posted on March 29, 2001 11:29:22 PM new
Tonight it began and it cost's $.25 to have your pix in the photo gallery....unless you sign up for $10 a month worth of listing credits and you get $100 in credits for $10. Those credits can be used to feature and the other extras as well.
What's wrong with this picture you say?
Well the #1 problem at Bidville is that there aren't any buyers or even lookers yet. It seems having all items in the pix gallery would make sense to attract bidders. And if you are one of just a few to use the gallery, it may go completely unnoticed, because you have to click on a GALLERY ONLY tab to see them.
Why am I getting the feeling that Bidville doesn't understand any better than YaWho? What they need to do is quit making the seller gamble with fees before the sale and do everything thay can to make the free listings lead to sales.
They can start 5% FV fees right now and I would not #*!@. But with no buyers yet, I'm not goting to spend a dime on any item before it sells.
posted on March 30, 2001 05:23:42 AM new
I really think you need to look at this program a little better.
#1, there are bidders on Bidville, contray to what anyone tells you
#2, Why doesn't paying $5.00 to feature ant auction bother you, but paying 2.5 cents for the gallery does?
What the membership does is gives you $100.00 credit for $10.00. THis credit can be used to pay for the photo gallery, or the banners, or the featured section.
This may not be the PERFECT solution, but I think it is a good deal for everyone. And from what I have seen at BIDVILLE, I am sure their will be corrective changes if need be to make it more user friendly.
I am serious, I think if you are finding a lot of fauklt with this plan you really need to take another look at it. With the photo gallery, you will get up to three free relists, That will make the actual cost less than $0.01 per item per listing.
This also addresses the issue of how can you make use of the $5.00 feature option if your items only sell in the $5.00 - $10.00 range. And when you feature, your item is in the gallery.
As I said, this may not be perfect, no maybe about it, it is not! BUt I do believe that this is a very good deal and a great value to the sellers at BIDVILLE.
posted on March 30, 2001 09:03:20 AM new
Yes, what a deal...$100 worth of something for $10. Just pennies each to put my pix in a photo album that nobody is looking at.
But the fact still remains: I'm here to sell stuff and make a profit. None of these things solves that problem.
Why is it so hard to see that if an auction site gets paid only when the seller makes a sale, the seller will not be at risk of losing money, and the auction house will be forced to focus on sales, not ways to nickel and dime the sellers up front.
Either these auction houses are not listening or thinking, or they do not want the professional seller on their sites. It seems ePay has always made out because so many sellers are just getting rid of some stuff garage sale style...get what you can for it. I admit this is a ideal situation for the auction house if you can pull it off... It's a great place for buyers to pick up a steal, and that attracts the buyers ...you get paid a listing fee for items that don't sell, and you also get paid a FV fee when it does.
Just search for any two words in the English language at random and enter them on ePay's closed items search and you'll see the vast % of items closed without a bid or else it sold for a couple bucks. You know the seller in these cases got hosed. How much longer until the casual sellers do an accounting and see whatever money they made was a fraction of minimum wage, and simply revert back to the way they used to do it: give the junk to the Salvation Army.
posted on March 30, 2001 09:27:17 AM new
I think it is a good Idea, very one want's the improvements then when they are added they say (but I wanted them free) well bidville is improving the site like the sellers have asked but it cost them and that cost must be passed on! The main thing is basic listings is free image hosting is free on your auction but if you want the options it cost. I will admit I did not use the options before but as low as the price is at Bidville I will now. Most all sites charge for the options some are alot higher and the ones that dont are getting ready to. So it is simple if you want to sell the cheap way on Bidville go basic listings (that is free), if you want the fancey options it will cost you. Have a nice buying/selling day.
posted on March 30, 2001 12:05:34 PM new
Maybe everyone is right.
Bidville is trying even if their timing and efforts might not be perfect.
The new option seems useful for some sellers.
Bidville needs more buyers.
Maybe we can explore how to increase buyers at Bidville.
I haven't added an invitation to visit Bidville to the bottom of my eBay EOA notices. Think I will go do that (well as soon as I figure out how to use the new eBay Seller's Ass't which they made me upgrade to from the AAClassic I've used for years).
