Author Topic: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!  (Read 10896 times)

Bruce

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We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« on: April 17, 2012, 07:39:52 AM »
     Since 1989, I, Bruce Hershenson, organized 18 major movie poster auctions (10 for Christie's auction house, 3 for Howard Lowery auction house, and 5 mega-auctions held on eBay in 2001-2004) with total sales of over 10 million dollars! Between 1989 and 1999 I sold over 30,000 vintage movie posters and lobby cards through sales catalogs with sales of over 4 million dollars. In 2000, after some trial sales in late 1999, I opened eMoviePoster.com on eBay, which over the next 8 years sold over 17 million dollars on that site, in over 330,000 transactions.
     But by 2008 I was completely fed up with eBay! I could see that they were treating all small sellers terribly, endlessly raising fees and micro-managing every aspect of the auctions. Since I was auctioning over two million dollars a year there, and I was getting treated no better than any tiny seller, I correctly surmised that their master plan was to change eBay into a clearing house for a few hundred mega-sellers, and to slowly eliminate ALL the small sellers, so that they could fire a huge percentage of their employees and simply host the auctions for those mega-sellers, and perhaps make more money than ever.
     So in early 2008 I announced that after over 300,000 eBay auctions I would be leaving there forever, and I gave the above reasons. Quite a few sellers there told me I was right, but a much larger group told me I was completely wrong (I am sad to report that many of my predictions proved to be squarely on the mark and a lot of those sellers who remained in 2008 have long since left eBay themselves.
     I contracted with an auction host to hold my own auctions on my own site, which had been running for many years. But I planned keeping some eBay auctions running while I made the transition. Our first auction on our own site Ended Thursday, Apr 17th, 2008. It was a special charity auction (for the benefit of a sick child) and it contained just 19 signed items. When that auction went completely smoothly, we knew we had a "winner" and we first switched our Thursday weekly auctions to our own site, to give us a chance to find and identify any problems.
     Once we felt certain everything was perfect, we moved our Tuesday auctions as well, and our very last set of eBay auctions Ended Tuesday, Jun 3rd, 2008 (it contained 559 rolled non-U.S. posters).
     It is hard to believe how far we have come since then!  As of this writing, we've auctioned 357,401 items on our own site (if you are reading this on Sunday the 15th after 4 PM, then it is 357,855 total items auctioned!), which means we have now auctioned 52% of every single item we've ever sold through our auctions on our own website.
     That means we've auctioned more movie posters on eMoviePoster.com than on eBay, through sales lists, with Christie's, and with Howard Lowery COMBINED! And in 2004 to 2007 we averaged sales of $2,550,000 per year (and never auctioned three million dollars worth in any year, but in 2008 to 2011 we averaged sales of $3,325,000 per year (and auctioned three million dollars worth in EVERY one of those years)!  Obviously being tied to eBay was greatly holding us back!

Offline eatbrie

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #1 on: April 17, 2012, 11:28:03 AM »
CONGRATS BRUCE!!!

Here's to $5 mil by 2014  cheers

T
My Personal Collection


- I wish to thank all APF members for being part of the World's Largest Social Gathering of Movie Poster Collectors
- "Wishing you the best of luck with All Poster Forum and in encouraging others to appreciate the magical art of film posters" - Martin Scorsese (2009)

Bruce

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #2 on: April 17, 2012, 11:29:58 AM »
Thanks much! Is this your way of telling us you are going to be upping your buying by a substantial margin?

 laugh1

Bruce

Offline CSM

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #3 on: April 17, 2012, 01:41:33 PM »
Thanks much! Is this your way of telling us you are going to be upping your buying by a substantial margin?

 laugh1

Bruce

Maybe he's actually going to purge some of that collection that never sees the light of day?  ;)
Chris

Mikewarrior

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #4 on: April 18, 2012, 03:39:19 PM »
Hello Bruce... Great job you've done!  thumbup

I'm new here, and very new to poster collecting. I've bought 3 so far... Lord of the Rings: TFotR = Style B... Indiana Jones & TLC = Original... and my favorite... Star Wars: RotJ = Style B

Hopefully they are all original... I bought them from Movieposters.com, but I plan to buy from your auction site, and I've even signed up already. I need to ask, why isn't your CART working? = I don't like sending my CC info through an email, or by phone.

Glad I didn't go ahead and buy from certain Ebay sellers... I heard (From this site, and the other forum) they are selling fakes among originals... yet they have double sided posters I can't find anywhere.

Anyways, glad to be apart of a great community... you have my respect already.

Offline crowzilla

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #5 on: April 18, 2012, 03:41:52 PM »
CONGRATS BRUCE!!!

