posted on June 6, 2001 09:26:15 PM
Yet another scheme on eBay. I am surprised that eBay isn't an investor on this one!
Give someone $500 MINIMUM and then pick the items they are going to list....
And IF it gets more than one bid, you keep the profits!
Sounds good, until you look at their current auctions.....
Of the 5000 auctions they currently have running, the total amount that have bids.........(and yes I counted them) .........................are you ready?
81!!!!!
Yup, you heard right! 81 out of 5000!
With a sell rate of 1.6%, where do I sign up?
Hmmmmmm.....I wonder what they are making their money off of......
posted on June 7, 2001 05:41:40 AM
Take a look at some of their shipping charges ~
I found TakeToAuction about six months ago when DH wanted to get me a TAG watch for my BDay.
Shipping was over $40 (actually $48 UNinsured if memory serves correctly)!!! The @#$%!* thing doesn't even weigh a pound!
Poor newbies getting scammed on the buying and selling end of this bogus company!
only ZOOMIN here
My favorite quote is the last line of the article:
"Good money to make in one's spare time, but not enough to retire on."
Sounds like what people say who've moved to Vegas and spend their time moving between slot machines. A few will hit--and that's "good money in your spare time"--but most will walk out with their buckets empty and their hands dirty.
Another thing; The auction transaction process already creates a sometimes confusing atmosphere (deadbeats, etc.), so I cannot imagine introducing another turn in the journey to success on Ebay.
Seem like it might be easier (and wiser) to play the stock market or get a real job.
posted on June 7, 2001 02:28:54 PM
I wrote my own little review/analysis of TTA to an AW thread well over a year ago. Last I looked, that thread has expired, but here is a different way of looking at it, from what I could figure from what I saw back then (I doubt the system has changed)....
TTA: A seller with multiple IDs. TTA is the one who handles almost every aspect of the sales of products. The fact that IDs are assigned to "members" doesn't change that TTA is doing the work of selling.
Member: Someone who puts extra money into the TTA system, in the form of a membership fee, and who gets one of those IDs mentioned above assigned to them, so they can tell TTA what to "take to auction."
Bad sale for a member: if TTA messes something up (e.g. item show up damaged or not at all), it is the member's ID that gets hit with the negative, potentially impacting the bids on that member's future choices.
Minimum useful bidding for TTA: one or more bids; what they get in the sale is the starting bid price. In a sense, what TTA is getting is a BIN price (even though they don't use the BIN system itself).
Minimum useful bidding for a member: two or more bids; TTA still gets the starting bid price, with the member getting the *difference* between that and the final price.
"Profit" for the member: on 2+ bids, what the *difference* the member gets in "credit" (IIRC the terms TTA used).
True profit for the member: getting enough incremental "profits" to more than recover the membership fees.
Good year for a member: hot enough bidding on enough items, with enough "profits" to get a true profit.
Good year for TTA: lots of 1-bid-only auctions (get the sales price on the product, plus get to keep most of the membership fees). If the members don't get much out of the system, they'll probably stop being members sooner or later, but there will be others to replace them.
I didn't realize shipping costs were so astronomical. That probably keeps bidding down. If TTA keeps rolling in a steady but unimpressive number of bids, they can still ship a somewhat lower but steady volume of products, while still pulling in some amount of membership fees (and again, the less 2+ bidding that happens, the more TTA could keep of the membership fees) and who knows what with the shipping.
The gambling metaphor someone mentioned seems apt to me: members are gambling on there being hot enough bidding on enough items to more than recoup the cost of the membership fees. Some may hit it, but how many, and out of how many?
If the member is the gambler, that makes TTA the house in the metaphor.
Personally, I agree it is a bogus system, and I would not fly within a dozen miles of a TTA auction, as either a seller or buyer. Besides reminding me of gambling, it reminds me more of MLMs (not the same thing, but with some of the same "feel" to it).
----
What's being done in the name of direct marketing nowadays is crazy.
The above are all just my opinions, except where I cite facts as such.
Oh, I am not dc9a320 anywhere except AW. Any others are not me.
Is eBay is changing from a world bazaar into a bizarre world?
posted on June 7, 2001 02:37:38 PM
i *believe* that take to auction is a spammer as well, though i'm not sure (if not, it's *very* close to their name).
posted on June 7, 2001 03:29:01 PM
They've been around for about two years. In my case the picture did not match the item received. The picture was a wonderful camera case worth about $30, and what I got was a piece of crap. DESPITE what they say, their items ARE seconds, returns, and refurbished items.
One lady with whom I corresponded bought from TTA a BMX bike based upon the picture which showed a current year model and a lot of extras. What she received was a three year old stripped down model.
Not my name on ebay.
posted on June 7, 2001 10:30:33 PM
Yeesh, that article (http://www.auctionwatch.com/awdaily/reviews/profiles/2001/taketoauction.html)... that article... well, it sounded a lot like a rehash of the "slightly infomercial-like language" itself. (I do have to thank him, though, for reminding me of the third thing that TTA reminds me of, besides gambling and multi-level marketing -- namely infomercials. )
If I had written an article instead of running an analysis, it too would have been very different than AW's article, tomwiii.
First, I should correct one of my earlier statements. Apparently TTA has rolled all of its members up into one ID since last I checked, so I was wrong about the multiple IDs -- with at least one exception though, which the article missed as well: there is a second ID posting some auctions. Here in the AW fora, I don't think I can list that ID (CGs), but the ID name does seem to imply TTA itself is taking things to auction w/o the "help" of a member.
I don't believe TTA "might be betting that you'll be better at marketing and selling its merchandise than it is." I mean TTA appears to be doing all the work except the individual "take to auction" choices, and is basically, IMO, selling items at a fixed price (in terms of what it gets if someone chooses to buy/bid). My guess is that TTA wants "members" for the membership fees. The members have to hope bidding is hot enough to recoup their membership fees, much less make true profits.
On the subject of "profit," notice the article's author at least mentioned what true profit really is, but still went on to say, "TTA's top five earners over the past year earned between $15,000 and $30,000 in profit, minus the amount they spent on credits." Er... that still leave me wondering how much they did spend on "credits"? The maximum $10,000?
"... it can be bit of a gamble." I'd probably be willing to gamble this is a "bit" of an understatement, but that is just my opinion.
It says the author was a freelance writer, but the title says "AW Profiles Take to Auction" (emphasis mine), so is that implying AW is endorsing the author's views? If so, it lowers my fairly high estimation several points. I don't see any disclaimer on the page, unless "freelance" does imply a disclaimer.
BTW, I do believe I've been spammed by TTA as well (or someone spamming in their name, I don't happen to recall investigating this piece of spam more closely).
[ Edited for slight clarifications. ]
[ edited by dc9a320 on Jun 7, 2001 10:33 PM ]
