"If I could calulate the exact amount what would you do about it anyway.
Have a good laugh?"
You know better than that. I do feel this was my fault, due my lack of knowledge regarding the cost and how it worked. AND, due to my misunderstanding your response to me. I do now know where to get the No paypal logo for my auctions. And if you will email me with the extra charges, I will pay you back. If it is too much, I may have to work an arrangement, but I will pay you back for anything it cost you extra.
As I made the mistake, I fel it is the least I should do.
posted on May 29, 2002 04:53:37 PM new
I do remember that bidsbids. But I don't see how that made me a hypocrite? I was offering to pay whatever it cost for the trouble? It is a pain, my bandwidth is bought and paid for and people are welcome to save graphics to their own server and link to them unless I have given permission otherwise.
Anything else, or just b*tchy today?
posted on May 30, 2002 05:12:15 AM new
Hap
Like I said if I could calculate an exact amount I would. But that account here is now closed so I can't view the billing for that period. Even if I could I don't think I give you my email address anyway. There is just to many cases of people that don't cheerlead for bidville end up getting their email account flooded with spam and/or virus email.
And after your crack in your first post in this thread ", then trolls, such as yourself " do your really believe that I would trust you for a second.
posted on May 30, 2002 05:54:19 AM new
Whatever Glen, either send me an amount or shut the hell up about it. I can do no more than offer to pay, and you are not entirely blameless here.
I also think the "trust" issue is a dirty blow coming from someone that is a NPB.
posted on May 31, 2002 09:13:29 AM new
Here's part of a post that was on a BV Home Improvement board. It describes the average BV seller and their wares very well ( not you HAP with your glassware at $1 no reserve for 30 days ).
As everyone knows I am now a new Premium Member.And though I still do not know all there is to know about Bidville.I can read,And this is meant for the "Card Trader"I read all the postings,And I have to agree with others,that I would leave Bidville if I had to start paying Final Listing Fees.I came here because I have a huge assorment of Nascar Cards to sell and trade.As a member of Yahoo in just short of a Year,I have had a total of almost a thousand sales.I however had a total of close to $856.00 for listing and revenue fees charged to my card during that time.I am still a active member of Yahoo,Comming to Bidville,Has given me a option of selling cards that I usually do not bother to list on paid sites as the charges become greater in listing fees,Than they are worth.However my buyers still look for them to add to their collections.There are advantages I like about Bidville,Like the fact you can run your auctions longer than the standard 10 days as you have on paid sites.You can rerun it up to 20 months with out spending all your time doing listings every ten days.I am a single mom making a living,I can enjoy more time with my family and still run my hobby,Without the excessive time it takes to continue listings every ten days.The paid sites run in 10 day increments as if you do not sell your item you will relist it,In which makes more money for them
This seller has no problem with paying almost $900 in Yahoo fees but won't spend a cent in possible future BV Fair Value Fees. She likes BV because she can list her low end cards that many collectors still want and need and do so only once every 20 months. That's the definition of a no cost ( actually $5/yr ) warehouse for low end items. That's fine, as collectiors do need some of these low end items to fill sets, etc. but that is a very narrow point of view in regards to poor, and I do mean poor, BV ever earning any real money. Would a 3% FVF really kill this seller or other sellers selling low end items? Let's say they sell at total of $200/year on items sold on BV. That's only $6 for a FVF + the $5 annual verification or selling fee. The best part is that BV may survive and they won't have to move all of the stuff to another low traffic "free" site.
posted on May 31, 2002 01:33:16 PM new
<I>"Ah, extorti ... er .... capitalism at work. Nice to see.
</I>
ROFLOL
Buzz
You are something else. LOL
[ edited by reality1 on May 31, 2002 01:34 PM ]
posted on May 31, 2002 01:35:24 PM new
JimHowHap, let's play a game. Let's pretend that BV decides to start up another beanie site or close or gawd-forbid, start charging a 3% FVF ( Carnaby and many others are at a 5% FVF ).
Where would you go with your glasswares? We can safely rule out ADiner as you don't seem to be the pyramid building type. Carnaby charges a eBay-like FVF already so they are out. ePier has flaky management like ADiner, especially if you're a rebel type. If you go back to Yahoo you'll find the longest auction duration possible is only 14 days if you use Yahoo's bulk lister or 10 days without. The listing fee is small, especially for sellers that start all auctions at $1 but there are FVFs.
