posted on June 25, 2003 11:07:56 PM new
Bidchaser Inc. has announced the Grand Opening of its new Web site, BidChaser.com, an online shopping community featuring auctions, fixed price sales and its unique shopping venue, the "Gift Shoppe." Bidchaser.com draws from the experience of seasoned online auction professionals.
"What will set BidChaser.com apart from its competition is our focus on servicing the needs of both our buyers and sellers, our Staff's keen understanding of the online auction market, and our unwavering focus on supporting the forgotten traders - those who trade in smaller and unique items," said Cesar Cunha, CEO of the newly formed Company.
BidChaser will officially launch on June 26, and the company is extending a public invitation to all members of the online auction community to the site's ribbon-cutting ceremony in Orlando, Florida. The ceremony will be held on June 26, 2003 at the Orlando Hawthorne Suites Hotel's "Oak Room" from 4:00 to 6:00 PM, blocks away from where eBay is holding its 2nd annual convention.
posted on June 26, 2003 01:33:25 PM new
Why another auction site???? You failed with carnaby, pixie toys didn't do so well. What is your game plan this time around. Why should we give you the time of day. What is the compelling reason to use bidchaser. Plus this game with pixietoys not being down we had a technical glitch seems like a run around and you haven't even started.
posted on June 26, 2003 06:40:22 PM new
Thanks for the responses. I understand the reluctance, even anger that some may feel at yet "another" venture.
So, I'll try to answer the questions, concerns and misgivings as best as I can...
=======================
>>The flat 5% + $.10 FVF up to $1000 is one
>>of the highest fees out there for a
>>small nich, I mean Small general
>>auction site.
After studying and participating in this market for almost five years, I've come to believe quite firmly that the only way to enter the arena and remain competitive, is to offer a "pay for performance" plan to our membership - We don't sell your good, you don't pay.
It's always been my belief that there should be little or no risk to you (the seller) when an item is placed for sale on our site. I am willing to assume this business "risk", but, to keep the operation viable and profitable, it will require that I charge an equitable fee when an item sells.
Since the site is geared mostly towards items in the mid and lower price range, our fee structure remains reasonable and competitive.
>>How many and what Keywords are going
>>to be used so people can find the site?
We just launched the site officially tonight, so meta tags and keywords have not been added to our headers. We'll be adding them over the next week and start a campaing of submission to major and minor search engines as well as FFAs. We are also looking at the effectiveness of paid keywords on engines such as google and altavista. We have no plans to cross list with services such as froogle at this time.
>>What ad companies are you going to
>>use besides posting on The Moo, here,
>>myauctionfriends and the other SELLER
>>boards?
We do not consider posting on boards as part of our marketing campaign. It is more a service, and a form of involvement and communication. Our marketing campaign will revolve around forming strategic alliances with partners who can benefit from the inventory our members make available on the site. Of course, we will expect a return in the form of sellers/participants from these relationships.
>>I feel your a Ant tiring to climb
>>Everest, one can't even search on how
>>to pop a zit without seeing ebay selling
>.zits on ALL the search sites.
I have no delusions. If it were a cakewalk, many others would have succeeded by now. Our goal, however, is not to climb a Mount Everest. We'll be happy to make camp on the outskirts of the mountain, and take care of the sellers who have been stranded there
>>I would love to see someone take some
>>of ebays market share but to try to
>>take them head on is a waste of time
>>and money.
You and I both...
>>Unless you all own allthingswired
>>you will get tired of the $50+ monthly
>>hosting fees Long before the site
>>starts to earn anything.
I am very aware of the costs related to hosting, developing, operating and supporting an online auction site. In spite of these barriers, I continue to believe in the model firmly. The encouragement and sense of accomplishment that comes from participating in this community far outweighs the heartaches and occasional jabs one has to endure.
>>Good Luck
Thanks! On behalf of the entire Bidchaser Team.
=======================
>>Why another auction site????
You would not ask Boeing to stop building airplanes and start running a shipyard. I feel the same way about the online auction market. It's the business that I like best, that I understand best, and that I can serve best.
>>You failed with carnaby,
It's important to understand that the business decisions made during my tenure at Carnaby were out of my hands. Instead of standing by, I made a conscious decision to leave. Whether wrong or right, it is a decision I made and have to stand by.
The product itself, however, was good beyond compare. I was just as disappointed at its failure - probably more so than most.
>>pixie toys didn't do so well.
I had to try the niche market. I miscaculated the level of interest that the site would generate. I guess I am big enough to say "Ooops, I was wrong."
I have to admit that the Planets idea did not work out as well as I had anticipated, but it did give me the opportunity to watch and relearn the market and its needs. From that perspective, it was an expensive but important experience.
>>What is your game plan this time around.
The game plan is always the same - generate traffic so our sellers can benefit from reasonable or excellent sales. What has changed, is that I am now in a position where I can control and execute these plans.
