EZEEPEEZE.co, time to spill the beans.

[m4ttch4tt]

Hello everyone,

I have been working on a rather large project over the last year or so now, which some of you will know but most of you not.
Anyway I origianlly came onto these forums looking for some help but wasnt able to give enough information to help others help me, well here I am now ready to divulge (not all but most) of the idea which I hope to see grow way beyond any current retailer, online or offline.

so lets start with the basics.

1 - Retail site.
2 - Unique 'bidding' system
3 - Lowest prices on/offline
4 - make as much money as possbile
5 - give the general public what they want - that'll do for now.

Right ok, the site is called EZEEPEEZE pronounced easey-peasy, with a slogan of "it is what it is".
It is a retail site but I use the term 'bidding system' as there is a system in place which does require bids, but not in the sense of a traditional Auction.

Before I start to explain how this 'bidding system' works I will just give a brief overview of what I shall be selling, along with prices versus highstreet and online retail incl EBAY!

Example 1.
All prices current

Electronic consumer goods = XBOX 360 slim line 250 GB.

Ebay, lowest price with P&P = £162.50 second hand
Play.com = £199.99 brand new
Argos = £203.99 brand new
EZEEPEEZE.co = £100 brand new

So now that we have a small list from a few reliable sources we can quickly see that no one is making a great deal of profit, but only because there isnt really room for a mark-up on products such as Xbox's.
You will have noticed that EZEEPEEZE has a list price of £100 this is not a typo it is the exact price everyone will get this product at if bought through EZEEPEEZE.co (not yet up and running)

Now for the fun part and where you all try to crucify me.

EZEEPEEZE will sell at £100 and in the process of selling at this 'Target price' can potentially accumulate £5050 from one item, without scamming, robbing, mugging, killing, tickling or any other 'ING'.

The 'Target price' is exactly that, if you 'the bidder' reaches this (and it is EZEE to do so) you win, simple!
I'm not going to sit here and insult anyone by explaining how a normal (ebay) or a reverse (madbid) auction works I will just explain the differences between them and myself.

Ebay - lots of people bid, one person pays at the end, usually the winner of the highest bid placed within a predetermined amount of time.

Madbid - Lots of people bid, no one ever wins because its a scam. Period.

Ezeepeeze - lots of people bid, each bid that is placed is instantly paid. bids increment by only a predetermined amount depending on current market value and ezee sale price.

Aplogies for any confusion thus far, but there is a lot to cover and squeezing it in takes a bit of work, plus it is 05:00 ish : (

Now to explain what I mean by 'Paid instantly'.
say there is 10 people (hereafter referred to as B1, B2, B3... B10 etc) all interested in our lovely Xbox, they see it has a 'Target price' of £100 and a starting bid of £0,
B1 places the first bid which is predetermined by EZEEPEEZE to increment by £1 evertime,
B1 = £1
B2 = £2
B3 = £3
B4 = £4
B5 = £5
B6 = £6
B7 = £7
B8 = £8
B9 = £9
B10 = £10

now we can see that B10 has accumulated £10 worth of bids and only needs a further £90 of bids to 'win' (still £62.50 cheaper than ebays lowest second hand) EZEEPEEZE however has accumulated £55 but not made a single sale... can you see where I am going with this?
basically there is a potential to go 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12+13+14+15+16+17+18+19+20 all the way to 100 which equals £5050, you list 5 of them a day and get all the hits thats £25k dropping in with the potential of not even 1 penny in outlays.

products on sale through ezeepeeze are priced between £50-£1000 so average it out at £525 (you do the math) its a lot.
I have really only worked around the firgure of £100 x 30,000 for a years sale base, so really we're talking £100 = £5050 x 30,000 = £150,000,000+
hopefully that clears up an arguement I have been having on here.

For now I shall just sit back and wait for your million and one questions, there is another 24 pages of this which explain exactly how everything is tied together to allow it to work, its not easy but I've been working on this for some time now and the theory is pretty much perfect dare I say so myself, I just need some help making it physically happen.

Thanks for reading and ask what ever you like, i'll be moitoring this thread like a hawk.
M.Chatterton

 

[Highland Park]

So B1 actually handed over £1 in order to place his/her bid?

 

[m4ttch4tt]

So B1 actually handed over £1 in order to place his/her bid?

Correct! via Iridium, Paypal or the like.

