posted on May 28, 2001 05:34:35 PM new
I have edited this now to make it a discussion instead of advertising. Thank you everyone so far for your words, this is what I was looking for so we know what it takes to get people to want to use the service, everyone makes a difference with what they say and we will always listen.
A privacy Policy is made it is just not yet posted, lawyers are looking over it to make sure it is all correct at this point, you have our word it will be up very soon.
As for the support part of it, this is a very good concern, we will now add support for non registered users, the user support is setup to get a faster response and that is why you must be registered.
I will get to all questions as soon as I can, just keep them coming. For those of you that missed the URL or are new to this post, it is in my sig. as requested by AW.
[ edited by jsonline on May 29, 2001 02:37 PM ]
posted on May 29, 2001 11:28:10 AM new
Hi jsonline,
Welcome to AW - as a new member here I suggest that you read through our Community Guidelines - your post is promotional in nature and a violation of our CG's - Please edit it to take the promotional wording out - if you're unable to do so within the next 30 minutes, I'll have to delete your post, and since it's the first post in a thread, that means the whole thread will go if that happens - I will email you as well.
I just went and looked at your auction site and I can not find the privacy statement.
I have to see the privacy statement before I would consider registering.
I get enough spam without signing up for more. I just want to see a statement on the auction site that my info will not be sold or shared without my permission.
I also noticed that in order to ask any questions of support you have to register first. I don't think that is a good idea.
I would probably be a registered user posting a few auctions, if I had been able to get an answer to my questions without registering.
It can't be MY "fault", I've NEVER owned a "fault"!
posted on May 29, 2001 12:07:54 PM new
Its really quite silly to have to go through this, but if deleted by the Moderator, I will "ask" for some information about this auction site in order for discussion to take place.
posted on May 29, 2001 01:24:00 PM new
Hello jsonline,
Thank you for editing your post - as far as the link to your site goes - you can put a link in your signature line without any promotional wording - so please edit your first post to reflect that.
As far as your second post, this line:
We ask current eBay, Yahoo!, and whatever else auction users to give us a try
is promotional in nature - please edit that out.
Thanks for your cooperation, and welcome to AW.
Sara [email protected]
posted on May 29, 2001 02:40:20 PM new
about the user id, password, and login ID question... when you register you become a basic member, in order to sell and buy you must upgrade the account to a trade member, at this point information will be asked for to verify you are who you say you are... no a credit card is NOT one of the things asked for although a valid email setup to Paypal is.
We use Paypal for billing cause it is easier on the sellers and they do not ever have to worry about who has their credit info or getting their card charged when funds are not there for the charge.
We did many months of surveys and people showed that Paypal billing would not only be unique, but easier and more trusting.
As for who I am, My name is Danny, I work for the company... yes you are right, there are no listings but as my post stated before I had to edit it, this auction service has only been live for 2 days now.
We will get it coming along, right now we are in the works of buying advertising space all over the internet.
We are also working out a program for current users to send us new users and get up to a set amount of free selling.
Everything will come along with time, we are new, it is our first step into this industry but we are in many others and at one point or another, everyone is new to their industry... eBay at one point was new.
We do not see ourselves and never want to see ourselves as competition to eBay, we will never slander their name or open a direct attack saying we are better... no matter how big our service gets, because I will say eBay is one of the best, we would love to one day be seen on the same level but never overtake their success, they have worked hard for it and been through a lot.
Come give us a try... it takes sellers to bring buyers and it takes both to build an auction site.
Thank you for your comment on the layout, we tried very hard to not do what hundreds of other auction sites did... most tried to look just like ebay and or yahoo, we did not want this.
Have a great day and please keep the questions, comments, and concerns coming... I will get to them 1 by 1.
JS Auctions. http://auctions.jsgo.net
posted on May 29, 2001 02:41:47 PM new
The privacy note is now online and may be viewed by visiting the site. Non member support is in the works and should be up within 48 hours.
Thank you for your time.
JS Auctions. http://auctions.jsgo.net
posted on May 29, 2001 05:34:18 PM new
Hello! I was just looking your site over. Here's hoping for much success for you.
