Hibidder: another casualty (maybe?)

So...it seems that the auction site hibidder.com is no longer with us.

Maybe.

It depends on who you listen to. Go to the site www.hibidder.com and you won't be able to get to the site. Usually a bad sign, right?

Well, there are two camps on what happened:

1. The owner/runner/whatever of the site had health problems (possibly a heart attack) and he had to take the site down so he could get better.

2. The guy was sued and ordered to shut the site down.

If you are truly interested in the drama as it unfolds, try this.

As of the last item count for this site (which was 6 days before this posting...an eternity in internet time) the site had about 29,000 listings.

Sites like this are often either a labor of love or some attempt to out-ebay ebay. And...they often fail or just barely survive.

But this is what I find most troubling about this site: one guy (possibly) had a heart attack, the site goes down, and nothing can be done about it until he gets better?

Seriously?

If hibidder really is gone, this is far from a great loss for anyone. If I have to depend on a single person to keep a site up and running (at least a site I'm trying to use to make an income), I really don't want to be involved with it.

The Twitter Effect...except for on-line auction sites!

I recently heard about how the so-called "Twitter Effect" basically killed the movie "Bruno" with almost immediate negative reviews posted and circulated like wildfire within hours of its opening.

So I wondered...how big is Twitter with the big auction sites and on-line stores like eBay and Amazon.

Well, let's look.

Here is a quick list of some of the bigger (and lesser-known) names in the field.

Company (twitterid) #followers
Amazon (amazon) 5,278
Amazon Gold Box (amazondeals) 14,452
Amazon mp3 (amazonmp3) 816,910
eBay (ebay) 1,685
eBid - no presence
ecrater (ecrater) 180
bonanzle (bonanzle) 561
CQout (CQout) 2
blujay (blujaydotcom) 51
OnlineAuction - no presence
Atomic Mall (atomicmall) 17



I only included twitter IDs that were the "official" ones, skipping the rest (such as fan sites and personal pick sites), and I also skipped some of the more technical IDs of these sites (such as Amazon's Kindle news and updates ID).

OK, now I have to admit that the # of followers for these sites may not be a great indication of their popularity, but I think it is rather telling about the demographics of Twitter and the demographics of the sites mentioned above.

For example, can I assume from these numbers that...

1. Amazon didn't just jump the bandwagon, they have the lead float in the parade. They obviously have embraced this technology and they know that younger people + mp3's + music downloads = a potentially profitable source of sales.

2. eBay has not quite fully embraced Twitter. Griff is on twitter as well (ID: ebayjimgriffith) with a not-to-impressive 281 followers.

3. Scrappy upstarts ecrater and bonanzle are getting their presence known, but slowly.

4. The rest? I think I can assume most of their sellers, if asked about twitter, would say don't need it/it's not for me/it won't help my sales/it's just a waste of time/etc.

Agree? Disagree? Think I'm nuts for spending any time at all on this?

Let me know what you think.

Bonanzle vs. ecrater: the battle continues

So...some fellow bonanzlers have already counted out ecrater as heir apparent to the coveted #3 spot right behind ebid and ebay.

Well, guess what happened?

As of this evening, ecrater has a rather firm hold on #3, with bonanzle falling behind. At one point Bonanzle was up about 50,000 listings over "the moon". Now they are about 14,000 listings behind.

Any lesson here?

Well, first, do NOT count out any competitor unless you can visually see them gasping for breath and they are just a very distant shadow behind you. 50k listings is nothing to gain or lose when you have 70-100,000 sellers on each site.

Second, why focus so much on ecrater in the first place? Don't worry about the guy right above you, you're aiming higher...right? "WE'RE NUMBER THREE" really doesn't sound good.

Basically, yeah it sucks that the ranch is #4 right now. Who cares. When/if the ranch comes close to chomping at the heels of the bay, then I'll REALLY start to get excited.

Onlineauction.com: sales growing - NOT a good sign

Usually, when you hear that a company's sales are growing, you think "Aw, nice. They are obviously doing well."

Then...there is the "other case".

The "other case" may also be known as the "Aw, man. They must be getting desperate."

Case in point: onlineauction.com.

This other ebay-wannabe has been around for a couple of years and perhaps had shown the greatest promise when it first materialized. But you can probably already figure out what happened and where it's headed. Poor customer support, no buzz, weird fee structure...it all added up quickly and now they are battling for the #7 spot with buyitsellit and UsiFF (two more not-big-names).

I figured they are at least holding on so they might be around for a bit. But I recently got an email from them that makes me think they might be in some serious trouble.

