posted on May 29, 2003 06:40:00 AM
I have been lurking and sometimes posting on the boards here for almost 2 years now. I have NEVER EVER seen a post by stonecold613 that was anything but a lame attempt to mock or insult someone or something. Does he also use the name JustJoe by chance? I'm starting to think he works for ebay or use to own a now debunk 3rd tier auctions site himself.
posted on June 13, 2003 03:31:12 PM
i went to IOFFER and made some offers.
a few days later i heard from the sellers,it was automated email asking me to go back to the site and view the seller counter offer.
There is no auto link to click and get there.
so i did not bother,i am not that curious to find out what the counter offer is.
IOFFER should do something about this,buyers are just not interested in more work.
posted on June 13, 2003 04:26:03 PM
There is a lot of stuff that needs fixing. There was word that they were going to fix the stores so you didn't have to constantly scroll to see anything. There is a lot of unnecessary logging in over and over that needs to be fixed. The place is a ghost town except for whatever buyers you bring to your store.
posted on June 13, 2003 05:39:13 PM
i bidded on 2 specialty auctions outside ebay,they do quite well,leveraging their expertise and competence in bringing buyers and sellers together.
they collect 15% premium from both buyer and seller and no one seems to mind.
may be any new auction site should consider specialising in certain category??
posted on June 17, 2003 11:12:59 PM
hi made a nice sale there yesterday to a buyer apparently came over from ebay. they did a site redesign,lots of new stuff. they did change the stores a few weeks ago.
let them know your sign in issues there is a suggestion box bottom of the page.thanks
posted on June 18, 2003 07:16:09 AM
stopwhining there should have been a message box for you to communicate,unless the sellers declined your offers.
also in "myioffer" page just like myebay type page for all your stuff..
there is buying,selling,etc tabs,,Under BUYING there was a special extra link Ioffer designed just to the right of the offers to email & message,A COMMENT TO SELLER you can use at anytime.
this is for buyers and sellers to contact each other at any time works well.
there is a contact us link at the bottom of every page,they get right back to you if you have trouble.
also the FAQ top of every page,& a revised buyer & seller tour..
too bad that happened.
posted on June 18, 2003 01:13:11 PM
With the difficulty of policing the 100,000+ listings I suspect a large percentage of all ioffer deals are done outside of the ioffer official arena. The repeat customers must have an even higher incident rate of evading ioffer fees because the emails of both parties are then known to each other for sure.
posted on June 18, 2003 08:01:22 PM
they have lowered the price for a 2nd category listing to .10, with 30 or 60 day listings for a dime that is quite a good deal,add a feature like bold (you get an extra link to your store in the search results under your item title when you use a feature) that is 1.10 total(they don't double it like ebay)for bold,2 categories 60 days a a clean site with a lot more traffic than any of the other small sites.
They are only just a year old, compare them to some that have been around for years,they will be catching yahoo in listings soon.
The owners were employees of ewanted,that site was around 2 years & the million members are all now members of ioffer another reason for traffic being good. They don't put up with scammers,even have carnivore software to catch it.
New things are added all the time,next will be more photos,(they just added thumbnails free).
The key to growth is the fact they are relaunching ewanted,i understand the WANTED ADS will be for ioffer too and this is going to be big.Between the new mrgrabber grabbing listings from ebay,yahoo,and amazon,ratings too & you can mirror you items,many new people coming over inc a lot of ebay powersellers.
check them out at alexa,compare to sellyouritem(2years old)epier(2years old?)
if new to ioffer you need to take the buyer or seller tour,read the site map,read the faq,different than auctions.
If you see there remember most buyers are from ebay i type not an auction use buy now or make an offer on every listing. It helps a lot,also they put your profile,store and listings in the search engines.You must put keywords of what you sell in the profile & store to get the extra traffic.
you can link to your website as long as you link back,they provide a banner.
[ edited by timetravelers on Jun 18, 2003 08:08 PM ]
posted on June 18, 2003 08:30:20 PM
With a million registered users, logic would dictate listings and sell through would be significantly higher than it is.
Do the million who were ewanted users even know they are now registered at ioffer?
I just don't see the action everyone is claiming they are getting at ioffer. At least the feedback doesn't reflect it.
posted on June 18, 2003 08:53:17 PM
I can not imagine anyone paying for listing extras. The FVF and 50 cent minimum is one of the highest as it is without adding any more cost to the item.
If they're policing the site they are doing a poor job because some sellers have 10 identicle listings spamming the place.
They are adding new features and trying new stuff and that's a definite plus.
posted on June 18, 2003 11:09:14 PM
yes they know there are things to take care of,they just did a site redesign. they just sent a huge mailer out to the membership and many are noticing sales picking up hits too. well .50 min fvf fee is pretty cheap when you can list as many items as you like and a free store with a shopping cart..besides i don't mind paying & supporting the site when i make a sale.
this site has all we asked for,for years,we can link to our websites,they don't hassle anyone unless they are a scammer,they have done a super job keeping fraud off the site & that is not easy.
remember if you sell multiple items to a buyer in your store, the fee is only on the total, these guys are not greedy..
