bidsbids
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posted on February 27, 2002 01:44:18 PM new
Might as well start documenting the growth of this soon-to-be-an-auction-giant. 
2/27/02 667 items listed
http://www.auctioncow.com/auction/XcAuctionPro.asp
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YourDesigns
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posted on February 27, 2002 10:13:10 PM new
You think so, bidsbids?
They certainly have nice design and a good software to expand on, but it will be awhile before they can build up.
I am hopeful though.
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bidsbids
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posted on February 28, 2002 05:13:04 AM new
It shouldn't be long because they have a tested and proven way of attracting bidders rather than sellers.
Maybe the site owners are a bunch of shop-a-holics and that's the proven method?
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bidsbids
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posted on February 28, 2002 05:23:29 PM new
2/27/02 667 items listed
2/28/02 771 items listed
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bidsbids
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posted on March 2, 2002 01:27:45 PM new
2/27/02 667 items listed
2/28/02 771 items listed
3/02/02 791 items listed
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toollady
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posted on March 2, 2002 04:32:42 PM new
nice design and good software to build on?
They're already patching up the holes in the software and their categories are woefully inadequate.
And their secret marketing plan already began?
I guess it's such a secret no one has found the place yet.
I'll be very surprised if they have more than 5,000 auctions running by the time they are 6 months old.
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YourDesigns
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posted on March 2, 2002 06:56:04 PM new
Toollady! Keep up the GOOD spirit and lovely postings. Golly, everyone needs such positive enthusiasm!
You deservce a pat on the back, since you built and run the PERFECT auction site yourself. I am amazed at your ability to do everything flawlessly.
Thumbs UP!
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toollady
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posted on March 2, 2002 10:09:11 PM new
yourdesign,
I see another gegy in the making here.
The boards here were spammed by auctioncow and that's the best they can do on launch, pre-launch, soft launch, beta launch (launch of choice)?
This is not 1997 where anyone can just open a site and fumble along, wing it and hope it catches on.
Any site that is looking to succeed, needs to roll out a semi-functioning platform from the start if they have any hopes of succeeding. The start up of auctioncow was delayed due to software problems, so sellers waited. That's fine.
But, to roll out with what is in place really shows there is no meat to the site. 
At the moment, auctioncow is not offering sellers any reason to dedicate time to list.
There is no bulk listing tool. Buy now doesn't work properly. Browsing is difficult and takes too many clicks to view auctions, depending on the category. There are problems with EOA notices and the list goes on and on.
I'm not saying the other small sites are without problems. Had auctioncow looked at what tools are already available at those sites and did their homework, they would have known what they have in place now is unacceptable to sellers looking to expand their selling territory.
If they are already having problems and this is the software they are going with and expanding upon, six months from now it's going to be so hacked up and patched up the site is going to have a major meltdown.
6 months down the road is not a good time for any site to have to re-group.
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YourDesigns
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posted on March 3, 2002 01:05:07 AM new
The software is based upon VB and ASP, and is easily manageable. Much better than any CGI offering.
If you had read, there are two Phases to AC. Not that you would care.
Also, I am glad there goal is NOT to get sellers but bidders, as there are a few seller HERE apparently I wouldn't want to deal with.
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tomwiii
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posted on March 3, 2002 04:08:13 AM new
OTOH...
My HTML works fine on feeBay, Yahoo and Carnaby...but, NO GO IN THE COW! 
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toollady
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posted on March 3, 2002 05:42:08 AM new
Actually, I DO care.
I believe online auction choices need to be expanded for future growth, both for the industry and for individual sellers.
eBay has made it clear, unless you are a corporation, your auctions are not wanted.
As of late, my auctions are stagnating. It's not the listings and it certainly not my selling style. I give my customers top notch service and ship the least expensive way possible at all times.
Last time I ran auctions at eBay, I had a grand total of 10 completed auctions. With the fee increase to dutch auctions, I don't think I will be listing there any longer.
I have my auctions parked at sellyouritem and have just recently completed 2 sales on this ID. Although the sales were from the same buyer, a week or so apart, they were a completely new customer to me.
I'm not looking for immediate results from the smaller sites. I know my particular items can take a long while to build up steam.
What I'm looking for is a site that functions as it should, with tools in place to make my listing time efficient and to make browsing easy for potential bidders.