That £1 is stored in B1s account otherwise known as a client account and other bids that are placed by that same bidder on items of the same description are also added on top and once an accumulated amount equaling the 'target price' has been achieved then the item is processed and shipped.
There may not only be one winner for each listing, there can be several providing they all reach the 'target price' although at face value it would appear that there are few winners.
At any point during this bidding process a punter can refund their accumulated bids in part or full.
The system has somewhat of a gambling feel that fuels excitement and further bidding, when there is actually no risk at all, just cheap stuff.
The idea is to collect the masses of accumulated bids by all bidders, earn interest, transfer once the item has been paid for in full and earn interest again, similar to paying for a holiday through a travel agency.
In the current Market I do not know how much interest I'd see on £150m but I would imagine it's quite a bit, maybe someone could help with that.
I hope this helped.

 

[Highland Park]

Your post clearly expected some sceptics so allow me to be gently so.

If your target price is less than your cost price + Paypal fees, you run the risk of all earlier bidders having their bids refunded. This leaves you with zero profit on the transaction - other than the interest paid on smaller bids over just a few days?

Do you not run the risk of Paypal objecting to having all-but-one transactions reversed??

 

[saxondale]

I believe you`ll also fall foul of lottery rules.

 

[ORDERED WEB]

sagepay token? might be just the ticket

 

[LicensedToTrade]

These websites already exist ( http://uk.madbid.com/ ) and ultimately they rely on a lot of users losing out so that one person can get what appears to be a bargain, after you factor in the fact that they don't just pay for the item itself, but also for all of the bids they have placed.

I certainly won't be going near it.

 

[Tej]

Example 1.
All prices current

Electronic consumer goods = XBOX 360 slim line 250 GB.

Ebay, lowest price with P&P = £162.50 second hand
Play.com = £199.99 brand new
Argos = £203.99 brand new
EZEEPEEZE.co = £100 brand new

if someone wanted an Xbox for £100, why would they place bids? Why not just pay the £100 and you would have to ship it.

As that would be the price they would have to pay ultimately.

Have I got it wrong?

 

[Drpepper]

So you are hoping people will pay money into your account and then when they have £100 in there they get the Xbox?

What happens when they pay £100 in straight away to get the Xbox, you then have to ship it straight away, no money is now being held or interest earned, and you are making a loss on every sale?

 

[Working First Aid]

I may be missing something, but surely there is a problem here?

If a customer is adding bids into your system until they reach £100 where they can get the xbox, it doesn't matter if they bid in the one auction or many, their total will still only equal £100 - at which point you are giving them an xbox for £100.

Lets say that there are 100 people all after an xbox for £100.

Each of them bids on 100 different auctions, each time moving up that individual auctions bid value by £1. It won't be long until bidder reaches their £100 target and gets their xbox. You won't make any more money than £100 from each customer, despite your posted figures of £5k+?

Even if it is only the person who places the final bid who gets that specific item, the customer still has their money in effect held in an escrow, and can soon buy another cheap item elsewhere in the site that will again lose you money.

I can't see how you do anything but lose money with this? If I'm missing something please explain a little more...

Smirks

 

[Mpg]

Your all missing the point.

This guy will be turning over £150 million a year

 

[AndyL]

So what help do you want?

 

[AndyL]

You have been working on this huge project for a year yet you only registered the domain in October 2010 and have nothing on there.

I still don't get what you are after here, I am thinking you want some mug, oops business person to stump up a load of money so you can try and get this up and running.

You don't even have a web site, so for that reason... I'm out

 

[gemd89]

So from reading the main post if B8 = £8 and he pays £8 he still doesnt get the item until other people put in upto £100? So people can bid upto £99 and still not recieving the item? As its the £100 bid that counts. So you could have 50 people bidding between 49 and 99 and not recieve anything and have their money taken - hence you making £5000 while only selling the item once?

Sounds a crap idea from the buyers point of view - i think ill stick with ebay

Gemma

 

[popunder]

< agree with gemd89

If I understand the idea, the bids are pre-determined to increase by £1 each time, but each bidder has to pay the whole amount.

So if the price is at £80 I have to hand over £81 just to bid - only to find that 10 seconds later I've been outbid and I've just spent £81 for nothing? What do I do then, wait until it's £90 and then spend another £91 to again be outbid and get nothing?!

What made you think this was a good idea?

 

[Drpepper]

Thanks for reading and ask what ever you like, i'll be moitoring this thread like a hawk.
M.Chatterton

Well, where are you then :|

 

[Highland Park]

Already explained ...

At any point during this bidding process a punter can refund their accumulated bids in part or full

Ditto what Drpepper said - I am dying to hear how Paypal etc will react to all the reversals.

 

[Jason_Fisher]

< agree with gemd89

If I understand the idea, the bids are pre-determined to increase by £1 each time, but each bidder has to pay the whole amount.

So if the price is at £80 I have to hand over £81 just to bid - only to find that 10 seconds later I've been outbid and I've just spent £81 for nothing? What do I do then, wait until it's £90 and then spend another £91 to again be outbid and get nothing?!

What made you think this was a good idea?

