posted on June 16, 2001 09:56:35 AM new
A group of sellers have gotten together and created Bidville’s first $1 sale. I’ve been watching this endeavor from the start, and at this time like to report that the sale will officially start on June 18 and run through July 2nd.
Before anybody asks! I am not a Cheerleader or seller involved in this sale!
A banner will be place on Bidville’s home page with links to the sellers involved, but I must say that if you plan on looking around on this sale it is far more fun just doing a Bidville auctions title search using “1$-Sale”. This will pull up a RANDOM listing of the seller’s sales instead of looking through the sales seller by seller. The sellers at the bottom of the listing will get fewer hits than the ones at the top. Anyway by looking at random auctions it gives the affect of a garage/yard sale (hunt & peck for the neat stuff) LOL.
After browsing through the items that have already been listed I was quite amazed at the items being sold for only a Buck with NO RESERVE and proper shipping fees.
So anybody that’s looking for some real good deals have a look!!
posted on June 16, 2001 11:07:51 PM new
LOL If the amount of sellers participating is any indication this could be absolutely the biggest 'block sale' in existence--there are over 80 sellers listed right now and sign-up doesn't end until Sunday night.
posted on June 17, 2001 06:34:18 AM new
I too am suprised by the response...the $1-sale doesn't officially begin until the 18th and there are already 939 auctions up and running for the event!
-moving up a notch from quietly optimistic to getting excited...Rob
posted on June 17, 2001 07:46:26 AM new
wallypog >
If the amount of sellers participating is any indication this could be absolutely the biggest 'block sale' in existence--there are over 80 sellers listed right now and sign-up doesn't end until Sunday night.
Everyone has to acknowledge all the work you've done, wallypog, in getting the $1-SALE up and running. So let me say how much I appreciate your undertaking this task.
I'm one of the participants and listed about ten items the other day because I'll be away for the next couple of days, and plan to list more items when I get back.
My expectations for the $1-SALE were not all that high to begin with. Now that we're here the day before the campaign begins my expectations are even lower.
It sure looks like the folks running Bidville are letting this marketing opportunity slip through their fingers.
They could have put a blurb about the $1-SALE on their homepage. They chose not to.
They could have sent an e-mail message about the $1-SALE to their users. They chose not to.
Bidville has a pathetic sell-through rate ... few pageviews and even fewer bids ... so just where are all these new bidders/buyers supposed to come from?
ONE DOLLAR items didn't see any traffic before the $1-SALE. I doubt very much that ONE DOLLAR items are going to see any appreciable increase in traffic as part of the $1-SALE.
With the $1-SALE tag we will be able to calculate the sell-through rate for the $1-SALE.
posted on June 17, 2001 08:28:26 AM new
Slowly but surely sales are coming for me on Bidville. I did not expect it to be a big thing in the begining. I think the $-sale sounds like a good fun thing to do, and a nice easy thing to do.
I disagree with you dimview, think Bidville is doing a ton of things. Just got their bulkloader installed and that is a great help to us all.
Personally speaking I think Bidville has worked very hard with all customers.
Go $1 sale.
Joan
http://www.geocities.com/justjoansetc/
posted on June 17, 2001 09:01:49 AM new
justjoan >
I disagree with you dimview, think Bidville is doing a ton of things. Just got their bulkloader installed and that is a great help to us all.
Yes, Bidville is doing things TO their auctionsite, but they are doing LITTLE to promote their auctionsite, and NOTHING to promote the $1-SALE.
I would think that Bidville would work with wallypog at every turn in order to give the $1-SALE every opportunity to succeed. To do nothing doesn't seem logical.
posted on June 17, 2001 09:28:32 AM new
Dimview, here's an e-mail I received from BidVille after I mailed the image to them for the sale. Keep in mind it's a small image--exactly the pixel size they asked for.
"Hi,
Thanks for the image. It will be posted on Monday.
BidVille Customer Service
http://www.bidville.com"
Now if that image isn't up there tomorrow I'll be contacting them to find out why.
Better late than never I'm hoping, but I have asked if they would send out an e-mail to all registered members notifying them about the sale. If/when I hear back on that I'll post that info here as well. (It's sort of beyond me why they didn't think to do this on their own, though, LOL.)
I also have a blurb on my website about it and will be highlighting it in my newsletter which goes out on Tuesday.
Now I think I just might go write to the good folks at the Auction Guild and see if they might mention it in their next issue--they have quite a few more subscribers than I do.
posted on June 17, 2001 11:51:58 AM new
Okey-dokey. Here we have it:
"Hi Regina,
We prepared an email last week to announce the $1 sale.
It will be sent to
all members either tonight or tomorrow morning. I know
there are many items
posted already but we didn't want to announce the sale
until the official
starting date. After it is sent, the logo (which we modified)
will be
placed on the home page.
Thanks for getting this together and best of luck.
BidVille Customer Service
http://www.bidville.com "
posted on June 19, 2001 09:16:25 AM new
Dimview,
The $1-sale, as you may know started as the brainchild of one person, Wallypog, less than two weeks ago.
While you are correct in believing Bidville should be supporting and plugging it 100%, please realize the time frame involved didn't leave a lot of time for conception to planing analysis. When Wallypog first presented the idea, I am not sure everyone knew exactly what to think. Within a few days a number of sellers had agreed to participate, and Bidville said they would allow the front page link, and then the thing really started to grow faster.
As it got closer, more and more sellers said they would sign up, and they were telling their customers about it.
Anyway, I really think had there been more time, Bidville would certainly have publicised this event more. It was almost spur of the moment.
Bidville has also been frantically working on other things that were requested by many sellers. They now are in phase two of running out the bulk loader, and just today, page selectors appeared to allow you to jump to selected auction pages instead of the irritating "next" button.
The timing of both of these features I am sure was hurried at least somewhat by this event.
While some of you posts have sounded pessimistically,(sp?), hopeful about bidville, I respect your opinions as you do not sound like you have any particular axe to grind with Bidville. I therefore look forward to seeing your later post regarding the effects of this event when it has reached it's completion in two weeks.
Right now, what I am seeing is staggering in scope. (for an alternative auction site)
Over the last few days, as the number of items listed for this sale has grown, so has the ratio of bids/auctions, from less than 5% to over 10%. One report, which I have not verified, claims 70 out of 80 closed auctions successful so far.
This shows what the sellers can do when motivated, and provided with a decent venue. So far the effort and drive I have seen is about 10% Bidville, 5% all of the sellers, and 85% Wallypog. If I am in error here, it is probably not giving Wallypog enough credit.
Thank you Wallypog, and thank you Bidville for providing a site that is indeed letting the sellers build it, instead of dictating to and trying to reshape the sellers into their form.
Of course I edited, to correct some of the spelling errors
[ edited by jimhhow on Jun 19, 2001 09:20 AM ]