There is one little problem that I noticed that probably should be fixed, though, LOL. When I went to your site, then hit the 'back' button on the browser it would not let me leave the home page. I've seen quite a few websites where this happens and I don't know if it's a glitch or intentional--but it's very frustrating to say the least.
posted on May 29, 2001 06:27:06 PM new
This is a feature in the script, I know how you feel it is annoying. We are working on it along with the support but it is not a major item at this time so it may be a while before it changes. Thank you for your kind words and hopes for success. JS Auctions
posted on May 30, 2001 12:51:50 AM new
Just want everyone to know that the Non member support is coming along and should go live sometime today (Wednesday). Also, I would like to note that some items have been listed, this is good but to the lister please understand that if you do not get any bids it is probably because our member community is still about non existent, this will be worked on and hopefully everyone can come to our site to spend a lot less money posting then you would on other sites and make the same amount if not more off of your auctions.
Have a great day, thank you everyone so far who has signed up and thank you everyone so far who has typed their comments, concerns, and so on in this forum.
posted on May 30, 2001 06:43:26 AM new
You were told: ". . . hit the 'back' button on the browser it would not let me leave the home page."
Your answer: ". . . it is not a major item at this time so it may be a while before it changes."
Excuse me, but this is a major issue IMO. I don't think anyone would have brought it up had it not been an issue. If I go to a site and am unable to leave by hitting back, I don't usually return to that site again.
Also where are the fees? I noticed I have to register to see anything.
posted on May 30, 2001 07:45:11 AM new
Interesting site I think... I really couldn't look around it without registering and wouldn't do so without being able to look farther.
I agree that not being able to leave the page via the back button is annoying and would keep me from going back.
Are there fees? If so, how much? Will you offer other billing/verification besides paypal? I will not work with a site that only offers paypal as a means of payment or verification. These items should be easy to see on a site when visiting.
On the up side, the clothing layout is one of the best I've seen outside ebay.
posted on May 30, 2001 12:32:25 PM new
I am sorry, I did not mean that the back button problem was not important to us, anything people have to say is important, I just meant it is not a problem that is effecting how the site functions. It will be looked into and fixed as I said, but we are fixing things in the order they come in.
As for paypal, right now ... yes, this will be the only billing structure we offer, this is because the general public (not us) has made it clear that paypal is a name they have grown to trust. Down the road we may look to start up with Authorize.net if the paypal turnout is not good.
Now, down to the registration, it is true there is not much information you can access without registering first, the site has 2 memberships, Basic members and trade members ... here is the breakdown.
Basic members: Do not give us any information such as address, phone number, paypal information and in exchange they get all the information they need, even faster customer support. What can they not do? Buy and sell.
Trade members: Can do everything the basic member does as well as buy and sell, trade members are asked to supply information that the basic member is not.
Membership and upgrading membership takes 1 minute if that, there is only so much we can offer information wise to non members, please let us know what it is you want to see as a non member and we will see what we can do.
Right now we are pulling in extra staff to handle the up and coming non member support area, we do care, we will make changes, we want you as the community happy with our service. Thank you for your time and have a great day.
posted on May 30, 2001 02:23:17 PM new
Feature was the wrong word to use in that, the problem is causing such an up rise on this board that it has been moved to top priority, it is now fixed.
We are sorry for this problem, also coming up in the next day or so, links to all information non members should need such as fee's and so on.
We are working with you to make this auction better. Thank you for your time and understanding.
posted on May 30, 2001 03:25:10 PM new
NON member support and help (to help you find fees and so on) will all be in the same section. It will go live in under 6 hours.
Also about that feature wording, that I thought everyone should know was not a "Feature" in the auction itself, it is a feature in our URL redirection service by request of our users, it has been disabled for the auctions URL.
Once again we are sorry about that, enjoy clicking back as much as you want now!
Please let us know if there is anymore we can do for you as a community. We hope you will all enjoy our service.
For those of you that do not want to join due to the paypal billing, we are sorry about this and maybe one day our service will be right for you. Thank you for taking the time to check it out.
posted on May 31, 2001 09:53:52 AM new
I don't understand why you don't post your fees on the front page for all to see.
Basically, you have none except if you list something for $50 or more. Then I think you may want to reconsider the $2 per listing. Sounds like an ebay reserve auction to me.
Also, you don't have final value fees, but it took me awhile (duh) to figure that out by looking at the tables.
Are you in any major search engines? Did you know you could list with a ton of them free?
posted on May 31, 2001 11:58:41 AM new
Yes we are listed in major search engines, that is an industry we are actually in. We are not a group of kids throwing together a site trying to start an auction, this is actually a company and we have been around since 1996.
Why is it we should re consider the two dollar fee? it is basically our only fee, unless you feature, bold, or highlight your auction.