The list of decent possible replacement candidates is short.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to help ensure the survival of BV with some modest fees beyond the membership fees? I feel that there may be way too many BV sellers that are taking BV for granted in that BV will be around for a long, long time. Do the math on what revenue that BV must be bringing in monthly. They can not be clearing more and a few thousand per month before paying any salaries. They can't go on with scanty revenue like that for very long.
Just something to think about.
posted on May 31, 2002 02:55:40 PM new
BV costs money to run. I do not think it is run out of a spare bedroom in an apartment the way eBay was in its beginning. Even $45,000/year net plus a thousand for the banners ads is nothing when rent has to be paid and website has to be paid for and verifying the credit cards. There has to be at least one full-time employee and he may be making a dirt wage of only $20,000/yr without benefits. How long before that lone employee says "no mas"?
posted on May 31, 2002 10:26:25 PM new
I would just like to comment on the statement made by Caffetilia or something like that. I sold at Yahoo and gave out 68 Negative ratings in a 1 year span. I have been at Bidville for 16 months and have dished out less than 25 Negatives. So I have established that your statement is horse$hit. Plus the fact that you label every card dealer as a loser is horse$hit. May I ask why you hate card dealer's so much? Just curious. Hillbilly
posted on May 31, 2002 11:01:56 PM new
It's been determined that that person is barparts from BV. Take all of those remarks with a grain of salt and there is an excellent ignore feature here at AW.
Yahoo is getting worse every day as there are not enough items for bidders. They need another FLD very badly or risk losing more bidders. There is definitely a "so what" attitude at Yahoo about the auctions by many of the bidders and a few of the sellers.
posted on June 1, 2002 12:48:14 AM new
Hello all. I'm CardTrader.
There some issues I would like to discuss. First of all, I really like Bidville. It's easy to use and and very straightforward. However, I've been becoming very concerned of late about Bidville's viability in the following years. It seems that the large majority of people who post on the Bidville message boards enjoy the status quo, but it seems very clear to me that the status quo will lead Bidville to the poor house. Here's some numbers:
I have compiled a list of 256 Bidville sellers:
-19 are Premier Gold ($15/month) = 7.4%
-49 are Premier Plus ($10/month) = 19.1%
-66 are Premier ($5/month) = 25.8%
-122 are Active ($5/year) = 47%
Just to preface that I believe 256 sellers represent about 35% of the actual Bidville sellers. As I continue to search for "new" sellers they are predominately only "Active" sellers. If you add the math up, you get a monthly income of $1155.83. I don't know what Bidville gets for advertising though. Assuming that 256 represents 35% of the sellers... that means Bidville is pulling in about $3300 per month + advertising.
Or... $39,630 per year + advertising.
I don't know how much computer equipment costs, utility fees, and salaries, but the above amount clearly can not be sufficient.
Now if Bidville initiates a 3% FVF, has a sell-through rate of 1.5%, the average auction lasts 10 days, and the average auction sells for $2.00... then Bidville can increase income by $35,000 per year.
The math is 1,100,000 auctions x 1.5% sell-through rate x 36 (if average auction is 10 days, that means 36 of them will occur in a year) x $2 (average auction price) x 3% FVF = $35,000.
Now if Bidville initiates FVF, it's somewhat safe to assume that their monthly membership dues will decline due to sellers leaving or deciding to lower their membership plan.
So there are several things Bidville must do if they initiate FVF: 1) Increase sell-through rate and/or number of auctions, 2) encourage higher end auctions prices, or 3) lower the average length of each auction. Of course increased sellers will help as well. The real problem is how? And I really don't know. Advertise?
It seems clear to me that Bidville current plan is insufficient.... and just leading towards a death spiral. I'm already noticing poorer CS and site improvements. In short, Bidville appears to be between a rock and a hard place.
What really annoys me is that the Bidville "Women's Cirle" just don't seem to care about Bidville's future. They fail to grasp the concept that Bidville might not be around in 1-2 years. They adamentaly refuse to a pay a reasonable FVF now... and will probably end up crawling back to Yahoo or eBay and pay even higher fees.
