Disturbingly Affectionate Email from Zibbet CEO Jonathan Peacock.

Zibbet makes me sad

Anyone else receive this disturbingly affectionate email from Zibbet CEO Jonathan Peacock?  (Posted in its entirety below).  I paid rent to this guy to host e-commerce shops and get a totally unprofessional and overly familiar email in place of the services I paid for.  Including thanking me for my LOVE and patience.   And he "loves" me back 5 times in this short email.  Eww.

Are we supposed to be so bowled over by how much he loves us that we're going to overlook the fact that his site has NEVER worked well, works even worse in his relaunch, yet he's keeping everyone's money?

This cloyingly sweet "business" message is disturbing on another level...his attempt to get business people to reveal lots of personal information on his site.  My FAMILY?  You want to know about my FAMILY?  What does that have to do with my selling a vintage teacup?  

You want to know where I live???  (Hmm....I've been threatened to be arrested for tweeting about Zibbet by someone who claimed to be in daily telephone conversations with Zibbet owners.)    

You want to know where else you can find me online?   ICK.  The Zibbet owners have already revealed that they scour the internet for "bad" posts made by its sellers as data on who to approve or not approve for access to its closed forums.  Whatever else do you want that info for?

Some have suggested that the hopelessly desperate for affection folks will fall for this "Jonny come's a-courtin" email and reveal personal information that can be sold.  With this guy, it's hard to know.  I recently learned about his Dinars for Dollars scheme, he lures people into buying premium shops on Zibbet knowing he wasn't providing the services he sold us yet refusing to refund the money, who knows?

Now I know Jonathan's "regulars" are going to claim I am misinterpreting his intent here.  But truly, WHAT IS THE INTENT?  He still misrepresents how malfuntioning Zibbet is.  The "nasty bugs" are the giant chasms of gaps in basic programming that still makes search unusable.  It's not fixed as of the date of this blog post.  That's a lie.  They DIDN'T EVEN PROGRAM for search to recognized plurals and didn't fix it til he read about it on social media!  The whole tone is a disturbing blend of a faraway lover and a teacher getting the pre-schoolers to sit up straight by saying "My how straight you all are sitting!" And to SHUT YOU UP.  And honestly, what did the half-baked relaunch do for you as a seller?  He ADMITTED the search was bad, any buyers who do wander into Zibbet can't even find YOUR ITEMS, yet you are supposed to be contented by fake lovin'?  Aren't we smarter than that?  

But bottom, line, it reeks of insincerity and fakey fake.  Jonathan Peacock, if you or your pal Andrew Gray want to show me your love, refund my money.  That's the PROFESSIONAL thing to do.  If you are finding this blog post like lots do via google, you might want to read this blog from the bottom up.  But grab a cup of tea from that vintage teacup first because it's full of info, all of which is documented.

Pleased to meet you! We hope that you've enjoyed getting to know the new Zibbet. We're amazed at how well you've embraced such a big change. Finding your way around a totally new layout isn't easy! Thanks for all the love you've given us over social media or via email. It makes our day!! And, thanks for your patience as we've worked to fix some nasty bugs - kudos to the Zibbet team for working late nights and weekends until these were fixed. So proud of our small, but mighty team! It's great to see your shops being updated with a big, beautiful banner (new size = 1048x200px). I love seeing each shop's individual creativity being reflected through their banners. GETTING TO KNOW YOU My favorite page in the new Zibbet, without a doubt, is the new Meet the Seller page. I love getting to know you better by reading your stories, looking at your photos (your workspace, where you live, your family etc), and seeing where else I can find you online. Part of Zibbet's appeal, from a shoppers perspective, is that they are supporting and buying directly from an independent seller. It makes it all the more special when they can "meet" you and even connect with you online (Facebook, Twitter etc). It's all about building a personal connection. That's why we don't allow drop shipping or outsourcing your creative process to manufacturers. It loses that personal touch, and that's just not what Zibbet's about. If you haven't already, make sure you spend some time creating your new Meet the Seller page. HERE'S 4 GREAT EXAMPLES TO DRAW INSPIRATION FROM Kf Gifted Hands from Gloucester, United Kingdom. ZiL Vintage from Texas, United States. The Vintage Teacup from Florida, United States. Unlimited Party Themes from California, United States. You can create your Meet the Seller page from your shop admin panel. Go to "Shop Front" (in left navigation) and it's the second tab on this page. Create your Meet the Seller page → P.S. Stay tuned for a big announcement coming soon! Clue? S _ _ _ _ - _ _ _ _ _ // _ _ _ S _ _ _ S. Tweet us with a letter guess and we'll reveal the most requested letter on Monday via @Zibbet! Jonathan and the Zibbet Team