As far as a site marketing to getting bidders, that's great. But, you have to have sellers listing in order to keep the bidders.
Yes, the platform auctioncow has chosen IS manageable. I just don't know that the software they decided on is workable in the long run.
Trying to move databases from one program to another can be a real nightmare.
I've rambled enough for now. Time to go attend to the family.
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bidsbids
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posted on March 3, 2002 06:25:31 AM new
AC has started their unique marketing system and we are told to tell how successful it is by the number of bids of items. That is what we should do.
New, high-quality sellers are to come on board AC and offer excellent deals. We should watch for them too.
I think it's kind of exciting. I so wanted to see how Gegy would have done after all of their hype and was denied because they were too inept to even launch the darn thing.
Still hopefully optimistic about AC!
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stavecards
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posted on March 3, 2002 01:51:05 PM new
Bidsbids,
Better watch it! Your starting to sound like a AC cheerleader.
No offense. Couldn't resist taking the shot.
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bidsbids
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posted on March 3, 2002 03:55:17 PM new
I am very cautious and wouldn't think of taking the time to list items at AC unless at least a 10% sell thru rate were evident.
Gegy really broke my heart. They sounded so intelligent and had all the answers. I suppose AC has to pay for Gegy's sins in some ways.
I still want to see a small site come up with the correct combination of variables that allow them a healthy measure of success. With that hope in mind ... GO AC!
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bidsbids
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posted on March 4, 2002 02:08:13 PM new
2/27/02 ... 667 items listed
2/28/02 ... 771 items listed
3/02/02 ... 791 items listed
3/04/02 ... 822 items listed
note ... includes 169 sports trading cards
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robnzak
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posted on March 4, 2002 02:22:59 PM new
"...I am very cautious and wouldn't think of taking the time to list items at AC unless at least a 10% sell thru rate were evident..."
Ya know bids, if you took the plunge and tried adding a few auctions at the COW, you could very well be the seller that makes a difference.
Rob
robnzak - 1st editions
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bidsbids
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posted on March 5, 2002 07:52:21 AM new
According to the 'plan' AC has a 'proven' way to draw buyers to their site. All I've got to do is wait till the ratio is much better than the average third tier site. When that happens there will be a flood of sellers listing on their site and that will help draw more bidders. It's a great plan.
I'm content to be part of the flood of sellers rather than the first round of hopeful sellers.
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bidsbids
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posted on March 6, 2002 04:28:45 PM new
2/27/02 ... 667 items listed
2/28/02 ... 771 items listed
3/02/02 ... 791 items listed
3/04/02 ... 822 items listed
note ... includes 169 sports trading cards ( 21% )
3/06/02 ... 845 items listed
note ... includes 225 sports trading cards
( 26% )
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robnzak
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posted on March 6, 2002 10:09:47 PM new
TOM said,
My HTML works fine on feeBay, Yahoo and Carnaby...but, NO GO IN THE COW!
so what kind of problems are you having, I know we use basically the same HTML and I haven't had any trouble...splain please.
Rob
robnzak - 1st editions
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tomwiii
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posted on March 7, 2002 05:04:01 AM new
Rob: Everytime I tried to list an item, I got a wacky error message saying I had "inappropriate words" in my listing!
Support was no help -- they said they didn't know, it must be something in my HTML -- but I just plugged in my standard templetes that work EVERYWHERE else!
So I gave up & listed over at the GRAVEYARD -- 
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willsell
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posted on March 8, 2002 11:53:09 PM new
I am realitively new to auctions but have had some moderate success at Ebay. I quickly discovered that Ebay will eat you alive in fees. So I am considering free or low cost Auction sites. I have listed at Bidville and Auctionaddict but have had no success.
How long should one wait before determining if a particular site can be profitable?
I found out after a week that Amazon sucks!
Any other potentially good sites out there?
besides Auction Cow (bidbidz ...lol)
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bidsbids
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posted on March 9, 2002 03:44:23 AM new
They all suck. The main idea is to stay at eBay and determine what sells and at what prices. Adjust to eBay or move on with another hobby. Now we will hear how successful Rob is at a variety of small sites.