In some ways I can understand their stance, the "usual suspects" at the Bidville message boards actually do pay their fair share in membership fees. You will find that many of these women pay $10-15 per month. What they fail to realize is that they are in the minority and that most Bidville sellers DO NOT pay a monthly fee. Now if you force ALL sellers to pay a very small FVF... Bidville can make more money... while they themselves (the women's circle) might actually spend LESS per month in fees.
Am I overlooking something here? Does Bidville have another source of income?
[ edited by daredevil2010 on Jun 1, 2002 08:12 AM ]
I found 51 additional sellers that were not on my previous list. The break down:
Premier Gold = 1 (1.9%)
Premier Plus = 7 (13.7%)
Premier = 9 (17.6%)
Active = 34 (66.7%)
Now this pretty much means that my previous list above OVERESTIMATED Bidville's monthly membership income, because I didn't get a "random" seller sample of Bidville. In fact many of the 256 sellers in my list above were sellers from the message boards. These sellers tend to pay higher monthly membership fees than the "average" seller. Thus as I continue to search for more sellers, I will find a larger percentage of "Active" sellers and a smaller percentage of "Gold", "Premier Plus", and "Premier" sellers.
This does not bode well for Bidville, and the only possible saving grace is that I underestimated the total number of sellers. Also, if Yahoo! Auctions continue to decline this would help Bidville.
Finally, ever since Bidville made their gallery FREE to monthly paying members... they have made the Premier Gold membership pretty much OBSOLETE. From my experience the bulk of my Bidville credits were spent on the placing my auctions in the gallery. Well now that's free to paying members. I almost never featured on the homepage ($5.00 fee) since it never showed greater hits than the category option ($2.50). In addition, you've pretty much made the gallery and featuring option (homepage or catergory) worthless since its flooded now with everybodies auctions.
What Bidville needs to do is to either cut the amount of Bidville credits each receives per plan ($5 Premier plan = 25 credits, $15 Gold plan = 2000 credits) or find a way to get Bidville users to use their credit at a faster pace... and thus have an incentive to "upgrade" their membership plan.
I suggested that the FVF come from Bidville credit. This would force all Active sellers to at least join the minimum Premier plan, and large sellers to upgrade their account... thus increasing Bidville's monthly income. For example, people who already pay the Premier Plus plan (100 Bidville credit) would have to sell over $3,333 of merchandise a month (if Bidville charges a 3% FVF) to have them pay more than what they ALREADY PAY now! And yet they hear "FVF" and they attack like wild banshees without considering that they could reduce their actual membership fees (i.e. Gold --> Premier Plus), help Bidville advertise, and thus end up with increased sales and profit. I have one women, who's a Premier Gold member, telling me she doesn't want to have FVF because it's not fair and sellers that don't sell get a "free" ride. I guess she thinks its fair that she pays $15 a month, while over 50% of Bidville sellers pay nothing!?! Some of these non-paying members have over 10,000 auctions listed on Bidville!!
This makes perfect sense to me... and yet it gets totally negged by the "Women's Circle" on Bidville. It's becoming increasingly clear to me that Bidville's message boards are populated by uneducated women (i.e. no colleg degree) who lack the basic fundamentals of economic principles. They're interested in having "Happy Weekends" and "wondering why buyers leave Negative feedback" while Bidville's staff worries about paying next months bills.
posted on June 1, 2002 01:25:08 PM new
DD, there are a few things which you fail to take into consideration.
I have on occasion sent as much as $45.00 extra to Bidville in order to purchase extra credit to go along with my membrership. I know that I am not the only one that does this.
Also, quote,
"Just to preface that I believe 256 sellers represent about 35% of the actual Bidville sellers"
that statement is nothing more than a guess without some type of formula presented to show how you derive that percentage.
There may also be other avenues of revenue which you are not aware of.
I am not trying to argue with your figures so much as attempting to point out that they really are very little more than guesswork.
Anything, unless posted by the site owner who has the books, is simply speculation.
posted on June 1, 2002 03:44:40 PM new
You're right that there are possible additional sources of revenue for Bidville. You mention that you sent in $45 one month. If you have done so... I'm sure others have as well. Personally, I would just have bumped up my membership plan for several months and come out with several hundred extra Bidville credit.