From the team at Zibbet. Lovingly crafted "Down Under" in Australia (G'day!) Have a question or want to say hello? We'd love to hear from you. Tweet us @zibbet or hit reply!

So why Did Zibbet REALLY Relaunch?

Zibbet error message, frequently showing, from the "stabilized" relaunched site.

According to CEO and owner Jonathan Peacock, the reason Zibbet was "rebuilding" their site was for site stability for anticipated growth.

As we all know now, 2 weeks plus after the relaunch, it's less stable than it was before.  It takes forever to load and often times out.

And a search that doesn't work at all.  And that the owners knew didn't work, but went with anyway, according to the CEO, Jonathan Peacock, knowing it didn't function even as well as the messed up one in the previous version!

The message above is seen...often and for long periods of time.  The new site was beta tested, and still launched with major problems and fewer features.  Like, it takes forever to load.  Like, people can't work in their shops.  Like, SOME shops that were premium were converted into free ones with no features, but with messages telling sellers to purchase again.  Like, timing out when searching. Like exposing personal information of sellers. Photo issues. And much more.  They've been in major fix-it mode ever since.  So why was it hurried out? 

What was accomplished for sellers and buyers?

What did it accomplish for the owners?

Why DID they rush out this debacle that was clearly not ready to launch?

Well, in the relaunch, the owners successfully hid all the information prospective sellers need to make an educated decision on whether or not to purchase a shop subscription.  Which is how the owners make money.  They don't make any money from sellers' sales, not having fees, only by enticing new sellers to purchase a premium shop subscription. Which some suggest had been generating a nice income for the owners until lots of experienced sellers bought them last fall and then expected the site to function as advertised.

Frustrated buyers and sellers have experienced major difficulties in the relaunch, but here's what the owners got to work perfectly!   Hiding information.

1.  They hid the ability to see how many shops there really are on Zibbet.  No way to compare actual shops with the giant banner claiming tens of thousands more shops.  (Last verifiable count before relaunch was under 8,000, day of relaunch, that exploded to over 43,000, according to their banner). Of course,  hiding that info means buyers can't search for their favorite sellers, either.  It's not a good number, so they don't want you to be able to find out.  Because a site with few sellers has little traffic.

2.  They hid the ability to see how individual shops were doing, sales wise.  No way NOW to gauge whether similar shops are enjoying sales or are sitting there bleakly with few.  10 sales a week or 10 in a year?  It's not a good number for the overwhelming majority of shops, so now you are not able to find out.

3.  They hid the ability to check stats via google analytics.  Now, you can only rely on THEIR stats, only.  Before the relaunch, google analytics showed that views were just chock full of bot, not actual buyers.  No GA for you!

4.  They hid the ability to see how sellers are doing via the forums.  They have been systematically trying to discredit anyone who expressed an opinion that was not absolutely hero-worshipping of the site (almost comically, you'll have to read previous posts here and elsewhere to see how they and some of their most ardent supporters pathetically attempted to besmirch the reputation of whistleblowers, one even going so far as to compare whistleblowers to work place mass murderers!)They've muted, booted, and made their forums visible only by approval of the owners (which means links to those forums in blogs like this are hidden).  Unless of course, you know how to view them from the back door!.  Owners who revealed that they search the internet looking for any negative comments by users on social media in order to know who to block. 