I also have been discounting duplicate items I list on Bidville to reflect the savings I achieve by not paying eBay fees.I have to go adjust more of thoes prices.
What can we do to make coming to and buying at Bidville more attractive?
I do believe that a steady stream of new buyers is the number one, two, three and beyond priority and would also be willing to pay a FVF in return for an increased number of buyers.
posted on March 31, 2001 12:15:57 AM new
I agree with zzyzx000. Bidville has very few buyers, and a FVF is *much* preferable to ANY up-front fees there.
A gallery will not work unless almost ALL the listings are included.
What's the point of a buyer shopping or browsing by "gallery view" when the bulk of the offerings aren't even LISTED in it???
They should have gone to FVFs instead. Just my 2 cents worth.
posted on March 31, 2001 10:00:09 PM new
Well, I just signed up for the 10% program - I have had pretty decent luck with Bidville, I've had 7 auctions close with sales in the past 24 hours. To get some of the extras at only 10% of listed price, it sounds too good of an offer to me to pass up.
posted on March 31, 2001 11:23:17 PM new
If you go to any jeweler in the USA, the gold jewelry is always 50% off. No jeweler ever sold that stuff for "full retail."
Same thing with the 90% off pix gallery. It was never 0% off...it was 90% off from day one, so what's such a good deal about that?
I will sell you a coupon book I got in the mail this week. It says that book is a $350 value and I'll take 90% off and sell it to you for $35. Let me know.
As for sales on Bidville, I have 1800 listings there now and in 2 weeks I've sold 1 item that wasn't the result of my emailing past YaWho customers and telling them where I was. That same batch of items was selling 15 per day on YaWho before listing fees.
posted on April 1, 2001 06:40:19 AM new
I've stopped listing new items at Bidville. I put in 50 test auctions and sold 1 lot in 7 weeks at BV. The one lot I sold was a 23 piece group of Royal Doulton Toby's for $1450 and the fellow drove from Maine to OH pick them up. I can only attribute this sale as a fluke, as ALL other auctions are dead and the page views are terrible. The fellow told me he found the Toby's when he searched for Royal Doulton on the web. This lot was sold with just 3 or 4 page views which was odd too.
I have an 18K gold Rolex GMT Master ll watch which sells for $17,000+ listed at BV for $7400. It would routinely get 700 to over 1000 page views a month at the old Yahoo where it was listed for $8400. (It was even sold 3 times to deadbeat bidders at Yahoo!) It gets less than 10 page views a month at BV.
A lot of my BV auctions get 1, 2 or no page views a month. Until BV gets some buyers, I won't list anything else there, even it is for free. Same with all the rest of the net auctions houses I've tried, they really stink. BV might have a good amount of listings, but offers little in the buyers department in my OP. I'll gladly pay a fvf if an items sells, but it just doesn't work out paying high listing fees for slow or non selling items.
I have to laugh at some of the posts telling how Yahoo got rid of the trash from ther sight when they started with the listing fee. They also got rid of me, and my listing were far from trash. You have to take the good with the bad. It is a shame that they didn't relize that.
I've sold over 54 items in the last 2 months for many tens of thousands of $$ with local ads and this is where I'm putting my efforts into. I'm liquidating an estate and have many odd, slow selling and very expensive items to sell. Ebay would be good, except it would cost me $3300 per month to just list the 325 + auctions I had at Yahoo. And from past experience, some of the items sell just as slow as they did on the old Yahoo sight.
Every auction I have is over $75. If an item is only worth $10 to $20 I'll group it as a lot or trash it. I don't have the time too fool with this type of stuff, I'd rather give it away. The faster I'm done liquidating, the happier I'll be. Since starting with net auctions almost 2 years ago, they have degenerated to be almost useless for my needs.
posted on April 1, 2001 09:19:28 AM new
Very interesting post. It seem the low priced "junk" I sell has much more in common than the expensive stuff that I thought. Perhaps the common denominator is the rareity of the buyers for both types of items.