But also keep in mind that I never counted the credit card fees that Bidville also has to pay. I believe Visa and Mastercard charges about 2% and I'm sure Bidville has to pay some additional fees. This hidden cost probably easily outweighes your $45.
Also, how much does Bidville get for their ads. Several thousand per month? Several hundred? I don't know.
As for the total number of Active sellers: My list now encompasses about 337 Verified Sellers. Whether this really reflects 35% of the seller is uncertain; however, I'm pretty confident that this is a very good ball park figure.
In fact, I willing to wager that there are less than 1000 Verified sellers in Bidville right now. This just isn't a wild guess. It comes from the number of "new" sellers I can find as I search for them. It is becoming more difficult.
I currently count 21 "GOLD" members. There is NO WAY THERE ARE OVER 60 "GOLD" members (using 35%). I would wager that there are no more than 30 "GOLD" members. As my list continues to increase the percentage of "Active" ($5/year) members continue to increase as well. This bodes poorly for Bidville.
So in short, there is little possibilty in my mind that Bidville is pulling in more than $45,000 a year in membership fees. Now add in advertising revenue... and Bidville probably is pulling in about $60,000 a year at best. Clearly this cannot cover salary, computers, bandwidth, utilities, etc...
Bidville needs to increase members and membership fees.
I think Bidville's best bet is to start FVF that can be paid by Bidville credit. This act alone would almost DOUBLE Bidville's revenue.
I find it ironic that eBay is trying to get rid of small time sellers while Bidville seems to have trouble getting them (total auction numbers have peaked for the past 5-6 months). This is a great time for Bidville to capitilize; however, they seem to lack the $$ to carry out a plan. Maybe eBay should donate $1 million to Bidville to advertise towards these small sellers. yeah, right.
posted on June 1, 2002 08:17:22 PM new
Very well thought out posts DareDevil. I think your numbers are fairly accurate even though they are pure speculation. One indication of just how many sellers there are at BV is by watching the 5 or 6 featured sellers each day. There are new ones that never seem to repeat at the rate of 180/month. There was a discussion about two months ago at the Moo about the possible number of sellers at BV and the number 400 was agreed upon by many members including I believe my esteemed colleague, the emminent math whiz, Dimview.
You are dead on with your assesment that most BV sellers are turning a blind eye and deaf ear to the probable weak financial health of BV and the consequences that could befall BV because of their fraigle revenue model. Those same sellers will scream and cry and beg for another chance if BV folds.
You are wise to carry on your fight for reform here instead of the BV forums where Bryan is Lord Jim and absolute Sultan of the Empire.
As a note there are a few old web articles out there that said that BV was setup on servers from previous Ed Orlando web misadventenures and those servers were paid for already. That was over 18 months ago though and they may be ready for upgrades or replacement. I believe the entire question of BV future rests in Bryan's hands. His salary must be a major embarassment and the prospects of it ever getting better grow dimer each day. With additional revenue streams into BV it should enhance the chances that Bryan will ride it out and remain at BV. ( ergo BV will remain solvent )
Several things:
1) I've been reading your posts for awhile now and while agree with several things you say... I think overall you and several others are too harsh on Bidville. It is probably the 3rd or 4th best auction site on the internet. Sad... yet true. Bidville must have done something right.
2) Where did Ed Orlando go? When did he leave? Why?
3) 400 Bidville sellers is a severe underestimation. I've never trusted dimview's numbers (even when he posted here), because she made far too many assumptions without real collection of data. Well, I can say for a FACT that I can list 391 current Verified sellers. I have a list of these sellers and their membership status. If you like, I can email it to you. Given the search needed to find "new" Verified sellers, I can pretty much estimate that there are AT LEAST 200-300 more sellers. Thus, the total would be a minimum of about 600. THE MINIMUM. I'm pretty confident that there are not more than 800 current verified sellers on Bidville. Thus my ball park figure would be between 600-700 sellers.
posted on June 2, 2002 09:02:14 AM new
Well, you see DD, there you go again making assumptions.
The truth is I could not "BUMP" my membership, as I already have, and have had the top membership. When I sent the $45.00, I received $600.00 in credit.
At Bidville you can by extra credit in advance at the rates commensurate with the membership plan you are on. That is why I feature almost all of my auctions, it only costs me 37-1/2 cents each.
edited to add, BTW, I sent a money order, I don't use paypal for anything.
