Free auction site

[silvermusic]

You're also at least 10 years too late to market as well. It's been done thousands of times already. There's no point in auctions anymore, even eBay are finding it's a quickly shrinking market. Everyone and their dog are providing 3rd party marketplaces, more will come on line in the not too distant future. The only future away from those big one's is via you're specialist own site, with your own customer base, mail outs, newsletters, offers, etc. Not some small site that you'll get fed up of flogging to death and eventually get fed up with several months down the line. But you'll only find that out yourself the hard way if you're not prepared to listen to what everyone's telling you.

The reason that there's not a whole bunch of small auction sites doing well is not because it's a niche market you've discovered, it's because it doesn't work. I'm willing to bet most people here make more out of Adsense and various affiliate schemes they put on their ecommerce sites than you'll ever make on your site. Harsh but true.

 

[mycoolgadget]

The news value of the auction sites are well over and ebay lose many customers daily that just give up selling their products, since nobody want to buy the products for what they are worth, as customers nowaday expect to buy new at used prices, and because so many are selling the same product the price is going down, and sellers lose money on products that are more worth, but with so many sellers of the same product, its meant to be disaster. The only one who earn money is ebay, while its last!!!

 

[DealSwift]

I personally agree with silver music. Auction sites these days are a no-go, especially with the likes of eBay.

Also, you think just by undercutting bigger competitors will get you buyers and sellers? You're joking? Bigger companies such as eBay, if they see you as a threat, they will just undercut you.

I was going to start my own auction website, but found out there was no point, so changed it around a bit and am launching my website soon.

You need to do more market research as well as build up a reliable customer base before you launch.

I have over 50 companies interested in my website, from just print screens and a basic business plan.

I wish you the best of luck.

 

[rss11]

just out of interest, with people saying auction sites are slowly vanishing, what will be the next big thing for small businesses, traffic through marketplaces such as google?

Just curious as to what people think,

I like the site redrob but it is very, very bare and not clear enought to find what you want compared to ebay. You would have to market this so much to make even a pinprick in ebays empire, Your only chance of competing is adapting your site to the future and waiting for their very slow demise as an auction site, i which case they will have already thrown millions into their own future and probably already have.

i wish you luck though and i'll keep an eye on the site

Richard, shufflenation UK

 

[The Dreaded Lurgy]

If its anything like the rest of the world all websites will disapear and be replaced by one permanent Tesco site that just sells everything, shortly before the Tesco party are voted into govt and abolish democracy!!

 

[Rixin]

How is the auction site doing now?

 

This is old news to me what's the name got to do with the site hundreds of businesses have a name that has got nothing to do with what they're selling for an example curries do they sell curries no they sell electrical items this name has been around for a while and people are starting to get used to it plus I have already started making a brand out of this.

A good point there. I go for what the company is offering then the domain name...

 

[redrob]

Ok to make you all happy I finally got round to changing the name form electronicenterprise.co.uk to proxerr.com and proxerr.co.uk what do you think of the name now.

 

[fisicx]

Dunno, is it supposed to mean anything?

In any case, the site doesn't seem to be working...

 

[redrob]

The site is working it's down for maintenance.

 

[ameer123]

Hi RedRob

A lot of the links to your original site are showing 404 error messages....
When will your new site be up and running?

 

[redrob]

I should have the new site (proxerr.com) up and running within the next week with all bugs fixed electronicenterprise.co.uk may be going up for sale or I will use it for something else.

 

[Sorted]

Ok to make you all happy I finally got round to changing the name form electronicenterprise.co.uk to proxerr.com and proxerr.co.uk what do you think of the name now.

I hate to tell you this but on first reading I thought it might be a new STD or even a site to do with proxy hosting or whatever... hardly memorable is it?

How about this domain its free at the moment outdidbid.com a bit more catchy dont you think?

 

[Sorted]

Or how about webidto.com or even webidtoo.com which is also available... short and snappy with a play on the words web and bid as well as the actual meaning.

 

[Sorted]

or even sellandby.com or sellalott.com or usellco.com

 

[BankruptStockBargainsUK]

Are check this out!

