posted on January 7, 2001 07:12:10 AM new
Is there a possible compromise solution available? The actual "classifieds" that exists is useless for us. BUT, what-if Yahoo Auctions engineered a similar function promoted as an "auctions supplement"?
What I'd envision would be about the same format as present auctions.... keep it familiar and maybe make the program coding changes not as difficult. Run it as up-front NON-auction, no bidding, strictly first-bid-wins style. (Minimum bid= buy now bid set automatically). If memory constraints have been surfacing and that's an actual unadmitted factor in these changes, set some limits.... only so much text, only one or two images uploaded. Perhaps link the numbers of these allowed to a user to their feedback in Auctions itself, if you have 100 FB, you get 100 "supplements."
Charge a bit for them. Maybe some for free (25? 50?) then 10c listing fee and 5 relists for a dime so they could in fact be run over and over.
Have the listings for a given ID grouped together in a URL just like the auction functions are, and cross-connected to the auctions just like the Store/Merchant accounts are connected to the Auctions right now.
If the office politics and engineering realities and time to formulate a real policy would allow Yahoo to DO this, announce it to us with some sort of moratorium on this announced fee structure until the supplemental (I imagine a duck squawking "AFFFLLLAAAKKK!" TV-watcher joke, sorry.) structure kicks in.
Auctions wouldn't collapse, then, like it may now, AND the present auctions function would get streamlined like the powers-that-be want it to. Plus, there'd be revenues generated. And I think I for one would feel they'd given us a superior sales structure for our payments.
Any reactions? Any chance "they" might listen and present such an idea in time to avoid collapse?