This is how i understand it too... So in this example you have paid out £81 + £91 = £172, and if someone else bids £92 which outbids me i have spent £172 and have nothing in return? I would rather pay £200 in exchange for the xbox...

I think you are just trying to use the penny auction type system but put something different to it. Penny auctions, you bid in incraments of 1p but for every 1p bid you make it actually costs you £1 - Like madbid i guess.

 

[Jason_Fisher]

You are only trying to make money on the iterest from other peoples money? Am i right?

I remember seeing something like this before, but when interest rates were pretty good. They had a retail site, but it was targetted to people who couldn't probably afford an xbox for example, but couldn't get credit either, so the website let them pay weekly, say £5 p/w, when this got to the retail price they would send out the item to them, the sold the items at cost price but made the money on the interest. Also people were allowed to change their mind, so whatever they had paid into the account they could get it refunded, but the business still made money on the interest.

 

[Podge]

My take on it was that the profit was to come from the interest accrued from all the monies held. I think the op's idea is that the unsucessful bidders will leave their money in the account so as to be able to bid on the next item of interest. Although I could be wrong. :|

 

[Deleted member 74679]

You are only trying to make money on the iterest from other peoples money? Am i right?

I remember seeing something like this before, but when interest rates were pretty good. They had a retail site, but it was targetted to people who couldn't probably afford an xbox for example, but couldn't get credit either, so the website let them pay weekly, say £5 p/w, when this got to the retail price they would send out the item to them, the sold the items at cost price but made the money on the interest. Also people were allowed to change their mind, so whatever they had paid into the account they could get it refunded, but the business still made money on the interest.

Now that's quite neat, and I can see how that would work. But I don't understand how eeeziepeezi would work as the target price could be achieved within hours??

 

[NuBlue]

This has been around for a while and there are plenty of off the shelf scripts that will help you set it up. It is called a 'penny auction' (google it) or a $ in your case!

Nothing unique about the idea imho.

 

[Jason_Fisher]

I wish i could remember the name of the business that was doing that actually, at the time i thought it was quite a good idea. I don't know if it would be quite so good now with interest at 1/2% but still with a steady amount of customers could be quite good.

With that business my only concern would have been if you were paying £5 per week for an item and then a newer model came out, but they changed it to where you opened an account with them and paid in so much a week, say £5, but then you could use you 'account' to buy anything from the site, so i guess something similar to a pre paid credit card. You built up credit with the business and then were able to buy things on the site. I could see something like that being quite popular with people not being able to get credit as easily now...

 

[m4ttch4tt]

Your post clearly expected some sceptics so allow me to be gently so.

If your target price is less than your cost price + Paypal fees, you run the risk of all earlier bidders having their bids refunded. This leaves you with zero profit on the transaction - other than the interest paid on smaller bids over just a few days?

Do you not run the risk of Paypal objecting to having all-but-one transactions reversed??

At the moment I'm looking to use iridium as a payment gateway to avoid that exact problem, paypal has a fixed fee which screws my system up. If iridium fails my website developers will look at creating my own payment gateway, but that will be a last resort.

 

[m4ttch4tt]

This has been around for a while and there are plenty of off the shelf scripts that will help you set it up. It is called a 'penny auction' (google it) or a $ in your case!

Nothing unique about the idea imho.

Please re-read, you have misunderstood the concept.

 

[Jason_Fisher]

So you hope to make money from the interest alone? Am i reading it right?

 

[garyk]

Yes please explain it, sounds pretty involved and thats the problem, *all* prospective punters need to understand it *easily*. As said above madbid is a penny auction not a reverse auction and lots of clones of these are springing up.

Gary

 

[m4ttch4tt]

if someone wanted an Xbox for £100, why would they place bids? Why not just pay the £100 and you would have to ship it.

As that would be the price they would have to pay ultimately.

Have I got it wrong?

I am creating a false image of an 'auction' for that reason.
What I'm aiming to achieve is to be thee cheapest to attract maximum attention and traffic with the incentive of buying at a huge discount.
The bidding has been capped to increment at a predetermined amount depending on sale price to force customers into a so called bidding war so I can collect the accumulated bids earn interest in a vast amount of money, but at the end result everyone wins.

You get cheap stuff - I make money - everyones happy!

@ License to trade - you need tp take another look. You have misread somewhere along the line, this is no penny auction or reverse auction.

 

[garyk]

I am creating a false image of an 'auction' for that reason.
What I'm aiming to achieve is to be thee cheapest to attract maximum attention and traffic with the incentive of buying at a huge discount.
The bidding has been capped to increment at a predetermined amount depending on sale price to force customers into a so called bidding war so I can collect the accumulated bids earn interest in a vast amount of money, but at the end result everyone wins.

