Mulch my lettuce leaves, why don't you?!!

OK, this is a rant! - It's Monday morning, I haven't had breakfast, and my blood pressure's gone through the roof.

.... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH

For those of you who don't know me, (probably don't care, I hear you say!), I run a small shop in Helensburgh with my husband, Sandy. Helensburgh's a lovely old Victorian town, a genteel sort of place like one of the towns on the south coast of England. Plenty of good folks visit the town, walk along the promenade on a lovely day; visit the shops, visit the Hill House, just spend a few hours relaxing away from the hustle and bustle of daily life in the city. Like many other tourist destinations, there are huge chunks of the year which are quiet and, recognising this, I decided to put up a MacGillivray's web site and to test an eBay shop as well.

Great Idea! - both virtual stores make sales. I love it. I've put a lot of effort over the years into promoting my own web site - it took weeks of dedicated work to get good search engine placement and to get the web site looking good enough so that people felt confident about purchasing. So, imagine my surprise when I paid my subscription to eBay (ok, I'd better put in the usual eBay disclaimers Copyright © 1995-2006 eBay Inc. All Rights Reserved.) - and then I found that, because I do have an eBay store, eBay is marketing my products for me. Wow! - talk about value for money.

What is the consequence of this for me. Well, if I want to promote candles, celtic jewellery, soaps, etc, then my eBay store can quite often get much faster results than my own shop. (Not always true, but there isn't a perfect system out there.) So, imagine my horror when I received complaints from not one but TWO of my suppliers that their products are being sold on eBay.

They are claiming that their brand is being devalued by me selling their stuff on eBay. ..... in one instance, one of the major British stores complained directly to the manufacturer and I can no longer get his products. HMMM

Well, to all manufacturers out there, I would recommend the following thoughts:

• eBay has a huge market of registered users, more are joining every single day.
  
• eBay markets products for its eBay store owners - I couldn't afford the advertising budget which eBay has.
  
• I'm reasonably sure that there are laws in the UK which are supposed to prevent restrictive trade practices.
  
• It's not a cheap option for people to run an eBay store - but there are great benefits.
  
• If I wanted to launch a product quickly and effectively worldwide, I could do MUCH WORSE than do so using an eBay shop.
  

RANT OVER! .... my blood pressure's getting back to normal and I had better get on with some of the chores - I'll take the rest of my frustration out on the ironing!

Meantime, I am uploading an article about eBay buyers which I hope you will find valuable. It's a free pdf file and you can find it at http://www.macgillivrays.co.uk/ebaybuyers.pdf - I hope you enjoy it.

Till next time!
Margaret