As far as novel, "differentiators", we have implemented a new way to categorize, browse and search listings in Bidchaser called the "Gift Shoppe". Take a look for yourself and let me know what you think.
>>Why should we give you the time of day.
This is a personal decision that each one of our potential members must make.
I'd rather you give bidchaser one minute of your day, than give it to one of the other sites that won't even take a second of their time to address your concerns.
>>What is the compelling reason to use bidchaser.
The compelling reason is simple - we are committed, we will provide a less expensive listing alternative, and we will continue to work towards making the site a success for our membership as well as ourselves.
>>Plus this game with pixietoys not
>>being down we had a technical glitch
>>seems like a run around and you haven't >>even started.
We were down for quite a while due to a technical glitch. I will even share what it was - we were replacing our cisco router and had unexpected problems configuring the new IOS. Yes, the router upgrade was needed to support Bidchaser, but we had not expected a service failure that would affect any of the Pixie sites.
========================
>>Leo, change your name at least so we
>>know it's not you.
If I hid, it wouldn't be half as fun for you, would it? I'll take the good with the bad
posted on June 26, 2003 07:34:08 PM new
The rates are good compared to ioffer's 50 cent minimum FVF on any sale under $5.00 or 75 cents for sales under $10.00
posted on June 26, 2003 09:10:39 PM new
bidville is free to list no final value fee. Buyers don't give a hoot about either listing fees or final value fees. In most cases its negligible per item for the buyer. I've bought and sold on ebay, yahoo and iOffer. Although there is less selection than on ebay, I found I had a much better buying experience on ioffer. In the end I think thats what counts. Ebay has the vastest selection and that is where the most of the buyers are going to go. Ioffer has a better buying way but still needs more items. Yahoo should just throw in the towel. Another auction?? If buyers didn't warm to yahoo and amazon, what makes you think you got a chance??
posted on June 26, 2003 10:19:05 PM new
Bidville is free to list and no FVF but there is a $10 per year membership/verification fee. Without premimum memberships the image hosting is limited.
Ioffer offers a free store. Now that Half.com is going away they too have added a free store of sorts for the Half items of Half sellers. I can see the free stores being more and more common.
posted on August 16, 2003 12:43:38 PM new
I saw that thread, but it doesn't look like anyone from the OTWA group is actively listing and promoting bidchaser.
At least none that I have seen added a link to bidchaser in their sig line.
posted on August 16, 2003 12:47:42 PM new
I looked over the site and see very little bidding at all. Seems SYI has the other 3rd tier sites beat STR wise.
posted on August 16, 2003 01:18:58 PM new
And SYI has a FVF too?
Why do these tiny sites even try at all? I know they are going to say that we know we will never be a rival to ebay but I mean any profits at all. It seems like such a waste of time and money to even try anymore.
-------------- sig file ----------- He who angers you controls you
posted on August 16, 2003 02:16:06 PM new
AA, I really dont know their fee setup. I know dimview released their STR and it was much higher than bidville, but very tiny compared to ebay.
eBay can be beat, but it would take millions to do it, and nobody is interested. It takes free listings to have a good selection, and a massive ad campaign to attract bidders. Anyone can have a auctions site, but it takes cash to promote it.
posted on August 17, 2003 09:34:43 PM new
Hello...
I do appreciate all of the consideration we were given the week of July 26 by the kind folks at OTWA, as well as our honored guests, Lorrie and Ken.
I also realize that the dark shadows that were cast by my participation in Carnaby will be hard to cast away. It will not matter that me and my team left precisely because of our feelings of obligation to the community itself. It is human nature to be suspicious, and both I and my team understand it. We have, however, decided to continue to serve the online auction community in spite of many setbacks.
About Bidchaser - right after the launch, we realized that there were some issues with our software that we had not predicted. It is our goal to bring the community a site capable of handling a large number of items (1 million plus), a large number of daily transactions (registrations, listings, bids, etc.), as well as a large amount of traffic.
As we crammed to get the site ready for the launch on June 26, we realized it felt short of our expectations as well as our members'. Instead of burying our heads in the sand, our team redoubled its efforts and embarked on a complete rewrite/performance update of our system - basically, a much improved Bidchaser 2.0.
Since June 26, The Bidchaser Team has improved the site's ability to withstand the kinds of stresses our members would expect from a first class auction site.
It's my perosnal goal to finish a final stress test over the next few days, and then hand the site over for marketing. We expect delays in the site's performance during these next few days as we subject it to all kinds of abuse.
As always, thanks to Vendio for providing an open forum for the community.
posted on August 20, 2003 04:42:36 PM new
Leo, it's a good plan to get as many listings as possible. That gives something for searchers and buyers to come to the site about. If you can attract one or two million listings then you'll have a selling point for both buyers and sellers. I know that Bidville has a tad over one million listings but almost half of those are sportscards under $1 and those items have little appeal to anyone these days. Bidville is poorly managed and they do not utilize the fact that they have more listings than anyone except ebay and YahooAuctons.Japan . Ioffer has risen to near the top of third tier selling sites but has many weaknesses like the mandatory modifications of auction listings ( unpublished on site but still a rule ) . The top spot of the also rans of selling sites is wide open territory.
