posted on April 7, 2001 09:36:43 AM
I know this is off the subject, but it proves how we need to be honest in our auctions or we start pi.... off people. I keep seeing these banners for classmate.com so I went and checked them out. They say " find your old friends - FREE" So I signed up, went to my high school listing and saw some peoples names I remembered. Well what a scam - you can't get their email, or phone numbers unless you pay $30. I guess when they say find your friends for free, they really mean find your friends NAME for free and anything else cost you $30. Well that got me mad and if they said that up front I would understand. It just proves - tell the real deal, even in your auctions - people will understand. Don't say somethings free when it's not.
posted on April 7, 2001 10:26:23 AM
It is just a good marketing ploy by them. Would you have clicked the banner if it said "Only $30"? This is no different than Columbia House offering you so many free CDs or movies and then making up for it on the high shipping and handling. Or an auction for that matter. Once you click you see the actual costs. Besides, Classmate.com is a company wanting to make some money. They may have got a bit of info from you and maybe they were able to drop a few cookies on your machine.
Same as any auction, ask yourself what it is worth to you. Is it worth $30 to find a person from your past? You could probably find them for free if you did a bit of detective work.
I have a person from my past I may be willing to pay a .com $30 to keep him away from me.
posted on April 7, 2001 11:24:39 AM
I feel the same way you do.
And although the specific example is a non-auction, banner advertisement I do think the underlying approach, of what I consider is deceptive baiting, is a valid topic to discuss here in the context of what is appropiate in auction titles and descriptions.
I suspect they do it that way because it works. Not a acceptable reason but maybe, at least, an explaination of why that approach is used.
Could be that someone with more knowledge of this form of advertising can give us some insights.
If they ran two nearly identical ads with only one variable, that being one ad said "Free" and the other said "$30.00", the sales results might be better with the "Free" ad.
Sure they annoy some people like us but if they make more money they might not care about their reputation. I'm not aware of large companies with established creditability ever using this approach. Usually it's smaller businesses that don't count on positive name recognization for ongoing business.
eBay is a prime market for this approach and it's variations like 99 cents ( plus $8.01 s/h). Anything that gets potential buyers to open the listing and makes the auction stand out from hundreds of similar offerings will continue to be used.
I see it most often in new, lower priced widgets where marketers are looking for volume sales. It also seems to drive out the more "honest" competation.
Don't know if there is any answer to this concern. I do think it degrades the marketplace but it's more a matter of style as long as the "Large print giveth and the small print taketh away".
It reminds me of the "Going out of business auctions/sales" that run every weekend in my metro area for Oriental rugs. The same guys have been doing it for a decade.
Ebay has more than it can handle just trying to stay up and police the outright fraud that they will never be able to monitor the marginal hustles.
For finding classmates I've found that many schools now have an official or alumni sponsored web site that will provide a lot of classmate information. Usually no cost other than being solicated for school fund raising donations, being invited to reunions and hearing from people you never want to see again. Try doing a web search on the schools name.
posted on April 7, 2001 11:49:50 AM
Many people do not know how to use the "free" aspect at classmates.com. They do give you a free short bio when you do the free registration.
The majority don't read that you can post a free bio such as state where you live, your career choice, how many children, grandchildren, and your email address.
In the free bio if you put in your e-mail address, this alleviates the need to register. I did and have been contacted by many of my old friends. But some I tried to contact did not put in the free bio.
posted on April 7, 2001 12:06:46 PM
I've used both the free and the paid parts of the Classmate.com site. Liked both.
Ran into a few folks on the message boards and I did pay the $30 to get ahold of one person I really wanted to track down (FWIW: I had tracked that person down online....but the info was about 4 years old and was worthless).