And when that didn't work, they simply removed the ability to even FIND their forums to ask questions! (With an incredibly buggy relaunch, nowhere to turn).   You need to know the internet address to even FIND the joint!  Fortunately, they do not control the whole internet.  The information is out there now, backed by screenshots in various blogs like this.

So what works perfectly in the relaunch is hiding information that would help a prospective buyer of a premium shop membership make an educated decision.

So why was this half-baked relaunch rushed out? 

For a more stable site?
For sellers, with fewer features than before and a search algorithm that doesn't even recognize plurals?
For buyers, who can't even find their favorite shops anymore?

Or for the owners, who make their money SOLELY on premium shop subscriptions?  The relaunched site works perfectly in controlling the information prospective premium paying shop sellers have access to.  Makes you wonder.  Well, no surprise for most.

So again, I want my money back.  Every cent.

Or, Don't Read the Zibbet Forums, Owners Jonathan Peacock and Pastor Andrew Gray Close the Doors

Zibbet makes me sad

In my last post (again, I thought my last one on this subject) I invited anyone thinking of selling handmade or vintage or supplies at Zibbet to read their forums, in addition to googling and reading about the experience of others who have given it a try.

But last night, the Zibbet forums doors were closed by the owners, Jonathan Peacock and Andrew Gray.  Apparently, some observations about how the owners of Zibbet made their money from unsuspecting newbies were not appreciated.  So instead of answering the questions and comments, Peacock and Gray just put a padlock on the door. 

And they won't open it for anyone whom they have suspended.  Which is anyone who's questioned how the money we gave them is being spent, why the services we paid for weren't provided, and why the traffic and sales are just SO BAD.  Or anyone they just don't like, apparently, even people who have never posted in their forums!

So if you wanted to check out the Zibbet forums, you are out of luck unless you're willing to sign up to read them.  But really, why bother?  Does a "say only nicey-nice things about this site you invested in, or else you aren't allowed to READ, much less POST" forum really provide any data for you to use?  Uh, no.  And what's particularly sad is that there isn't much nicey-nice to read either.  Hours and hours pass with nary a peep except for self promotions ("I need to pay my bills, buy from me") and ("Show me your pink items and I'll show you mine"), which somehow passes as professional marketing in Zibbet land now.  Unless someone asks a real question, then a flurry of comments before the post is closed by the owners and the questioner quickly muted and denied access to even read.  No real discussion allowed!!!

So, no worries! I take back my earlier advice to visit them.  Don't even bother with the Zibbet forums, they are officially useless.  There's plenty of info, real analysis, real facts, including screen shots, all over the internet.  Again, I'd invite you to read this blog from the bottom up.  Do a search in the Etsy forums, where the Zibbet BoyZ can't zip up lips they don't like.  Take a peek at Twitter.  There's lots of info out there on Zibbet, you don't have to have a secret password and pledge of undying love and loyalty to find it!  And then decide if your time and money are worth it.  Robin

Zibbet Review: Owners Jonathan Peacock & Andrew Gray Should Personally Invest to Provide What They Sold Customers

Why should Zibbet customers bear the financial hit for owners Jonathan Peacock and Andrew Gray's delay in the rebuild?  They owe their customers all of what we paid for and should personally invest in the site to provide those services or refund every single customer for the fees paid, if requested  Their "oh gee, we sold you this, but you aren't getting it" is not acceptable.  

We were sold these things:

1.  That the site would be rebuilt early 2014, with date of relaunch to be announced in January.  (Not happening, and no solid date will be given).
2.  That Zibbet was automatically submitting our items to 20 million buyers at The Find.com.  (Not happening,  blamed on Zibbet site issues that will be fixed in the rebuild but not disclosed AND STILL USED TO LURE NEW CUSTOMERS until "outed" a few weeks ago on the forums. The "false expectations" referenced by Peacock and quoted below.

When cornered on the Zibbet forums in January about the silence on the rebuild, CEO Jonathan Peacock admitted:
Essentially we have over-promised and significantly under-delivered, which is NEVER good in business.
No, it is not.  And wouldn't be acceptable to 99% of the experienced Etsy sellers who invested in Zibbet shops in whole or in part on the promises given in their forums and on their sales page.