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"Ebay would be good, except it would cost me $3300 per month to just list the 325 + auctions I had at Yahoo. And from past experience, some of the items sell just as slow as they did on the old Yahoo sight.
"
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Very interesting. That's been my experience too with my low priced "junk," because I used the 1st Bid Wins approach on YaWho and a high minimum on ePay. The reason ePay has an overall higher sell-thru is because many sellers start the auction low and take what they can get. Occasionally there is a bidding war and the item sells for more than it should. But much more likely it sells for far less than it should.
When is somebody going to start a full featured classified ads site financed by FV fees?
First, let me state that I do not work for an auction site. I am heavily involved with eCommerce though as you may have guessed from my past posting. I am also an auction seller (eBay only) and rarely bid.
FVF's are great for the seller. But, imagine the trouble they are for auction sites. If you're not set up to automatically charge credit cards at the end of the month (like eBay and Yahoo), how do you collect on FVF's? Do you trust the seller to pay you monthly? That will never happen.
Then, how do you deal with the complaints? "I sold Item X for $18.95 but the buyer never sent me the money. So, you must refund my FVF!".....and many versions of that story. Smaller sites do not have resources to handle these situations. This takes manpower and cannot be automated.
So, I can understand why the sites prefer listing fees. Then again, eBay gets you on both ends!
posted on April 1, 2001 10:52:53 AM new
"So, I can understand why the sites prefer listing fees. "
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I prefer that there be no deadbeats and that all my items sell immediately.
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"If you're not set up to automatically charge credit cards at the end of the month (like eBay and Yahoo), how do you collect on FVF's? "
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Then how do you collect on Listing fees???
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"Then, how do you deal with the complaints? Smaller sites do not have resources to handle these situations. This takes manpower and cannot be automated."
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Tell that one to YaWho. They are certainly not small and customer service does not exist. They use half a dozen form letters to respond to all inquires.
1. I'm glad you acknowledged that you get many deadbeats. Most of us do. Now, when you get one, do you expect to get your FVF back? If so, how do you do it? Who handles your situation? Are you always happy with the result? It's a sad fact that deadbeats exist because they not only harm your bottom line, they make the auction site work harder to process the FVF return.
2. Charging for listing fees can be done immediately at the time of the listing. If the credit card fails - no listing - no loss to the website. Or, I suppose some sites get you to prepay. FVF's are much different because they can be substantially more than 10 or 25 cents. A FVF of $15 for a high end item may not get paid if the CC expired, was cancelled or is over its limit. Then, the site loses money because it's not prepaid.
3. I agree 100% Yahoo has the manpower to do FVF's. I was referring to the "Second Wave" sites and whatever Third Wave sites come along.
posted on April 1, 2001 01:26:56 PM new
1. ePay charges FV fees. Simply copy them. Yes they do refund FV fees and there is a procedure in place for that.
2. ePay charges FV fees. Simply copy them. Collecting money from deadbeat sellers has never been much of a problem.
3. Bidville actually answers emails almost immediately and personally. Income from FV fees could be used to hire more staff. YaWho has a Billion in cash and never spend a dime doing that.
[ edited by zzyzx000 on Apr 1, 2001 01:31 PM ]
posted on April 1, 2001 02:04:38 PM new
zzyzx000-
What I canot understandis this:
if you like Fvf's so much why don't you just stay with Ebay where they have them, and if you like listing fees, just stay with Yachoo! I am also aware that these sites charge additionally for the feature irems too. But that seems to have been overlooked on this theread.
Yes there are fee sites out there that almost sell your items for you, and then there are free sites like Bidville, where you have to do mor work to sell the item, but not pay a listing fee or FVF. the choive is yours.
posted on April 1, 2001 02:31:03 PM new
"If you like Fvf's so much why don't you just stay with Ebay where they have them, and if you like listing fees, just stay with Yachoo! "
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ePay doesn't give you a choice of the 2. In fact ePay charges both listing and FV fees.
Based on my 2000 items on YaWho in December, Yahoo's listing fees would have cost me $6000 a month and erase my profits. A 5% FV fee would have cost me about $500.
