dimview
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posted on July 27, 2001 06:18:54 AM new
Notice: Beginning August 1st, Bidville's image hosting will be restricted to Premier Members only. This update is necessary to keep up with the rising costs of image storage and bandwidth. Images uploaded before August 1st by non-Premier Members will remain available until September 1st. At that time, these older images may be removed from our system.
http://www.bidville.com/sell/default_pics.cfm
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rustybore
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posted on July 27, 2001 07:42:14 AM new
Sheesh --- If the managment at epier hears about this - no doubt they will launch some kind of similar scheme.
Keeping this policy change in mind, it should be interesting to keep an eye on both Bidvilles listing numbers, and Premier Member numbers for the next several months.
IMHO, Bidville has about the easiest photo hosting method out there, the "top or bottom" option is nice too!
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eSeller004
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posted on July 27, 2001 07:44:07 AM new
That really stinks! Then again I haven't made a single sale on Bidville --- not that I haven't tried --- so it's not like it will matter much in my life. 
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capefeartrading
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posted on July 27, 2001 08:17:24 AM new
Well, that's it for me! Initially had 100+ auctions running - down now to 22 - sold 9 items to 6 different buyers since January! Will be moving the last of my 22 to Bargain and Haggle! That's where I moved my others! Have sold 17 items in 3 months there! So long NoBidVille!
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RB
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posted on July 27, 2001 08:43:05 AM new
Well, I guess someone has to pay the bills!
Just out of curiosity, I note that I am getting those annoying pop-up ads whenever I visit AW forums. Do you guys that pay for AW services also have to put up with this sleazy way of advertising? If so, maybe you oughta' ask for a cut of the profits generated by this garbage 
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jimhhow
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posted on July 27, 2001 09:03:05 AM new
RB
Yes, I get them to. they are easy enough to click away, usually before the ad even opens.
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deichen
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posted on July 27, 2001 09:09:08 AM new
I am personally very UNHAPPY about this latest change. After Yahoo and this, I am getting tired of online auctions! YUK! Bad move BidVille ~ with only a 1% sell thru, this can only hurt you.
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dimview
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posted on July 27, 2001 11:33:16 AM new
Bidville no doubt recognized that their low sell-through rate, coupled with an ever increasing quantity of largely unwanted, inventory warehoused items, would soon necessitate significant capital expenditures for additional disk space.
With 700,000 listings using X disk space and a sell-through rate of 1.5%, the prospect of even doubling to 1,400,000 listings and using 2X disk space with an unchanged sell-through rate was probably not how they envisioned their auctionsite developing.
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RB
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posted on July 27, 2001 01:37:52 PM new
But big disks are a bargain these days. Heck, I can get a 20X disk for less than 100 bucks
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dimview
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posted on July 27, 2001 01:57:07 PM new
Yup, big disks for our computers are cheap these days and those meeting more stringent requirements for use in servers are pretty cheap too.
So Bidville could pick up a few disks on the cheap, they get so few pageviews their disks aren't spinning all that much, therefore very little bandwidth is being used, so why the urgency of the change?
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bidsbids
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posted on July 27, 2001 02:04:43 PM new
Not even gonna be a decent wharehouse site anymore. If carnaby could run a few banner ads in the next few days they could lure away a few hundred thousand of BVs auctions from a disenchanted group of sellers. Like a boxer, you have to take advantage of sudden opprotunities that open up.
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dimview
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posted on July 27, 2001 02:09:44 PM new
I don't think Carnaby, which seems to have set their sights a bit higher than 1.5% sell-through rate, or any other auctionsite, would be enthused about inventory warehousing several hundred thousand items from Bidville where they attracted few pageviews and even fewer bids.
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timetravelers
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posted on July 27, 2001 02:40:06 PM new
sounds to me like an excuse to shake out the cobwebs & clean house.at bidville..
i think many people will be giving up auctions if these Free sites start charging for services,,it will level off to just us pit bulls left LOL...we never give up..
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bidsbids
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posted on July 27, 2001 02:52:56 PM new
Carnaby needs some items on it's site BEFORE it can start an ad campaign. "Come to Carnaby" ads would look silly if visitors saw just a few thousand items listed. Carnaby needs to announce a date that ads will start, that could attract the needed sellers.
