site.

Second, why focus so much on ecrater in the first place? Don't worry about the guy right above you, you're aiming higher...right? "WE'RE NUMBER THREE" really doesn't sound good.

Basically, yeah it sucks that the ranch is #4 right now. Who cares. When/if the ranch comes close to chomping at the heels of the bay, then I'll REALLY start to get excited.

Bonanzle: another basket for my eggs

Right now, there is a struggle between ecrater and bonanzle for the coveted #2 spot in the list of on-line sites, with ebay and ebid being #1 and #2 respectively.

I already mentioned about the folly of putting all your eggs in one basket, but I have come to the business decision of dedicating more of my time to bonanzle.

Why?

• The people. The forums are more active, friendlier, more helpful, and I just get the feeling that the sellers are not all just a bunch of disgruntled former ebayers, but a group (dare I say "team") of people who want to succeed and who want bonanzle to succeed...almost a grass roots movement.

• The site. It's clean, simple to navigate, and looks professional. The crater always had a kind of cheesy feeling to me, like its pages were just kind of thrown together. It just doesn't look cool.

• The products. This I believe is why I think bonanzle is going to be the next big thing. Antiques, cool used stuff, new stuff...it has everything. And everything is easy to find. The dreaded "best match" search algorithm used by ebay isn't on bonanzle...and that's a good thing!

• The press. I did a search of bonanzle references (trying to skip the "items for sale" links) and found plenty of great press out there for the site. So far, few disgruntled buyers.

So I am spending quite a bit more time with bonanzle. I have about 60 items listed, and I could easily get a couple of hundred out there. I will probably soon pull my ecrater listings and put them on "the ranch" instead.

One big Ecrater plus...free google feed...usually

I have a few items listed on ecrater under my funkybydesign id. Not a lot, just a few items to test the waters.

The biggest thing about ecrater is that they are free/free/free. As in:

• no fees to join
• no fees to list
• no fees if you sell something.

You get a free domain (mine's funkybydesign.ecrater.com). You get a little bit of customization for your own "storefront", but it will still look like everyone else's there...except perhaps for your logo if you upload one.

One powerful tool they have is an automatic upload of your products to google. Google has pretty much become the place to find products. And they know it. That's why they usually have their shopping results at the top, that's why they have so much invested in ad research. That's why their search engine just plain rocks!

But there's a catch...actually more like do's and don'ts. I don't have an exhaustive list, but here are a couple of items I've read about that you may want to avoid.

• Skip the "all caps" product titles. Some people have had their products not included in google's search just because they capitalize all the words in the title.
• Don't include "free shipping" as part of the title or description. If you want it in your desc., put it WAY at the end.
• Include as many importatnt descriptive words as possible in the title. Size? Color? Make? Model? Yep...good stuff. L@@K? NICE? NEW? fuggetaboutit.

If I come across any more little gems, I'll be sure to try to remember to remind myself that I have a blog. Then maybe I'll remember to list them here.