FREE online auction

lazymoezy

The site does look amatuerish, I think you should get a proper web designer to help you out if you cant do it yourself, personally, for me I judge the site by its cover. It does matter how the site looks, my brother is a web designer, he has many many websites, abd I can see the affect he has on websites (good affect!).

How much roughly have you spent on the site inc. promotion? (You dont have t answer this)

blue_haddock

As others have said you have no real advantage over ebay apart from being free, however i would rather pay a small amount in fees and receive more for the item like i would on ebay than pay no fees and and get little for the item.

There is hardly anything on the site and what there is doesn't look anywhere near as professional as other auction sites so i really can't see many people joining.

Nice try but i really can't see it taking off.

soolin

I would also re stress that free is not unique if anyone has been around long enough to remember freeserve auctions they used their unique point as being that they were free to use. They were big, much bigger than any of the other non ebay auctions around now but sellers abandoned them in droves. Eventually they folded(or ebay took their base over?) as sellers realised that they made more money paying to list on ebay than by using freeserve.

The problem is that free listing attracts rubbish, I'm sure many of us here would admit that if we did decide to use a free listing site we would use it for the tat we wouldn't waste listing fees on with ebay. I have some good selling items, they ggo very well on ebay and yes it costs me a fair bit (my last invoice was £120) but they sell and not only do they sell but they sell at a premium. I wouldn't risk those items on a new site but might be tempted to list my 1p books that don't go on Amazon, or the odds and ends that I can't sell even of a cheap listing day on ebay. All the buyers would see then (as they did on Freeserve) was pages and pages of items all ending without a bid. The good stuff was often overlooked.

You will also see if you hang around and wait for the next cheap listing day on ebay, that many of the regular sellers, myself included, will be happy to see a CLD but will mention that we will use it to clear some items we can't normally shift. I certainly don't list my good stuff on a cheap day as again it gets buried among everypne elses junk and can be overlooked and my prices suffer.

Look at ebid, a name many of us are familiar with in fact several regulars signed up to them last year but I'm not sure any reported major success? Their banner says "Still paying Listing, Reserve, BuyNow & Store fees? Join the online auction revolution today." Another one is total bids and their banner reads "Total Sales Bonanza!
Sell Free on Totalbids - To celebrate the launch of our new look website all selling on Totalbids will be free until summer 2006! That's right, all auction listings on Totalbids are completely free of charge. This includes featured listings, enhanced and bold listings.
Click here for more information."
I could go on and on here but I go back to my original question really, what can you do to make yourself unique? You will draw people to you if you have somehting that no one else has..otherwise you are just going to be the newest auction in an ever increasing list. I assume you did all the usual market research, if so what did people want that you can offer them? I'm sure if a question was asked of a focus group along th elines the lines of 'what don't you like about ebay' they would say 'the fees', but if you break that down we might not like the fees but we accept they are a necessary evil to keep our stuff selling.

Sorry I have gone on to long here, but whenever a new site is lauched there is that frisson of 'will this be a serious competitor?" and being able to dig down to find the unique selling point is of great interest. Sell me your site, sell the other MSE'ers your site, "tell us" why you are different and how it will help our sales. Don't put all your hopes on being free, it's been done and it hasn't worked, tell us what else you have that will be advantegeous to us. If you can get the sellers, the buyers will follow.

Soo

soolin

Sorry, I know I am monopolising this thread and will leave it alone for others, but I had a think while I was cooking breakfast.

I tried to think of what other places I sell, and why and realised that some specialised items go well on sites other than ebay and wondered if you could work along those lines? For example, think of books and you get Amazon or Geenmmetropolis usually before you think ebay. So find a unique item, and find the people that buy sell or trade that item and concentrate your marketing on them.

There is a story that ebay set up originally to sell pez containers and whilst I understand that might be just a clever story that ebay put out to make themselves look 'homely' it did give me this idea.

I can't honestly think of a category, maybe market research might help, but take as a pure example stamps...set the site so that stamps are given priority, all the categories are there for ease of use and a handy guide to grading quality etc is available for buyers and sellers. Then target your philately forums, web sites and chat rooms (make sure you adhere to any spam/advertising policy). Then when those people come to your site and start using it, they may be tempted into other categories as well, maybe listing stamps but adding a few collectable items or new clothing at the same time. Maybe picking up fishing equipment that catches their eye.

Maybe there is an obvious market there that I haven't thought of, PC bits and bobs, sci fi stuff , baby items, whatever it is it needs to be big enough to make a start to get the customers.

Soo

lazymoezy

I agree with Soolin. You got to be in a specific are ain a market, not a broad market n say i'll sell everything, you should concentrate on one thing, then maybe once your successful, you can expand. Looking for market gaps and doing something different and unique compared to your competitors takes up a lot of time and research, have you done this?

Have you got some sort of business plan? or did you just think of being a competitor to eBay and making a site out of the blue? Even though your business is intangible/service, I think a good business plan which inc. a marketing plan, operational plan and a financial plan should get you off to a good start. All those basically help you plan, identify problems early, and can be used as a guide.

All the above is just my point of view, it may sound useful or stupid, but it's just my view and I hope the above did help even in the slightest way.

-MoE-

niauctionmart

thanks guys for all the help. As l said before it is new and you always have to start off somewhere. The mistakes made are mistakes in the learning. The sites free anyway and you are always welcome to it, Its another avenue for people who wish to advertise their items for free. keep the points coming in.

watch this space.

https://www.niauctionmart.com

Sugar_Coated_Owl

So the only advantage of your new auction site over eBay is that it's free, is that correct?

lazymoezy

You dont start something just like that, by the sound of it you didnt plan properly did you (correct me if i'm wrong). You possibly can't just start a business like that on the basis of 'I'll learn from my mistakes'.

-MoE-

soolin

razorbladekisses wrote:

So the only advantage of your new auction site over eBay is that it's free, is that correct?

That's really what I have been trying to work out, but I think you ask it better than me , I waffled everywhere :money:

There are loads of free sites out there, so what did the market research show was missing that you feel you can pick up on? (You did research the other free auction sites didn't you?)

Soo

Rex_Mundi

I find it incredulous the answer we've had from the OP!!!

I've felt that some very valid points have been raised in this thread.

In return, the answer given is 'we all make mistakes', and 'we are free if you want to use us'. This is incredible!!!!

It almost looks like other posters in this thread have looked at the OPs business model more than he has!!!!

I would SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY SERIOUSLY suggest from what I've seen so far......go back to the drawing board. Take onboard what you've seen, and come back with something that stands a chance!