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telwil
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posted on July 27, 2001 04:14:39 PM new
This has and will hurt bidville sorry to say. Some people are afraid this is just the begaining of more bidville fees. The Free for ever if you signed up by march 10, 2001 does not seem to be standing up. I will stick it out just will run most listings without pictures and drop some listings. I hope the Prez will use this new found money to do some real advertiseing but I will not hold my breath. It is a sad day for bidville the listings are already starting to drop I hope it levels out before it hits a BooHoo bottom.
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dimview
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posted on July 27, 2001 04:29:55 PM new
Then again, a $5/month or $10/month fee is certainly not going significantly impact a good many sellers bottomline as they have reported robust sales in other threads of late. Perhaps the end of free image hosting will have no effect at all.
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saxkid
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posted on July 27, 2001 04:38:29 PM new
Just a few comments:
yes regular hd's are very cheap these days. however, most servers worth their salt are not running cheap ide drives they are running considerably more expensive and reliable high end SCSI drives which are also considerably more expensive.
I think this impacts very few sellers. i know alot of sellers at bidville are using other image hosts anyway. AND, people using the bulk loader are also using a seperate image host. I actually find it easier to use another image host when you're dealing with more than 10 auctions anyway.
You get alot of bang for your buck with the premier memberships. I don't think bidville will lose that many people over this.
Hosting these images also hogs alot of bandwidth and makes the site slow. Maybe with the current funds, it was either hosting the images, or providing faster loads. I think faster loads are the way to go.
http://www.bidville.com/search/user_search.asp?user_id=blackcatgifts&shop_type=gallery&sort_by=
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Joanne
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posted on July 27, 2001 07:48:13 PM new
Since the free image hosting is now going to be a part of Premier memberships, I think those of us who *don't* use BV's image hosting, thereby saving bandwidth or whatever it's called, should be allowed some extra credits - maybe $125 instead of $100 for the $10/month.
Anyone from Bidville reading this?
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daredevil2010
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posted on July 27, 2001 09:46:24 PM new
I read most of Bidville's message board and it appears that only 3-5 people are making all the noise (dimview's probably one of them in his "hidden" identity). People will complain and whine about anything. This pretty much shows you that Bidville should have never offered FREE Host Imaging from the beginning. Charge or reserve for members the "extra" listing goodies.
People feel that they deserve free hosting from Bidville. Why? Bidville only promised free listings. You don't need photos to list! Just like how you don't need the gallery or feature.
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gmileske
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posted on July 27, 2001 10:12:02 PM new
Daredevil
Almost from the start Bidville has adding to paid services. That would be great BUT they do not advertise or do promoting of thier site.
In fact it is a very small amount of sellers that do very well there at all.
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uptoolate
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posted on July 28, 2001 01:51:37 AM new
I don't really see the fee itself as having much of an effect on the site, it is easy enough to use an offsite host and continue on totally free BV.
On the other hand I do see the short notice, backing out on the "no membership fees forever" promise to charter members and evading questions as issues that could make people leave based on principle.
I did not keep my email with the free forever promise, after Paypal & Yahoo I frankly didn't think it meant much. To my recollection it had only referred to listing fees however someone posted their copy which stated:
those registered before March 10 "will NEVER be charged membership fees, listing fees or FVF's". (The capital NEVER came from the email, not me.)
Hmmmm, if I had ever paid for a Premier Membership fee I'd be looking into a refund right now. But then I guess they must have meant IF a mandatory membership fee is implemented the original users would be exempt.
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RichHillbilly
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posted on July 28, 2001 05:31:40 AM new
The part that really angers me about Bidville, applying this new rule to all of the seller's, is that they never gave any fore warning. The announcement wasn't even put up until people started complaining. I have no problem with them charging the fee, but a business of this caliber should act a little more professional. What they did isn't so much the problem. It is how they went about it. Very poor business ethics, and I don't think anyone can argue this issue. The bottom line is Bidville pulled another Yahoo trick out of their hat. Oh well! There is many, many sites to choose from. If it really comes to that. I have always said if they would charge $10 to $25 a month to list at Bidville, they could use some of the money to advertise, and bring in more people. But then of course, what do I know? Hillbilly
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RB
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posted on July 28, 2001 06:40:36 AM new
Rumble ... rumble ... rumble ...