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bidsbids
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posted on March 10, 2002 09:49:38 AM new
2/27/02 ... 667 items listed
2/28/02 ... 771 items listed
3/02/02 ... 791 items listed
3/04/02 ... 822 items listed
note ... includes 169 sports trading cards ( 21% )
3/06/02 ... 845 items listed
note ... includes 225 sports trading cards
( 26% )
3/10/02 ... 1,176 items listed
note ... includes 274 sports trading cards
( 23% )
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robnzak
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posted on March 10, 2002 10:03:42 AM new
Now we will hear how successful Rob is at a variety of small sites
it may suprize you to know Bids that I pretty much agree with your above accessment...however, to make you happy, I will say that although I do not consider myself all that successful, I do earn a nice supplemental income using several of the smaller sites.
Willsell...welcome to the boards
TOM I assume your e-mail address has changed with the move, so if you still have my addy on file, zip me a line.
Rob
robnzak - 1st editions
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bidsbids
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posted on March 10, 2002 11:44:53 AM new
Ok I'll modify the They all suck. The main idea is to stay at eBay and determine what sells and at what prices. Adjust to eBay or move on with another hobby. and add an or immulate Rob of the South and utilize a variety of smaller sites in a productive fashion.
Am I flexible or what?
[ edited by bidsbids on Mar 10, 2002 11:45 AM ]
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YourDesigns
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posted on March 10, 2002 12:07:14 PM new
bidsbids:
Why the "note" about sports card listings?
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bidsbids
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posted on March 10, 2002 01:53:26 PM new
With the sudden and very large influx of Bidville buyers & sellers to both Mootropolis and AuctionCow I am going to also monitor the percentage of sports trading cards at AuctionCow as well as the listing numbers for both the cards and the grand total listings.
It seems that Carnaby and most other third tier online auction sites have a fairly low percentage of sportscards at their sites and AC is now getting a fairly healthy percentage, possibly due to the quasi BV defections. While I think a certain number of sportscards is desirable for item variety at an auction site I do think BV's 50+% of total items being sportscards to be somewhat of a liability.
I would love to see BV spin off a seperate site just for those sportscards. Anyone else think that idea has some merit?
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bidsbids
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posted on March 13, 2002 04:05:58 AM new
2/27/02 ... 667 items listed
2/28/02 ... 771 items listed
3/02/02 ... 791 items listed
3/04/02 ... 822 items listed
note ... includes 169 sports trading cards ( 21% )
3/06/02 ... 845 items listed
note ... includes 225 sports trading cards
( 26% )
3/10/02 ... 1,176 items listed
note ... includes 274 sports trading cards
( 23% )
3/13/02 ... 1,146 items listed
note ... includes 299 sports trading cards
( 26% )
In the past there were remarks by AC that they were having some select sellers join them that had great success in the past selling their items. It looks like those sellers may be in the computer categories at AC ( 28% of all listings ). That past selling success may not port over very well to low traffic, unknown sites from a big site like eBay. Their former success may have been a result of their selling expertise and a high traffic venue. That leaves them with their selling expertise on a very low traffic venue. Were these sellers to be a major part of the success formula at AC?
I hope not.
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willsell
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posted on March 13, 2002 05:20:35 AM new
all of those stats are meaningless if you dont have real buyers , which in my opinion is the case at auctioncow. Only reason I list there ....it's free. Bids is right about the overall structure of the site. It does have promise.. In the mean time I will continue to struggle with all those %^$%$&**( fees that eat into profits. Seems like the only ones making real money are the auctions, credit card companies and UPS, and if you drop ship the &^%&^$^$% shipping and handling is atrocious. So there we sit selling a 10.00 item that cost 9.00 to ship...hmmmm? Who is making the real money?? The seller? I dont think so.
http://www.willselldealoftheday.com
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willsell
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posted on March 13, 2002 05:35:22 AM new
BTW: toollady,
Can't knock auctioncow for rolling out a less than perfect product. After all Billy Boy set the standards for releasing software products. "Give it to them" then make them pay for the corrections. So , perhaps Auctioncow is taking it's que from Microsoft, who has mastered the art of selling crap and making you want to pay for it.
The only difference is Auctioncow is not making us pay (yet). Perhaps Auctioncow subscribes to the "new marketing philosophy" ... Give them some candy for free , until they aquire a taste for it and then ..wham!..another Ebay is born ..with all it's inherent fees etc.
http://www.willselldealoftheday.com
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