The email was sent to the email account I used to set up my account there...which I haven't used since probably mid-2008. I logged in and checked the message.

It was a wonderful letter stating how their sales have increased dramatically since 2008. In fact, their sales for 2009 alone have exceeded their TOTAL sales for 2008 (or something like that). And they showed an impressive pie chart to prove it. (side note: pie charts are horrible vehicles to show growth...ratios, yes...distributions, yes...not growth).

And then it hit me: this is what desperation looks like. I set up an account there and never listed an item, never bought an item, never even looked at many items. So it seems that they are digging away at the vast dead pool of former buyers and sellers and saying, "Hey, look at us. We're still around. And we're growing."

And that scares me. They obviously have done some right things to get their sales increase (or they have former Enron accountants "working" their sales figures) so perhaps the increase is legitimate. But blowing your own horn, saying in essence that you have gotten all the way to the upper middle isn't all that impressive. It's actually rather pitiful. In this case, "we're growing" to me at least equals "we haven't gone under yet."

What would make me sell on their site? How about hearing about the site from a friend, neighbor, the woman in front of you at the grocery store, hell...anyone other than them.

Sadly, I think they have further alienated themselves from some potential sellers. A recent thread on ebay has many people talking about receiving the same email I got (some called it outright spam) and saying how they were screwed over by support, never sold anything, had to jump through hoops to get their account cancelled, got their credit cards charged too much...blah, blah, blah. So this brainstorm of sending this email out pretty much did nothing more than bring back bad memories and more bitterness towards the site.

"OK....mister smarty pants, what would YOU have done?"

Well, yes, old former users are a potential gold mine. So of course I would have used this list. But I probably would have gone with a softer, more welcoming approach. More like a...

Dear _________

We miss you!

We notice you haven't looked at onlineauction.com since July, 2008.

Well, we want you back!

Wonder what we've been up to since you've gone? Well,

(list of functions, features added over the past year).

And...our sales have INCREASED xxx% since the last time you looked at us!

We want you to become part of the exciting growth our site has experienced.
Sell your items on onlineauction.com and pay ZERO monthly fees through
2009. So no fees to list, no fees to sell, no fees at all!


So please, take a few minutes, visit our site and blah blah blah.


Sincerely,
The sales team at onlineauction

At least something like that.

In other words, don't tell me how successful YOU are, tell me how you're going to help make ME successful.

Santayana knew what he was talking about!

"Oh, yeah. I have their album Abraxas. I LOVE Oye Como Va."

No...not Santana...Santayana.

The guy who said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

THAT Santayana.

I recently posted a thread in the Bonanzle forums about how certain ebay-like sites are gone or going under.

Their response? Meh. Dumb thread. Who. Take your pick.

But in general, people didn't really care to hear about the failures.

So, why did I post it? See the above-mentioned quote.

People joined the failed/failing sites hoping to find a friendlier, less expensive and less restrictive place than ebay to sell there goods.

They found those places. And those places failed.

Now people are moving to Bonanzle from ebay to find (again) a friendlier, less expensive and less restrictive place than ebay to sell there goods.

They found Bonanzle. And Bonanzle may or may not succeed.

So far, Bonanzle is doing the right things: counting on their sellers for good items and good service, making it as cheap as possible (while still actually charging), and NOT spending a gazillion bucks on advertising. They are slowly creating buzz...incredibly effective and horribly cheap!

My point is that I don't want Bonanzle sellers (or Bonanzle) to think they are immune from the problems that plagued and brought down those before them. I want the sellers (and Bonanzle) to learn from those mistakes.

So hopefully in a couple of years, I will be reading about the incredible success Bonanzle has become.

And not reading their obits on google.

So Bonanzle...PLEASE learn from the mistakes of Wagglepop and all the others. Don't think you're immune.

My nominee for next "ebay wannabe" to die: WebStore

Seriously...

"webstore"? Is this the catchiest, most imaginative, cleverest name you could come up with for you, er, well...web store?

But that is far from the biggest reason why I think webstore (probably originally billed as "the next ebay") will likely be "the next wagglepop".

Reasons...

1. The name. Yeah, the name stinks. Google. Yahoo. These are cool to say. "webstore"? Boring. Besides, who doesn't already have a "webstore". "You sell on line? Cool. Where's you web store?" "Oh, it's on webstore." Wow. The originality makes me want to stick my head in the oven.