 

[muskoka]

Hey Rob,
I've got auctioncheck.co.uk without a site and could be persuaded to sell it. I reckon it would be better than your current domain.

 

[redrob]

proxerr.com do's have a meaning to my site proxerr sounds like and is familiar with proxy which is a bidding feature.

 

[sri_130]

just read through the original thread and you are seriously still persuing this?

 

[redrob]

just read through the original thread and you are seriously still persuing this?

What are you talking about?.

 

[sri_130]

What are you talking about?.

your auction website idea/business. The original posts were a pretty old.
I thought you might have canned the whole thing by now.

 

[redrob]

When I get the site back online I should have

402 Registered Users and 1,206 Live Auction

we are planning on doing some big changes to are site.

 

[Rexxom]

Great post. Thank you!

 

[redrob]

When I get the site back online I should have

402 Registered Users and 1,206 Live Auction

we are planning on doing some big changes to are site.

Update to this post above.

Unfortunately we were unable to get these members and auctions as the site had a major virus and we did not want that but I am pretty sure that there will be more auction site for sale soon.

 

[FreelanceSoftwareDeveloper]

There is a major flaw in the business model of these 'lower fee' sites. It doesn't make the profits higher for the seller, it just drives the selling price down.

eBay charge a reasonable fee which funds the huge marketing campaigns and infrastructure required to attract millions of customers on a daily basis. The listing fees are negligible so basically you are getting a commission only sales channel with a payout of around 12% of the sales price. How is that anything other than great value!

 

[silvermusic]

List a few hundred items on ebay and watch the sales role in day after day, or list on some obscure site in the back of beyond of the internet that no one's ever heard of. It's taken them over a year and they still haven't figured out why all these sites fail.

 

[redrob]

There is a major flaw in the business model of these 'lower fee' sites. It doesn't make the profits higher for the seller, it just drives the selling price down.

eBay charge a reasonable fee which funds the huge marketing campaigns and infrastructure required to attract millions of customers on a daily basis. The listing fees are negligible so basically you are getting a commission only sales channel with a payout of around 12% of the sales price. How is that anything other than great value!

eBay charge a reasonable fee what joke book did you get that one out of .

My site is not always going to be free it is free from now to increase members and auctions and within time I will increase fees to pay for the service.

 

[silvermusic]

eBay charge a reasonable fee what joke book did you get that one out of .

My site is not always going to be free it is free from now to increase members and auctions and within time I will increase fees to pay for the service.

You fail to grasp the basics. The fees are fine with me, I know I'll get buyers for my items, the fees they charge are worked out and taken account of when pricing items on eBay, it's no different to paying for advertising my web site with adwords, printing flyers and other methods.

It doesn't matter how cheap the fees are, if it's not producing sales it's wasted money, even if it's free to list my time still costs.

Your whole project is akin to trying roller skate up mount everest.

 

[OptiRick]

To be fair to Rob, though I do think he is on a hiding to nothing...

Many complain about eBay and their questionable customer service, insistence on using Paypal, dictation of postage costs, bias towards the buyer etc.

But when offered an alternative people stick with eBay because they have a larger audience, so how are things ever to change?

 

[redrob]

To be fair to Rob, though I do think he is on a hiding to nothing...

Many complain about eBay and their questionable customer service, insistence on using Paypal, dictation of postage costs, bias towards the buyer etc.

But when offered an alternative people stick with eBay because they have a larger audience, so how are things ever to change?

Business is war you have to fight to become successful nothing is easy one day somebody will beat eBay I have been trying since 2008 and unlike the rest I have lasted for more than 12 months I am not intending to beat eBay but I am trying to become successful. If everyone said don't try this business you're wasting your money you are never going to be successful then the country/business would never evolve but no matter what you say I am here to stay.

 

[OptiRick]

If everyone said don't try this business you're wasting your money you are never going to be successful then the country/business would never evolve

Fair enough but there is a knack in knowing when you are flogging a dead 'un. Because if everyone did that nothing would evolve, there'd just be a load of sweat and dead horses.

And in my opinion there is no shame in pulling the plug and admitting when something didn't come off.