You get cheap stuff - I make money - everyones happy!

@ License to trade - you need tp take another look. You have misread somewhere along the line, this is no penny auction or reverse auction.

So you are charging each punter to bid like madbids/swoopo etc?

 

[Jason_Fisher]

I still don't get it, m4ttchatt please go back to my comment about me paying £172 in total and getting nothing in return. I would have made 2 bids there and been out bid by other people, so i will not have won the xbox. What happens to my £172 that you have? Do i get a refund?

I think trying to sell a concept to people is hard enough, but making it so complicated is near on impossible! It needs to be simple, easy to understand, just like Gary mentioned.

 

[Drpepper]

I am creating a false image of an 'auction' for that reason.

That my good fellow is pretty much a scam and obtaining money by deception.

 

[AndyL]

I still don't get it, m4ttchatt please go back to my comment about me paying £172 in total and getting nothing in return. I would have made 2 bids there and been out bid by other people, so i will not have won the xbox. What happens to my £172 that you have? Do i get a refund?

I think trying to sell a concept to people is hard enough, but making it so complicated is near on impossible! It needs to be simple, easy to understand, just like Gary mentioned.

I disagree, it needs to be as complicated as possible because that way people on't get it but by having it all explained in a long hard to understand way will mean they will just crack on. If they complain you can then say that it is all explained on the site. Not his fault if people don't quite understand and are just rushing in.

 

[m4ttch4tt]

So you hope to make money from the interest alone? Am i reading it right?

Not entirely, I do have a small % markup depending on what I buy in at, the system is automated and requires very little interference so paying for staff to keep check isn't a necessity which keeps my overheads down and therefore can rely a little more on interest. After all a few hundred million could attract quite a bit and banking in Geneva has better rates any so....

 

[garyk]

I disagree, it needs to be as complicated as possible because that way people on't get it but by having it all explained in a long hard to understand way will mean they will just crack on. If they complain you can then say that it is all explained on the site. Not his fault if people don't quite understand and are just rushing in.

Seriously????

I cant remember where I read it but someone rich/famous/successful was saying something along the lines of if your idea cannot be described in a sentence on a napkin, forget it!

 

[Tej]

I am creating a false image of an 'auction' for that reason.
What I'm aiming to achieve is to be thee cheapest to attract maximum attention and traffic with the incentive of buying at a huge discount.
The bidding has been capped to increment at a predetermined amount depending on sale price to force customers into a so called bidding war so I can collect the accumulated bids earn interest in a vast amount of money, but at the end result everyone wins.

You get cheap stuff - I make money - everyones happy!

And its taken you a year to dream up this idea/scam?

keep dreaming.. for a while longer.. you might get a workable idea about something worthwhile... your lightbulb moment has popped on this one

You must think people are really stupid/gullible!!!

 

[Jason_Fisher]

Not entirely, I do have a small % markup depending on what I buy in at, the system is automated and requires very little interference so paying for staff to keep check isn't a necessity which keeps my overheads down and therefore can rely a little more on interest. After all a few hundred million could attract quite a bit and banking in Geneva has better rates any so....

You expect enough people to go along with this to get them to hand over a few hundred million between them?

 

[m4ttch4tt]

That my good fellow is pretty much a scam and obtaining money by deception.

Scamming people tp give them the best deals around?
That my friend is a newspaper headline!

I'm not scamming, I'm giving an image of being like a traditional auction but with far better perk. For starters you know the exact reserve and therefore only have to bid to it.
The bidding would be perfect if people didn't understand the system and used it as they do eBay.
7 day listing £5000 accumulation? Think about it.
Keep all of these £5k laying around collecting interest and no tax because it's a client account! It's perfect.

 

[Jason_Fisher]

I disagree, it needs to be as complicated as possible because that way people on't get it but by having it all explained in a long hard to understand way will mean they will just crack on. If they complain you can then say that it is all explained on the site. Not his fault if people don't quite understand and are just rushing in.

I totally disagree with you! You are right that people will not understand properly and it is sad to say that there are people who would rush into this and spend their money, but it is not the way to do business surely...

 

[popunder]

Before you reach this few hundred million milestone (within months no doubt) how will it all work when you only have 10 users wanting an XBox for £100?

 

[Jason_Fisher]

I still don't get it, m4ttchatt please go back to my comment about me paying £172 in total and getting nothing in return. I would have made 2 bids there and been out bid by other people, so i will not have won the xbox. What happens to my £172 that you have? Do i get a refund?

I think trying to sell a concept to people is hard enough, but making it so complicated is near on impossible! It needs to be simple, easy to understand, just like Gary mentioned.

Not being funny, but you have posted since this, so could you please answer, what would happen to the money i have already paid you if i didn't win the auction? Would i get a refund?