[ edited by jimhhow on Jun 2, 2002 09:04 AM ]
posted on June 2, 2002 09:04:14 AM new
Even at 800 sellers that $5/yr equals only $4,000 and supposedly that money is used to pay a company to verify the credit cards. There was a loud roar that if members paid for premium memberships by PayPal their credit cards/bank accounts were already verified and they shouldn't have to fork over the additional $5/yr fee. Of course, they was the same matter of BV suing PayPal for breach of imaginanry contract. ( we won't even begin to factor in those costs ).
Anyway of the 800 sellers only a small percentage must be premium membership members. BV may be making as little as $10,000 a year to as much as $50,000 a year but that must be before costs.
The reason BV is loaded with items? The fall of Yahoo and the starting of AuxPal/BV were at about the same time. There were other auction starting up as well such as ePier. The reason that BV prevailed were enticements that are now almost all gone. "No listing fees" and "No hidden fees ever!" were two pledges and of course the hidden fees showed up. Yahoo was a pain to list and relist at that time and Yahoo was constantly cutting down the number of automatic relists. It was down to two when Eddydoc decided that 99 free auto relists for up to 30 days each was a great idea. An 8.5 year run of no maintenance whatsoever for an auction with one or two free image hosted photos sounded great to many sellers that had spent long hours relisting auctions at Yahoo. Of course that was just bait to lure sellers as the photos were later limited to a few and the relists were trimed to 20 and photos were lost if no views in 30 days. The referral credits were a big enticement but that program was quickly cancelled. Ed Orlando and BV were like shaddy used car salesmen. They slowly reduced all of the enticements and brought out the hidden fees all the while never spending a penny on advertising.
Where is Orlando now? They say he is in St. Claire Shores, Michigan. Did he ever marry the Vice President Jennifer Larsen? Who knows, he refuses to talk about his BV creation and hasn't said a word since right after the BV/PP lawsuit. I think Orlando was counting heavily on all the millions of PP users using his site because it was to be a 'pay by PayPal only' site and endorsed by PayPal. When that fell through he was stuck with an ordinary site just like ePier. From mansion to shack in a few brief moments, there was no real hope or promise from BV any more and to save face after a few failed Beanie baby sites and to let the hopeless lawsuit continue he let Bryan run the show and went off to other adventures. Maybe he finally went back and finished his residency for his medical career.
posted on June 2, 2002 09:41:18 AM new
Hey bids,
Just to clarify something for you. I am not Caffeitalia. Kind of like in the same breath as people seem to think that you are DIM. Now that said, I must admit that I do agree with much of what caffeitalia states, but please don't consider us as the same person.
According to the list I have compiled (391 verified sellers), about 45% have at least premium membership. In fact there are 24 "GOLD" members (6.1%) and 66 "PREMIER PLUS" members (16.9%). The rest are "Premier" members. Using my percentages and extrapolating toward 800 sellers... Bidville pulls in about $38,000 in membership BEFORE expenses (i.e. credit card transaction fees).
Well given that I was one of those Yahoo "rats" that fled the ship, and one of the first sellers to sign-up at Bidville/Auxpal... I'm pretty aware of the the changes Bidville has made. In fact I'm 100% for them and actually requested most of them.
I was one of the main advocates of reducing the relisting numbers. I wanted 10, but Bidville chose 20. I also wanted to reduce the length of auction from 30 days to 14. I was also in heavy favor for seller verification inorder to give prospective buyers some "confidence" that the seller is legit. Now I read a lot from dimview that this seller verification fee has failed. How does she know? Has she conducted controlled studies on another site that doesn't have verification fees. There's no way to know, but I think it's worked out pretty well: I haven't read about many shady sellers on Bidville or unstatisfied buyers.
It's my opinion that Bidville needs to start becoming a lot more aggressive. No... not to become another eBay, but to at least secure their financial future. Bidville has the potential to serve a nice niche market: catoring to former sellers who left eBay because they sell "small time" items. In order to make this happen... Bidville management needs to go for broke. No one shoots for 2nd or 3rd place... and yet Bidville right now seems to be so stagnant. Bidville needs to bite the bullet.