MANY of us with businesses scramble at times to ensure we deliver as promised to OUR customers.  Sometimes it means pulling all-nighters, sometimes it means spending our family money to hire help or resources. 

I have done it.  I've accepted portrait commissions with a Christmas deadline that I find I underestimated.  The ethical thing for me to do is to do all I can, personally, to fulfill my promise.  That means investing my family money into doing whatever I MUST DO to make it happen.  I pay out of pocket for expedited shipping, I get take out, I stay up all night until my eyeballs literally burn to honor my contract with my customer.

I don't just wait until I'm past deadline and cornered,  to tell the customer:   I have over-promised and significantly under-delivered, which is NEVER good in business and leave it at that, as Zibbet has done!  Precious few of us would ever do that.  If I were ever in the position that I could not deliver, I would offer a refund.  Zibbet refuses to do that.  WE pay for their mistakes, not them.  The owners, Jonathan Peacock and Andrew Gray, should dig into their own pockets to live up to their promises, like most of us do when we err.

WHY THE REBUILD TIMING MATTERS

Why does the rebuild date matter so much that it affects our bottom lines?  Because the current Zibbet site does not entice buyers or promote sales.  And time is money.  Knowing you're blowing a couple of months fees til the site relaunches is a loss many of us were willing to take BASED ON THE PROMISES of the owners.  Losing half a year?  Not acceptable.  Not even knowing if the whole year's worth of fees are blown because they have no idea when they'll launch after taking our money?  Unacceptable.  They should refund us since they can't deliver what they sold us.   Personally, if necessary.

 Many of us were willing to invest in shops last fall based on representations Zibbet made regarding the rebuild timing.  Some were planning "Shop Grand Openings" this winter, to coincide with the promised relaunch, this month or next. The time wasted on listing at Zibbet in anticipation of the promised relaunch is a financial hit few of us sellers will ever recover from.  It is so much more than just the Premium Account fees, and I want that back, too!

WHY THE REBUILD MATTERS

The "rebuild" or "relaunch" of the site was mentioned frequently as the panacea for all the other issues on the site.  The horrible, blurry photos of our items, the wait of nearly an hour for newly listed items to appear, the downtime, the tacky and dated-looking front page, the lack of credible site stats, issues with checkout and paypal interfacing, the inability to bulk edit, the dinosaur-age message system between buyers and sellers, the site slowness, the site stability, the awful jerry-rigged internal search, to name just a few issues that make Zibbet shops less competitive than selling on up to date ones.

All of which affects the "sellers" (Zibbet paying customers) bottom line because buyers aren't attracted to buy, or even brought to the site at all as promised. 

WHY THE FIND.COM MATTERS

Zibbet's stability issues is the excuse for why 20 million buyers are not being shown our items via The Find.com.  Since we knew Zibbet has little internal traffic, being found via the internet is essential.  Yet Zibbet chose to stop providing that service and didn't tell us, again until forced to when confronted on the forums.

Yes, we paying customers all assumed our items were being promoted via The Find.  Zibbet said so, had it as a major feature on the page to invest in a shop on Zibbet WHEN WE BOUGHT.  How could we have possibly known that was NOT TRUE?  Knowing that our items were being submitted to 20 million buyers on The Find.com was a selling point for many of us.  It is why I invested in 3 paying Zibbet shops, in addition to the promised relaunch.  It was used by the owners as a major selling point up to the day they were forced to admit on the forums that they were not providing that service!  See cut and paste (J and A, I also have screen shots).

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Peacock (Zibbet's CEO) on January 26, 2014 at 3:20pm

Hi Deb,

We've had some issues that we haven't been able to resolve with our feed to The Find. Some sellers will find a few of their items on The Find, others will not. 

The main reason we've had trouble getting it to work, is because of the bad architecture of our current site. 