Final value fees are something I found very annoying on other sites, as did the other people here ... so they were not added. we will post a link to fees on the main page for everyone to see.
I am really curious about the $2.00 remark, please let me know.
posted on May 31, 2001 12:27:54 PM new
The fees link is now on the main page, we are working in something on the main page that will state there are no final value fees, and almost no fees to list.
Some people were having a fit about the section on our front page that listed recently posted auctions, they said it is unfair to list this on the very font page since there is a front page fee, so it has been removed, fee information will likely take its place to fill the gap.
Please let us know if there is anything else we can do to make the auction better.
posted on May 31, 2001 01:33:37 PM new
I took a look at your site.
Piece of free advice? Have a legal beagle write a proper TOS and privacy policy. Take a look at any established site, be it, Ebay, Amazon, Yahoo, 321gone, Bidville, etc. There TOS are all word similarly for a reason. To CYA.
Yours look like a bunch of kids DID throw the site together.
You might want to go back to the drawing board and do it right.
Posting here asking what should be at the site is not a very good way of opening an auction site. You will end up with a patchwork of ideas an no direction.
Best to take a look at established sites and see what works and what doesn't and go from there.
There are also many here that WOULD pay a final value fee. How do you plan to generate income to keep the site running? I doubt many would list an auction to pay the $2 fee or use the listing enhancements on a site that is not established.
posted on May 31, 2001 01:51:59 PM new
I have to agree with toollady on all counts.
I would pay a final value fee if my item sold, but I would not pay $2.00 to list my item where there is no traffic. I also wouldn't pay enhancement fees. Fees are the main reason people are leaving ebay. We're being fee'd to death!
posted on May 31, 2001 03:20:26 PM new
hmmm....new auction site....representitive comes to announce opening and seek AW's auction eagles' countenance for ideas and suggestions...
So far, they've gotten some and have responded quickly to concerns voiced.....this is a bad thing? *G*
Question: How many folks here sell widgets with reserves under 50.00?
raises hand
It so happens I was browsing the eBay jewelry category yesterday for an anniversary ring for my wife and ran across a jewelry seller who starts everything at a penny with no reserve....she currently has over 1400 auctions listed and every one I looked at had bids......I can only imagine if she moved to a site with a fee structure like JS currently has and brought her customers with her....
How much additional profit could she realize? Hard to know...
Why not list a few and see what happens...
No site starts the way eBay is now. It sounds like many want an eBay without the fees; I submit that's not likely in todays internet business climate.
From what I can tell, Dan Peterson and his colleagues run a small meta-search site similar to dogpile and are looking to branch out a bit.
With technology and information moving at light speed, who really knows who will be the next great online auction site, especially as eBay moves to large corporate sellers and squeezes out the small and hobby sellers...
posted on May 31, 2001 04:37:31 PM new
seems to me that the competition is tough and your site offers nothing new in tems of technology. Most sites that don't charge and have no revenue model have little chance to survive. While I wish you luck you have a long road ahead of you.
Thank you for your view. As for everyone looking for a free site ... this cannot happen, we are not a large company but we are well sized and by opening the auction we have had to bring on extra staff to help run it and they are on top of things, I am the middle man here ... you tell me what you want, I tell them, and it gets done.
Toollady as for our site looking like it has been tossed together by a bunch of kids, well I thank you for your view but it is not the best one, our TOS is small and to the point, this will change and our lawyer has already advised on it. Our privacy policy has been looked over and in part re written by our lawyer and has been approved. If it makes you feel better to know that the TOS is being re written though, then its time for you to feel great!
If we were to offer a 100% free auction site with nothing but FVF (Final Value Fees), we would not be able to pay our added staff that works with the auction.
At the same time many if not all of our services are free, we are not a small group of people trying to get rich and we are not a big company trying to get richer. If you are looking for free services you can always try our free email, free meta search, free online games, free URL redirection, download our free software, and much more.
The matter of the fact is, we are not eBay, no one is. eBay has the traffic that we currently do not, at the same time eBay has been around for many years and has been in and out of legal problems, getting free traffic from news reports when people sell body parts and or drugs on their site. Although this is irrelevant to the current concern on hand.
Here is what we will do, we will change the listing fee from $2.00 to $1.25, that is the lowest price you will find between JS Auctions, Yahoo, and eBay. $0.75 off the opening price, just to make the users happy.