Bidville needs to advertise... and the only way that's possible is if they start generating more money. They need to start inticing sellers to pay for membership or "upgrade" to a higher plan. The only possible way I can see that happening is a FVF that uses Bidville credit. They may lose 15% of the sellers, but they will make it up in increased revenue. BTW, where will these "mothers" go? There's very few alternatives. Once you get that rolling, more revenue starts coming in... advertise... more sellers and buyer join Bidville... then even more revenue for Bidville.
posted on June 2, 2002 12:43:40 PM new
Sorry barparts. I did write It's been determined that that person is barparts from BV and not write that I have determined that it was you. Barparts stopped posting and cafeteria or whatever started. There are many double or triple posters on message boards so any possible mis-assumptions are easily understood.
DareDevil, where did you get your list of sellers? You stated that it was mostly from the BV message boards and those tended to be cheerleaders and have premium memberships while sellers that were pulled merely from listings tended greatly to be only $5/yr members.
Perhaps as an experiment you could take 100 total random listings and see what type of accounts they have. I would guess that only 10% of all BV sellers have a premium membership. There may be 1,000 sellers or seller's accounts but I'm guessing only 100 sellers fork over anything beyond the $5 a year.
It is very presumputous of you to assume that many or most of the BV improvements were made because of your suggestions. The BV customer service must receive hundreds of suggestions a week for improvements. Those remarks cast a bad shadow on your credibilty and really set of the BV populace ( and Kodi here at at AW ).
Dimview loves to rile the BV populace with the tiny sell-through rate yet she know all of the third tier sites have about the same rate. The Carnaby and SellYourItem and other sites sellers do not go into a tizzy because of the truthful ratings, just the BV sellers. That clearly shows there is a vendetta between Dimview and a host of BV sellers. That vendetta is a large percentage of the Moo posts and former posts here at AW. They all love to hate Dim and Dim feeds off of it in a near-perverse manner.
1) The list I have is of 391 Verified Sellers. There's probably only 25-35 regular Bidville posters. You do the math. My list was performed from RANDOM sellers. Essentially I would hunt for sellers from various buyers' "feedback". I was careful to get from various buyers from various fields. To say that only 10% pay membership fees shows your bias and also shows you have done very little research on the matter. About 45% of sellers have at least a "premier" membership. There's also far more than 400 sellers. Like I said, I can email you the list if you so please and you can verify the sellers and their membership status. My list, although, just a partial list shows factual proof that only 10% pay premier membership is untrue.
2) Of course not all changes at Bidville was due to my suggestions; however, I found it very coincidental that many of my suggestions (which I suggested first) were implemented days or weeks later. In fact Bidville CS used to email me asking me to clarify my suggestions as so they would have a better understanding as how to implement the change. Remember, Bidville is not run by a human think tank. It's probably just 1-2 people, and when they hear a good suggestion... then they go for it.
For example: How popular was changing 99 relists to 20. Not very. I was one of the very few to advocate a reduction. How popular was seller verification? Once again... very unpopular. I believe it was just me and 3-4 other Bidville sellers. Check the old messages on Bidville: I was one of the few supporters. Check who orinigally suggested to have "feature" sellers on Bidville. Check the old records.... it was me. I was the first to suggest it and many people thought it was a good idea. Of course I thought Bidville should charge for it. Who kept demanding that the minimum bid not be automatically not placed in the bidder box? Only me that I recall. It might be very "presumputous" of me to assume such things, but's it's also probably very true. Most people on Bidville want the status quo. They're more concerned about making friends and having baby showers. I'm not interested in that. All my posts are about improvements for the site. Why then is it so hard to believe that many of my suggestions were direct stimuli for the actual change?
I'm sure this is true for MANY old time sellers at Bidville. A lot of people had many good ideas. Like I said, if Bidville hears a good suggestion they WERE very likely to implement it. I'm not saying ALL my suggestions were implemented. far from it. However, I've stopped emailing CS about 5-6 months ago when improvements stopped occuring.
3) As far as Dimview, I don't like dimview. She and I used to battle here about her numbers. I used to tell here to take a basic statistics course before spouting off her numbers.
posted on June 2, 2002 08:05:49 PM new
Well that was a breath of fresh air knowing that barparts is not Caffetillia or Cafeiatillia or the Cafe Card Hater. All in the same sentence. They are still full of $h!t. Just my unbiased card luvin opinion. Carry on DD & BB. Hillbilly