We have decided that we're going to hold off on sumbitting to The Find until the relaunch of the new site. The Find doesn't send a huge amount of traffic to Zibbet for the items that are indexed there, so we deemed it low priority.

You should definitely get to listing those items though. The organic traffic that you'll get from your items being indexed on Google, Yahoo and other search engines, will far outweigh the traffic that The Find would send you.

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Peacock (Zibbet's CEO) on January 26, 2014 at 3:24pm

Btw, I will organize for The Find reference to be removed from the seller sign-up page. Hopefully this will avoid confusion in between now and relaunch.

THE BO

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Peacock (Zibbet's CEO) on January 30, 2014 at 2:11pm

Hi everyone,

As mentioned, The Find feed submission hasn't been working for a while. It is now removed from our pricing page. We apologize to anyone that felt mislead by this. It was not our intention. 

Whilst TheFind has the potential to send traffic to Zibbet, it is a very small amount. If it were significant, we would be straight onto fixing it right away. You will get more traffic by simply listing 10 more items in your shop, which will get picked up by Google and other search engines, then you would from The Find. 

I'm going to close this thread up and if anyone has further questions, you are welcome to email me directly: 

Again the relaunch used as an excuse not to provide this service (which many of us find very helpful productive elsewhere where we can actually track where our views come from).  Also note that his opinion on getting more traffic by listing more is in dispute, being that my research and others' is showing that Google isn't providing ANY results for Zibbet within 10 pages for buyers searching for common items like "steampunk earrings", see previous posts in this blog on this issue.

THE BOTTOM LINE
So the relaunch we were promised by the owners AND the outside promotion sold to us by the owners are not happening, we customers are left holding the bag.  What are owners Jonathan Peacock and Andrew Gray doing to uphold the contract they made with us? 

Are they refunding when requested?  Nope.  We pay, they don't. 

Are they investing their own money?  Haven't heard it.  In fact, they say the rebuild all hinges on Zibbet Premium Account money.  My money. Your money.  Not their money.

There are sellers like me who depend on their online sales to pay their bills.  Their mortgages, electric, food, water, children's schools, health insurance, supplies.  Sellers who do whatever it takes to live up to the promises they made to their customers.  Sellers who invested their hard earned money in a site where owners make promises, then kinda shrug their shoulders, and say "gosh, gee, this is LOT harder than I thought, heh, heh, well, maybe someday you'll get what you paid for, but I ain't making any more promises!"  Tee hee.

They NOW say (I cut and paste, have screen shot):
We would encourage those that are considering a Premium membership only on the basis of the rebuild, to wait until launch to upgrade. We don't want to create any false expectations."
--------
And I say What about those who already PAID for a (or many) PREMIUM MEMBERSHIPS ON THE BASIS OF THE EXPECTATIONS THAT YOU CREATED THAT WERE FALSE?

What is the ethical thing to do?  What is the moral thing to do?  What is a good business thing to do?

Refund those of us who have requested it.  And stop chasing even more sellers away with your whack-a-mole mutings of customers who ask you hard questions in the Zibbet forums.  We just want what we paid for.  From whatever source you have to get the money, Zibbet owners Jonathan Peacock and Andrew Gray, whatever it takes, just do it.

The momentum Zibbet HAD in the fall began to crumble when Andrew Gray put all of our shops at risk by tweeting controversial political opinions and religious views along with tweets about Zibbet.  And their subsequent actions on the forums hurt, too.  But refusing to refund those of us who have requested them because of promises not kept and services not rendered, is the biggest blow.  It's gone from primary site or second selling site to not worth it at all.  Based on owner actions and inactions.  We all deserve better.  Give us our money back.  It's only right.

Zibbet Review: Why can't I find any Zibbet items in Google, owners Jonathan Peacock and Andrew Gray?

Zibbet makes me sad!

Ever seen a zibbet item in google search?  A Zibbet customer asked this question in the forums yesterday, while the owners Jonathan Peacock and Andrew Gray were there posting in other threads.  http://goo.gl/jcgKMd.

Maybe I missed their response?