Notice that the choice do not pay FV fees for me is simple math, and based on enough time and #s to make it a clear decision.
YaWho's choice clearly cost them the $500 a month they could have had from me. Plus their listings are down 93% since listing fees and many of the remaining listings are paid for with free credits. It's clear to me YaWho's choice was an expensive mistake to them immediately, and long term they have excluded a niche of professional sellers who will eventually be relocated successfully elsewhere.
"Copy eBay." Let's see, eBay has how many BILLIONS of dollars? How can a small, typically underfunded start-up copy that? Impossible.
Yahoo, however, is another story. They could have (and should have) gone with a FVF. I don't frequent Bidville but it sounds like they have a good staff. It also sounds like they aren't charging any fees at all. So why suggest a FVF? You'll watch'em run just like they did from Yahoo.
Remember the uproar when AW announced a FVF? Read the threads. Everyone complained..."Oh, I will not pay FVF's. They should've stayed with just a listing fee." Boo-Hoo.
posted on April 1, 2001 03:10:19 PM new
I sold on ePay before they went public. They were small and they did listing fees and FV fees. All this billing stuff is done with computer programming. It's not a big deal.
I would have paid FV fees on YaWho and most of the sellers there who post on AW echoed that opinion.
posted on April 1, 2001 03:40:34 PM new
You obviously don't remember that for the first 1 1/2 years, eBay did not require a credit card to register. They billed you at the end of every month. Once they got larger and more powerful, they automated the billing via credit cards....a fine example of how automatic credit card debiting takes $$$.
Then, there is still the issue of dealing with dissatisfied sellers wanting their FVF back because of deadbeats. Not a technically easy task to accomplish without humans getting involved. If you ran the auction, would you trust every seller that says the sale was a deadbeat? Would you just give the money back? Would you want a computer deciding the truth? I would not.
posted on April 1, 2001 11:01:29 PM new
Let me conclude by saying I wouldn't be surprized if YaWho gives Brian Fitzgerald the axe and hires you to replace him. Now go ahead and have the last word.
posted on April 2, 2001 05:41:48 AM new
Thanks, I will have the last word.
All this billing stuff is done with computer programming. It's not a big deal.
My first executive decision is to take you up on your offer. I expect you to reprogram the site to automatically bill FVF's. With your vast knowledge of eCommerce programming, I suspect it will be done in a day or so.
posted on April 2, 2001 09:49:59 AM new
The Photogallery is a good idea, and the pricing is looking fine with what they are offering.
BUT without bidders, and very little lookers, then it's all not worth the time.
Any one can look at your items and get them sorted in a good order, and then easily find what they want to look at.
So gallery is just a way of thumbing thru tons of stuff, unless the person knows your id.
Until Bidville gets more buyers, or even bidders would be nice, I just can't justify having the cost of gallery to work for me.
Joan
posted on April 2, 2001 10:04:36 AM new
Exactly. You would be paying for nothing. It they put all ads in a pix gallery for free then buyers could look at all the ads by pix only. That was YaWho's single best feature. It is a feature that becons buyers to return.
Bidville has enough items to make it worthwhile for buyers now. It's nearly 3 times as big as YaWho. With a standard pix gallery, a rewrite of the listing tree (the pro sellers can be asked to help write the 1st good one in the industry), and buyers (past yaWho sellers should email their past winners and tell them about Bidville...that would be all that's needed to get the ball rolling), Bidville could become worthwhile.
I'm there waiting and hoping they have "vision". However this paid gallery idea isn't any good and leaves doubts in my mind. This may be just another ePay wannabe which will surely fail like the others if they don't use their brains a bit better than this.
[ edited by zzyzx000 on Apr 2, 2001 10:08 AM ]
posted on April 2, 2001 10:12:56 PM new
I just went to the site to see their new gallery and got "site is unavailable due to unscheduled maintenance"....what is that? What is "unscheduled maintenance?"
posted on April 2, 2001 10:16:07 PM new
That means it didn't crash but they found it important to shut down for 30 minutes to make some changes they couldn't do with the system operating.