Please take a quick second to look over the fees below:
"I was requested to remove the fee listings for other sites as it is seen to be promotional in nature, please check the site you use or stand by for their fees and then take a look at ours below"
-------------
JS Auctions
Opening Value or Reserve Price
Insertion Fee
$0.01 - $9.99: $0.00
$10.00 - $24.99: $0.00
$25.00 - $49.99: $0.00
$50.00 and up: $1.25
Real Estate: based on prices above.
-------------
No matter how low or high you sell for on other sites, you will pay a fee. Our prices are very reasonable and have even been reduced.
eBay has grabbed the market and got them right where they want them, people will sit here and tell me we should do this like eBay, eBay has traffic, well eBay also does not care about their users the way we do and they would never lower their fees so their users will be happy. Many of the issues brought up on this board were fixed within a 3 hour period of the posting, let me see eBay, Yahoo, Amazon, or any of them show you they care that much about what you, the user, thinks and wants.
Like I said before, we will never open attack on eBay, and this is not an attack ... it is a fact. I like eBay myself and yes if they did not have so many fees, I would use them to get rid of old household toys I have that I no longer need. At Just Strategy's everyone is equal, I cannot sell my items on the auction for free, it would not be fair. If I sell something on the site, guess what, I have to pay the fee ... even though I work for this company. This company is fair and very good to its customers and employees alike. We are small, yet we have been awarded for customer support and quick response, I hope that shows by all the changes made to the auction on your requests in under 3 hours.
Our software is on more then 100,000 computers worldwide, it will soon become a major part of our auction advertising. Other auctions have the edge when it comes to how long they have been around, or in Yahoo's case, their name. We do not have much traffic, items selling, or items being bid on ... but we will because we have the edge on getting out to people. Our meta search engine is a major traffic site and will help out the auctions.
The time may come when we will have no other choice to do as Yahoo did and raise prices, but we will work our hardest to keep that time from coming anytime soon. If the time comes I can tell you now, we research the market and the fees will never reach what eBay is at.
Have a great day, I am sorry that we do not supply a free auction and I am sorry if that stops many of you from signing up, but I am sure eBay and or Yahoo is and will be right for you.
-----------
JS Auctions
[ edited by jsonline on May 31, 2001 05:13 PM ]
Please edit your above post. The very minute you start to compare to other sites, you become promotional.
You are allowed to answer questions posed by the membership in a non-promotional way. We have given you much latitude and would respectfully request that you follow our rules.
posted on May 31, 2001 05:46:23 PM new
The last Post compairing sites may verge on promotional But the post also tells it like it is.
You could never get all the problem talked about and personal concerns answered and taken care of and to top it off get a fee cut in under 3 hours from any other online auction site.
Though from ebay you might get 24 hour in down time over a week in the name of makeing these repairs and then they will not be done right.
and the fallowing week they will announce a fee incresses and more policys takeing away more priviages you pay for.
Don't really know who complained about the listing fees on this the JSauction site but im to sure they could never have listed on ebay or the other big fee based sites.
most sells can have a listing feild day on this site and never pay a listing fee how can you beat that.
And then whats worse then the buyer and sellers that gripe and complain about long terms of services in seller listing and the endless rules and guid lines on ebay then turn around and insult this site for being breif and to the point less then three parargraphs.
just goes to show there are some people here who could put there own auction site up and still would complain about how it is set up sad but true. http://www.Dman-N-Company.com
Danny, I'm curious about your billing procedures for sellers...
Do the sellers pay you directly by credit card? (I believe above you said everything would be handled by Paypal)
The fees page on the site would lead me to believe I was to place my CC on file with your company for monthly billing......
I noted that you utilize an internal mail system for asking the seller questions and have transactional feedback only...
Personally, I don't mind these systems but would like to see a bit more room for feedback than 50 characters...
In light of current events at eBay, what will be your companies policy regarding sellers linking off the item description to their own web site....? Will the content of the ad be up to the seller?
I noted an indicator on the auction page of when the bidding is within 10% of the reserve. Could you have a seller post a reserve auction so we might see what that system will look like...? Also, how will a reserve affect the fee structure? I'm assuming if the start price or reserve is over 50.00, the insertion fee will obtain....
Lastly, has your company considered the many automated posting systems out there for listing auctions, like AW and its competitors as well as software-based systems? Right now, interfacing with eBay has become very challenging....any ideas about this area of functionality?
Personally, my .02 would be to find a niche in the marketplace and keep things simple for those who visit....
Pat
edited to repair UBB
[ edited by camachinist on May 31, 2001 06:18 PM ]