Many people coming to the site are used to auctions,the percentage leaving feedback is not real high so that is not a good indicator.
thanks
ps they have want ads,buyer alerts,seller alerts,snag a sale,lots of neat stuff
check it out, read the tour, but any seller that does not make a profile,or customize their store with keywords will not get as many sales,as the search engine traffic is really making a difference.they have a recommend a user banner everyone links to each other,then you grab the banner for your site,puts you way up in the searches.they are innovative
[ edited by timetravelers on Jun 18, 2003 11:20 PM ]
posted on June 20, 2003 10:41:54 AM
It's not junk, it's the mostly same items as found on ebay and other sites. If anything positive, the 50 cent FVF on item(s) totaling under $10 tend to weed out the junk.
The traffic may be slow but I wouldn't count traffic as a reason to list at ioffer. The free store with cart and Froogle feeds is the best reason to list at ioffer. No where on the web is there such an attractive offer. Many auction items are slow movers and may often wait long periods of time for the right buyer to find the items. Ebay is not suited for these items with it's insertion fees. Half.com is free to list but it is going away soon. That leaves small sites as the main place to list slow movers and low profit items. A small ( but growing ) site with a free store is the best one can do with these types of items.
posted on June 26, 2003 08:53:04 AM
you guys can talk till your faces turned blue.
i made some offers and yes,the sellers counteroffered thru ioffer.
i received an email from ioffer telling me i should go back and check what the counter offer is.
the link is not clickable,and i dont want to be bothered.
ioffer should tell me in the email what the counter offer is and if i like it,i will click on a clickable link and either accept or make another offer.
most of the items are not that unusual or valuable,all that email and cut and paste is just too much work .
sorry,thats how i feel.
posted on June 26, 2003 01:28:14 PM
are you using a web email. I know my AOL account breaks up links so I can't click on them. They want to keep you within AOL.
posted on June 30, 2003 05:38:18 PM
Even 10 cents for an added listing enhancement is out of line considering the current traffic and level of selling on the site in my personal opinion.
posted on June 30, 2003 05:50:34 PM
Have you ever checked the traffic on alexa.com. I just compared ioffer to sellyouritem. http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=medium&url=http://www.ioffer.com/#top
posted on July 1, 2003 01:41:30 AM
i beleive syi has 40,000 (need to allow for the free 2nd category also so it must be less)listings after 2+ years ioffer has 130,000 they just reduced 2nd category from .50 to .10
so you can see they are the very first player to leave other sites in the dust their 1st year..
you need to realize too,the listings are for a choice of 30 or 60 days,,
so if you pay a dime,,for 2 categories..
60 days of exposure is really great.you can link to your site as long as you link back too.
If Sal is reading this,ioffer needs you to put keywords of what you sell in your profile and store..you have only been there a few days, i don't know how a magician could get your on the first page of search engines for a common item like windows in a few days,especially since those words are not on your profile or store.i tried to explain it on the other thread.
good luck
ps someone asked IOFFER HAS A LINK TO COMMENT TO BUYER OR SELLER RIGHT ON MYIOFFER so yes,you can communicate,also you have the new feature OFFERME you can bundle items or a single item & SEND THE DEAL TO THE BUYER TOO..very kewl (especially for newbies to the net & puters so easy)
[ edited by timetravelers on Jul 1, 2003 01:44 AM ]
posted on July 3, 2003 08:20:35 AM
Actually SYI currently is over 52,000 listings, and I believe that number is adjusted to remove the effects of double category listings (i.e. listed in two categories only counts once towards that total).
And I have had more sales from SYI than I have had at Ioffer.
posted on July 3, 2003 08:37:39 AM
rubylane has made an offer feature,you put in an offer and it tells you instantly whether it is accepted or counteroffered,you have 3 chances to make offer,then finally it is forwarded to the seller to decide.
why bother to go outside ebay when you can find more items and it is so easy to use??
posted on July 3, 2003 12:45:18 PM
Some auction items are very low cost items that are not suited for ebay with it's minimum 30 cent fee. For instance, sports or non-sports card collectors may need a few inexpensive cards to finish sets and those items would not be found at ebay but would abound at Bidville Auction. There are thousands of Take It Now format penny auction cards there. I suppose a lot of the 75 cent Half.com books will land at sites like Bidville when Half goes away.
posted on July 3, 2003 05:47:20 PM
The sellers pay Bidville $10 per year to have their credit cards verified and provide a layer of security to help reduce scams. That's the offical reason for the payment anyway. That $10/yr seller's fee plus a few monthly membership options that allow sellers to receive credits that can be used to feature their auctions are the other sources of revenue. With pen and paper a person can easily estimate that Bidville earns approximately $80,000 per year and that's enough for them ( basically a one man Wizard of Oz operation ).
Senior Investigating Officer, Internet Fraud Unit, International Web Police.