I did see other Zibbet customers responding, all over the map.  So I did my own research.  Being that Zibbet owners only admitted when outed that they weren't submitting our items to 20 million buyers at The Find.com, as they had advertised they were, alarm bells went off, hearing that people couldn't find their items on google, either.  Not google shopping, Zibbet doesn't pay, like the other seller sites do, for our items to be found via Google Shopping.  But regular old google.

I googled these items:

Steampunk Earrings
Squirrel Earrings
Hand made Miniatures
Polymer Clay Beads

And wasn't finding any of the hundreds of Zibbet items matching those items in Google within 5 or 10 PAGES of items.  I found ebay, etsy, artfire, lots of stand alone sites, the find, amazon, books, blogs, no Zibbet.  Is it just me?   I  tried another browser, still zilch.

I asked a friend to try and find these items and again, no dice.  Now if I get overly specific, using all the words in a title, I can find them, but even then, the seller's stand alone and etsy shop outranked their Zibbet one, unless the exact order of words was used.  And what BUYER is going to use your exact title to search to browse?

Now this surprised me.  When I first began listing there, shortly after I bought a Premium membership, a few weeks in, I was finding my items.  And I sold several vintage items to people who obviously found me via google, they had to sign up to Zibbit to buy.  Right after Christmas, I searched again and wasn't finding my items anymore, but all the problems with Zibbet that arose from the C3 Church Twitter scandal were still swirling around that time, so I didn't really pursue it.

(I have since removed my items from Zibbet, I want my money back for my time and my fees spent there.)

So I had to search for other people's items, and I'm just not finding them.  Which is actually a better way to search, since google returns search results they think you'll like.  So you are more likely to find your own items anyway. 

And others aren't finding Zibbet items on google either, judging from some of the questions posed in the forums, and as of the time of this writing (12:31 p.m., EST on 2/14/14), no explanation has been given by the Zibbet owners.

But I'd sure like to know.  And I'm sure the other 9,000 plus people who have invested their money and/or time in Zibbet would, too.  Is it just me?  Let me know how well you do with searching for other people's items on google. Search the way a real shopper would.  Not by copying and pasting a title, but a more general search.  Like "steampunk earrings".  And let me know what you find. 

Is it just me?  Or did something happen between Zibbet and google that we don't know about?  Did the "pay for links" Handmadology scheme that seller ChuckEByrd warned was a "black hat" move that would get Zibbet penalized actually happen?  (Chuck was muted from the forums by owner Andrew Gray for that warning, incidentally).  Or something else?  Or nothing else?  Is it just me?  I have no answers, only questions.

Since Zibbet has no internal shopping traffic to speak of, is not paying to have their customers' items in Google Shopping, is not submitting to The Find as promised, not showing up on regular Google within a reasonable number of pages is pretty alarming.  We knew when we signed up that we would be relying on internet searches, not internal traffic, at Zibbet.  If they aren't being shown...what exactly DID we pay money for?  I want mine back.  Plus compensation for the time I wasted there.  How about you?
-------
Update!  It's the sellers' fault for not knowing enough about SEO.  According to CEO Jonathan Peacock's post in another thread, below. 

See, we're not supposed to ask these questions:
1.    Why aren't my items showing up in google when I search like a buyer does?  The purpose is to have BUYERS find our items!  Why do I have to almost copy the title to get a result from Zibbet?   We experienced sellers know BUYERS search for things like "maple leaf earrings", not a whole string of words. AND
2.    If it's the SELLERS' fault our Zibbet items aren't being found, because the internet is too "big" (???), then why do our items show up on Google with Etsy shops, Amazon, Artfire, blogs, stand alones, THE FIND, etc?  Just not Zibbet? 

You know, folks, you can't make this stuff up.  Every day the management of Zibbet outdoes itself.  To me, the following is just downright disrespectful and petulant. 

Permalink Reply by Jonathan Peacock (Zibbet's CEO) 1 hour ago

Hi Lee,

Firstly, just to clarify for everyone, whatever stats counters you install on Zibbet, using our "widgets" system, is INACCURATE. It will only count the visits to your shop from page and won't count visits to any of your items, your profile page, policies page, feedback etc etc.