Here's to $5 mil by 2014  cheers

T

You want him to auction another 1,000 items a week?
Those poor members of the emovieposter team will never get any sleep.
The Online Reference to Japanese Sci-Fi Posters:
www.Kaijuposters.com

Offline 110x75

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #6 on: April 18, 2012, 04:18:29 PM »
You want him to auction another 1,000 items a week?
Those poor members of the emovieposter team will never get any sleep.


Matias
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IG: @cinepapelarchivo

Bruce

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #7 on: April 20, 2012, 07:27:14 PM »
Hello Bruce... Great job you've done!  thumbup
 I need to ask, why isn't your CART working? = I don't like sending my CC info through an email, or by phone.

What it is is that you were looking at the fixed price items. Those are in an entirely different database from our auction items and only THOSE can't be put into the cart. It is something our programmers are working on.

The overall problem is that our site was set up by amateur programmers in 1999. For the next 8 years several other amateurs "improved" it, and all the remnants from those first 8 years were not set up very well. My current programmers, who are NOT amateurs, have been re-doing all the old sections piece by piecem but that is a tough and thankless job.

Phillip will contact you on Monday if he hasn't already.

Thanks

Bruce

Bruce

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #8 on: February 03, 2014, 11:19:35 PM »
CONGRATS BRUCE!!!

Here's to $5 mil by 2014  cheers

T

ABSOLUTE PROOF THAT T IS BETTER THAN NOSTRADAMUS!

He wrote "by 2014" on April 17, 2012 and by golly we did it on 12/31/13, just as he predicted. He could not have been more accurate!

Offline okiehawker

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #9 on: March 02, 2019, 05:10:29 PM »
I wonder how many vendors left eBay over the last 15 years and how many perhaps returned?  If I remember right, Bruce, Heritage and several others were on eBay or crosslisted auctions on eBay back then.  Okie

Offline erik1925

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #10 on: March 02, 2019, 06:20:07 PM »
HA still auctions material continuously on eBay to this day, if I'm not mistaken.  thumbsup.gif


-Jeff

Offline okiehawker

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #11 on: March 02, 2019, 10:17:21 PM »
HA still auctions material continuously on eBay to this day, if I'm not mistaken.  thumbsup.gif

I didn't know they still did so.  I do look on eBay still, though not like the early days.  I've found some good deals there even today.  Okie

Offline ddilts399

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #12 on: March 04, 2019, 07:35:18 PM »
Bruce should do once a month listings on ebay, would get folks over to his site. Not thinking about the new blood in the hobby.

Offline Simes

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2019, 03:37:04 AM »
Do we know For Sure exactly where else he advertises?

Looking at his major auction this week, he has multiple non-movie posters doing very well.  It would tend to suggest he does market elsewhere... No?

Offline CSM

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #14 on: March 05, 2019, 12:59:03 PM »
Do we know For Sure exactly where else he advertises?

Looking at his major auction this week, he has multiple non-movie posters doing very well.  It would tend to suggest he does market elsewhere... No?

I think it is more so that many movie poster collectors also dabble in either other types of posters (i.e. travel) or ancillary film memorabilia (i.e. scripts, props, pressbooks etc.)...
Chris

Offline okiehawker

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #15 on: March 06, 2019, 01:10:40 AM »
I think it is more so that many movie poster collectors also dabble in either other types of posters (i.e. travel) or ancillary film memorabilia (i.e. scripts, props, pressbooks etc.)...

Are you a dabbler, Chris? I sure am!  Okie

Offline oldposterho

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #16 on: March 06, 2019, 10:08:53 AM »
I listed some non-poster items recently after not putting anything on for years and it was such an unpleasant experience I'm reluctant to do it again. It seems e*ay is really catering to 'professional' sellers and the days of the mom and pop, random sellers are numbered.  No more world's biggest garage/boot sale anymore, I guess...
For sale and trade posters: *Here*

Offline CSM

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #17 on: March 06, 2019, 11:18:43 AM »
Are you a dabbler, Chris? I sure am!  Okie

I've dabbled but I reject the title of "dabbler" ;)
Chris

Offline okiehawker

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #18 on: March 06, 2019, 09:34:05 PM »
I've dabbled but I reject the title of "dabbler" ;)

Some dabbler ducks also migrate.  Could you be a migrator, Chris?  AKA: Snow Bird?  Okie

Offline crowzilla

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Re: We left eBay on 4/17/08, exactly 4 years ago today!
« Reply #19 on: April 28, 2020, 09:07:43 AM »
Belated happy 16th anniversary of leaving ebay Bruce!

Got my latest purchase in (a gift for my wife, hanging up in her collection room) from Emovie, and it arrived in quick fashion with fantastic packing - just like every other purchase I've made from you.
The Online Reference to Japanese Sci-Fi Posters:
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