-------------- sig file ----------- He who angers you controls you
posted on August 20, 2003 05:50:01 PM new
Sounds like a terrible plan!! If yahoo and amazon failed to pull it off what makes you think you can?? You already failed with carnaby then with pixietoys and now with bidchaser. And that is exactly who you are going to get the desperate sellers with crappy items running around from one dead site to another dead site being bidchasers where in reality they should just hang it up and stop selling. Bidville has over 1,000,000 pieces of garbage parked there and I’m sure the same sellers have stuff on epier, bidway and guess what their going to put that stuff on bidchaser too. At first their will be joy, hopes that this will be their saviour the place where they can peddle junk that nobody wants. They’ll see all of the same miserable junk peddlers but soon they will notice hey it’s the same old “want to be auction” site with a fresh new coat of paint. In despiration they will accept any junk listing from any junk seller, indefinitely. What buyer wants to wade through all that junk. What? You’re going to have a contest, give away moo dollars, carnaby cash, none of that stuff is going to attract buyers or keep them there.
AuctionDunce do you know why ioffer is at the top of the dung heap and yes it is a dung heap. Because they are not creating another auction site, they don’t want stuff parked on the site forever. You think that is a weakness, because you can’t come to terms with the fact that you have garbage and are to lazy to find better stuff to sell. You either have wholesale crap or garbage trading cards (or something eaqually worthless), by your own admission not worth your time to change the listing. The site has features no auction site has. I wouldn’t be surprised if amazon or yahoo steps in and buys them. It already showing signs that it’s working. Go to alexa and compare. All these other sites are 4-6 years old.
Nice as always chatting at you AuctionDunce, Your keen observations make my day.
Leo valiant attempt, you get an A for persistence in my book, F for strategy. Just remember you may be able to pass of Carnaby as other people’s mistakes. You never quite explained what happened to pixietoys, some cockamamie excuse, about a router or switch. I work with networking equipment and don’t know anyone foolish enough to re-configure a piece of equipment on a live site. It was a good hoot though. Work hard Leo because this time around the egg is going to be all over your face and no one elses.
posted on August 21, 2003 07:33:32 PM new
Here is a breakdown of the data Scout posted, and a few others.
Traffic Rank for ioffer.com: 12,378
Traffic Rank for bidville.com: 12,620
Traffic Rank for bidway.com: 21,079
Traffic Rank for epier.com: 41,638
Traffic Rank for sellyouritem.com: 65,986
Traffic Rank for moostores.com: 152,483
Traffic Rank for bidchaser.com: 157,475
Traffic Rank for auctionwatch.com: 1,096
Traffic Rank for mootropolis.com: 111,809
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Where do people go on yahoo.com?
posted on August 21, 2003 08:07:03 PM new
The new auction site chat site is doing much better than the Moo. I bet that's why the Moo is last ditch promoting their site.
epier is the biggest loser site there is the oldest , least traffic peice of crap site there is. If you have items here your in denial. Die already. Sellyouritem you seem to be lingering like an old ****. hmm what else lingers around?? Starts with an F and ends with a T and it don't smell too nice, and your friends won't appreciate it if you laid one in the car. Can anyone guess what sellyouritem is lingering around like. bidway, bidpay, auctiondiner whatever the hell your going to call yourself today, yes you George Tannous, go away already, it just isn't working anymore. Mr. "Within the next month, we'll be launching 8000 shop(anyzipcode).com web sites. This should produce local auctioning incorporated with our BidWay.com web site. This is what we call "Micro Auctioning". Anyone looking for that special car, piano, boat or any large item, will be able to shop for it locally. All shop(anyzipcode).com web sites wil be available for sale within the next month. We will host, update, market, revenue sharing and much more with all of the zip code owners." Tannous just give it up and throw in the towel already.
ioffer and bidville hmmmm..... my money is on the new kid. How about you auctiondunce??what about you blair*itch??? What do you cornholes think???
posted on August 22, 2003 11:19:25 AM new
But, your time is on the "Other Online Auctions ..." so that either makes you an idiot or a troll. Which one is it? I wouldn't put another cent into ebay's pocket.
posted on August 22, 2003 02:55:17 PM new
Ebay being #1 is a given. The thing being discussed on this board are alternative and viable second selling sites. Most sellers like to pick up a few extra sales per month by also listing at the non-ebay sites. The big question is which of those sites to select to focus on those extra sales.
BW, if you place scOut on your ignore list you'll find the planet is a much more pleasant place. My ignore list is getting so long that I can read these boards in a just a few minutes now.
-------------- sig file ----------- He who angers you controls you