Secondly, you can see if your shop is getting indexed by Google (as all Zibbet shops do), by Googling "site:www.zibbet.com/SHOPUSERNAME". In your case, you can see this here: https://www.google.com/#q=site%3Awww.zibbet.com%2FMammothIvoryCreat...

Thirdly, 42 Million results for "Mammoth Ivory" items means you're in a competitive space and means it would be extremely hard to rank highly in the search engines for this specific term. This means you need to try and be found using "long tail keywords". Long tail keywords is when you target longer strings of keywords that your customers my be searching for. You can figure out what 'long tail keywords' people are searching for using Keyword Planner as a guide.

Zibbet uses your titles and descriptions to sends Google the information they use to rank your items page / shop. This is just one of the many variables that Google uses to rank you. I have done a search for one of your item titles (which should be considered as a long tail keyword) and I found your item in the first position out of over 5,000 items: https://www.google.com/#q=+Fossil+Mammoth+Bone+Maple+Leaf+Post+Earr...

There are some really great articles on SEO in the Success on Zibbet blgo column. Have a wander through here if you're interested to learn more: http://www.zibbet.com/blog/tag/seo

Hope that helps to clarify. Zibbet absolutely submits your items to be indexed by Google and other search engines. One of the best parts about being with a marketplace such as Zibbet is that we have built up a lot of the things that Google looks for when deciding where to rank you. Sellers benefit from that.

If you can't get your shop / items ranking for your keywords, go for the long tail. The internet is big and competitive and there's millions of other sites trying to rank for the same thing. It all comes down to SEO. Learn about it and work on it if you want to rank better. 

Zibbet Review: Owner Andrew Gray Characterizes Customers on Forums as "Trolls" while Publicly Declaring He Supports All Sellers

Zibbet owner Andrew Gray joined in a private, invitation only group to encourage the shunning and manipulation of forum threads started by those with questions about the site.  Or in this case a thread that thanked folks for asking those hard questions.  The "trolls" in other words.

Publicly, of course, he claimed he and CEO Jonathan Peacock welcomed robust discussion.  But manipulation of the forum to suppress that kind of discussion by not responding to it and to instead bump "positive" threads, is encouraged by him.  Don't have your magnifying glass?  Here's what he says:
"This is super good advice and will definitely help Zibbet to stay strong.  "Don't feed the trolls"  This is fabulous & profound and the same time. :) A."

And a member responds, "Andrew this group has done an amazing job starting last night keeping the positive threads up and not responding to the obvious baiting.  They did a great job for this community." (Baiting being a thread thanking people for asking hard questions).

To which, Andrew Gray says, "Absolutely!  Good work folks.  the future for the Zibbet community is unquestionably productive, helpful, professional and fun.  Death to petty bickering! A."

Now this is a rare find, this group's posts were super secret so the rest of us only surmised it was being done based on observation of its members and the owner.   It was not private for a while today and these posts were public for all to see.  I showed it on twitter, and whoops!  It suddenly disappeared.

So while Andrew Gray is plotting privately with SOME of his customers to shut up OTHER customers, he's posting this publicly.

3. Giving oxygen to the "us vs them" rhetoric will not be tolerated (by anyone)
4. There is no such thing as favourites with admin. This notion is plain ridiculous.

from his scolding "It's Real Simple" announcement. http://community.zibbet.com/forum/topics/it-s-real-simple

The Zibbet owner mocks the perception held by many of his customers that there is a concerted effort that includes him to divide and conquer the forums to suppress questions everyone has a right to have answered, and systematically mutes without warning to ensure it when he and his "favourites" in his secret hidey hole haven't done a good enough job of it.

And people ask me why I want my money back?  Besides he and Jonathan Peacock saying they were submitting my items to 20 million buyers on The Find.com, when they weren't?   And concealed that info til outed?  $237.  I want it back.  These are not people I want to do business with.