Mutiny ... mutiny ... mutiny ...
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dimview
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posted on July 28, 2001 07:00:16 AM new
Consider this:
Just two weeks ago it became public knowledge that Bidville had filed a lawsuit against PayPal. Some of us discussed it here at AuctionWatch; others wanted to talk about waffles, the Pillsbury Dough Boy, the weather, etc.
http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=33&thread=11880
Bidville even mentioned that they'd like to see PayPal make a quick cash settlement, but PayPal responded they intend to defend themselves in the matter.
So here we are today with Bidville giving short notice on the end of free image hosting and doing their best to steer users to sign up for $5/month and $10/month membership plans.
Why do I get the feeling that Bidville needs some cash in the coffers right now?
[ edited by dimview on Jul 28, 2001 07:02 AM ]
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bidsbids
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posted on July 28, 2001 07:38:04 AM new
In response to DareDevils comment about BV not even having free image hosting at the onset of it's operation. IMHO, if BV did not have free image hosting when it started I am fairly certain we would now see ePier with over 500,000 auctions and BV with only 100,000. The free image hosting was the main draw to their site along with unusual features like up to 99 free relists of up to 30 days each that must have seemed like the Promised Land to the sellers that were on Yahoo when it had only 2 relists of up to 10 days.
Does anyone else agree with my assesment?
Oh yes, Bidville is the best place to have fun in the free auction arena in CyberSpace !
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robnzak
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posted on July 28, 2001 07:46:07 AM new
folks complain that they didn't get fair warning...but I don't think it's so bad, 5 day notice that the hosting service will no longer be available to non-premier members and 30 days to adjust your listing. That's plenty of time! And if someone is incapable of adjusting the way they list,by using a free hosting service, and think five bucks a month is too much of an expense to run their business, then perhaps a change of career is in order.
JMHO- Rob
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dman3
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posted on July 28, 2001 07:56:01 AM new
actually it was not so short of a notice they are not just turning picture off on users auction or deleteing the phots stored on there server.
You have 30 days to decide what you want to do.
This is no shock or suprise bidville never garenteed they would be free for ever they just made the free listing garentee to the user who register buy a set date there plans were always to have fees. to list and sell there.
in fact I think starting out chargeing for photo hosting rather then chargeing listing fees to sell is the wiser Idea on there part.
http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
Email [email protected]
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telwil
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posted on July 28, 2001 08:08:46 AM new
Did bidville send anyone a email announceing the new changes I still have not got mine? The socalled 5 days notice was not posted till a use announced what she discovered it when she was trying to list. After people got upset and the cat was out of the bag then bidville posted their announcement. They were more then happy to send 2 or 3 emails out to tell their members about the $sale put they dont seem to have in attention of email the membership about the new charges most sellers dont read the chat board so they still have not recieved any notice. I do not think they will be happy when they go to check their auctions after the deadline and see their pictures are gone and they will have to pay bidville $5 to $10 amonth to have them host them plus they will have to retake their pictures and relist. This $5 to $10 amonth charge for picture hosting is a special run by bidville it saves you 75% to 90% what happens when that special ends and the premier members wakeup and find their cost has jumped 75% to 90% no special service last forever just like bidvilles promise.
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bidsbids
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posted on July 28, 2001 09:14:42 AM new
The whole picture hosting issue is really just academic anything as only a few items sell each week on Bv anyway. Even the much tally-hooed 'Featured sell-through rate' touted by Bv on it's site dropped to below 28% last week and the Gallery rate was just one-out-of-every-twenty items listed were sold.
It's painfully obvious that very few buyers are buying or even browsing the small, unknown free sites. eBay must laugh their Pez off when they see those sell-through rates.
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RB
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posted on July 28, 2001 09:27:38 AM new
Did bidville send anyone a email announceing the new changes I still have not got mine?
Check the BV site - only some members got the email.
Seems that all pigs aren't created equal after all. (from "Animal Farm" before people start accusing me of calling them names!!)
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