There are two very similar services that launched in the last few months, Plumdrop and EveryPlaceISell. Both are free and both let you advertise every website (eBay, Etsy, Bonanzle, etc) that you list on for free.
If you want to see what these sites look like, here is the Priced Nostalgia booth on Plumdrop. We’ve had to redo our page on EveryPlaceISell so many times, we still cannot link to it but here is an EveryPlaceISell page from another random seller.
Plumdrop is from InkFrog so they obviously have a much higher budget and production values. Their user experience is very slick and set-up took only a few seconds (as they promised).
EveryPlaceISell is the brain child of Ina and David Steiner of Auction Bytes. I want to try to give them the benefit of some extra slack because they are only two people and have a much smaller budget than InkFrog and Plumdrop. I really enjoy the AuctionBytes site so I was really eager to try this new site out. The biggest problem is that the site is missing the niceties of a lot of other sites. Namely:
- The site is not secure so password and other account details are not as safe as elsewhere. Just make sure to use a different password on this site than elsewhere until they get this fixed.
- The site does not keep your info. For instance, if you mistype something, instead of just telling you what you need to correct, you will need to start your entire list of stores over again. It took us weeks to finally set this up because we kept having to redo it from scratch. This is really annoying. This is particularly bad because all the info on all of your stores is on one long form page. if you make even a single tiny mistake, they make you redo the entire form from scratch which, if you sell on a lot of sites, can take a very long time.
Which one is better? I am sorry to do this to the Steiner’s put Plumfrog currently blows their site away for me. However, EveryPlaceISell is trying some exciting things like Google Adwords advertising specifically for your store name and other cool features so there is a lot of potential there.
But here is my biggest question: Is there a point to sites like this? We already have links to everywhere we sell on our own websites, is there a need for an outside place to put them all in one page. Who do they envision visiting these sites other than other sellers?
I’m just not sure that I see a marketing benefit to sites like this. Feel free to argue in the comments.
Hillary, what’s the full list of all supported marketplaces? I couldn’t find it anywhere – obviously, I was looking to see if they had us (http://www.dawdle.com for those who don’t know me yet).
I agree, I’m on both, but they really are kind of pointless. I wouldn’t think anybody actually shops like this, but if they happen to run into the sites by accident, then great, I’m there.
Another benefit of Plumdrop that could make it more relevant in the long run is that it’s social. Though at the same time, I don’t think friends have to be mutually approved so you can be “most” social just by clicking friends with everybody.
I just looked a Dawdle is not on either site, Sachin. Sorry!
EveryPlaceISell has a much bigger list of stores than Plumdrop, FYI.
OH and we finally got our Priced Nostalgia listing up on EveryPlaceISell today: http://www.everyplaceisell.com/cgi-bin/ep/ep.pl?S&&XkXaLwrakw&R
Your 2 bullet points in the article are wrong, Everyplaceisell does store the sellers data and can be edited at any time.
Since there is no credit card information or any information that is not already public, there is no need for a secure server for a seller to log in to edit their data.
This article sounds to me like an advertisement for Plumb.
Ray,
I am sorry but I have to disagree. I just used the site this morning. Unless they changed it in the last few hours, passwords are still un-secure on the site and you do still need to fill in your info again from scratch each time they reject it.
No advertisement for Plumb. I frankly find them both a little useless but i am willing to try them out and see if it does any good.
Hillery
I am a web designer and have been doing this work since 1990, just when the first web browsers came about.
A secure login is only applicable when there is sensitive information being sent to a web site (credit card, SSN, etc). I have a listing on EPIS and there is no sensitive data being sent, only publicly available information, so no secure server is required. (the public is mis-informed about the use of secure servers and security in general on web applications, it has been way overblown)
You are right about the rejection issue, I was rejected a few times before I finally got setup. But after that all my info is there when I go edit it.
I personally think the EPIS site will do me some good, I have already had 2 referrals from EPIS and they both bought something.
Plum drop is a social networking site and I find it confusing because I am not into social networking sites. I am sure some will like it just because of that feature. It took me about 5 min to find the search on Plum.
I like the straight forward feel of EPIS because I am old timer and prefer search engines when I want to look for something. Just faster.