2. The numbers. 43,500 items. ebay probably has this many listings close without bids in like 5 minutes. Maybe 1 minute.

3. The fees. Webstore is "sponsor-paid". No seller fees at all. "Sponsors" provide the income for the site, usually via banners, flashy boxes, stuff like that. Ick. "ads by google" banners everywhere. Links to hosting sites everywhere. It's not a web store...it's a blog that OD'd on "pay-per-click" injections.

4. The look. In a nutshell, it looks like something out of a box labeled "My First Website" with a sticker on the bottom that says "recommended for ages 3 and up". Seriously. Get a designer.

5. The news. The liveliness of a site IMO can be measured in what info they provide about themselves. Outages, maintenance times, etc. are GOOD things in my book. It shows the site gives a crap about its users. Telling me bad news is better than me finding out the hard way. Webstore's latest post is about their set-up with ViaWest (perhaps "the poor man's Cable and Wireless") which provides operations hosting. "server array". Wow. "Redundant array of disks". Wow. Boring. Who cares. What the hell are you doing to get customers?!??!

And this ViaWest thing REALLY gets under my skin. So NOW you are worried about the reliability and uptime of the site? NOW 24/7 is important to you? This should be a non-issue; your site should have had all this hardware redundancy in the first place. The "news" is that you got away without it for this much time!

OK....deep breath...calm down...happy place time....OK, now I'm better.


Now, I do have to give them credit. They really do seem to be trying. RSS feeds, affiliate programs, new store categories.

But all that brings me back to my first question...

"webstore"?

On-line detritus

Well, wagglepop is officially dead. But still available for sale for a staggering $40,000.

Anyone have $40k they don't want to throw down the garbage disposal but still want to permanently say good bye to, give the former wagglepop owner(s) a call. I'm sure they'll be glad to hear from you.

And it seems that there may be two other ebay wanna-be sites that are biting the dust, or at least scooting up to the table...

tazbar: This statement has so far brought up huge cries of "Who?" from people. Yes, tazbar, one of the great unknown ebay slayers looks like it's going down for the count. And what a count! About 44,000 items listed (compare that to ebay's 28 MILLION!). It's officially lights out on July 16th.

plunderhere: Again...another "Who?". And with good reason. About 50,000 items listed. Will not be missed.

What do these two have in common? Hmmm....well...

ZERO name recognition. Forget the big ad campaigns. They don't work. What does work is word of mouth, from both buyers AND sellers. None of either equals our "who?" response.

Support. OK, this should say "lack of support". Both got dinged by former sellers for their extreme lack of help and support for sellers. Funny, I heard the same thing about wagglepop.

The "not the chicken NOR the egg" syndrome. "OK, what the hell does that mean, Rich?" Simple: these kinds of sites always get the question: what makes the site successful, lots of items listed, or lots of sellers buying? The answer is simple. Neither. Or both. Both factors have to grow together, and in parallel increments for the site to make it. These sites had neither the listings nor the buyers. Hence, no word-of-mouth ad structure. Hence, no more site.

Money. Actually, none. No buyers and no sellers is the way these sites start, but eventually both sides of the equation have to build. Otherwise, no revenue. If you build a site like these, you either need to:

1. burn through money like bras in the 60s before you see a single cent of profit

...or..

2. LOOK like you're spending cash like you have a dozen VC's in your back pocket

...lest people start to suspect you aren't gonna make it.

They did neither. They always looked like amateurs.


So...again...I ask...who's next?

Check out my next post.

Bonanzle: another basket for my eggs

Right now, there is a struggle between ecrater and bonanzle for the coveted #2 spot in the list of on-line sites, with ebay and ebid being #1 and #2 respectively.

I already mentioned about the folly of putting all your eggs in one basket, but I have come to the business decision of dedicating more of my time to bonanzle.

Why?

• The people. The forums are more active, friendlier, more helpful, and I just get the feeling that the sellers are not all just a bunch of disgruntled former ebayers, but a group (dare I say "team") of people who want to succeed and who want bonanzle to succeed...almost a grass roots movement.

• The site. It's clean, simple to navigate, and looks professional. The crater always had a kind of cheesy feeling to me, like its pages were just kind of thrown together. It just doesn't look cool.

• The products. This I believe is why I think bonanzle is going to be the next big thing. Antiques, cool used stuff, new stuff...it has everything. And everything is easy to find. The dreaded "best match" search algorithm used by ebay isn't on bonanzle...and that's a good thing!

• The press. I did a search of bonanzle references (trying to skip the "items for sale" links) and found plenty of great press out there for the site. So far, few disgruntled buyers.

So I am spending quite a bit more time with bonanzle. I have about 60 items listed, and I could easily get a couple of hundred out there. I will probably soon pull my ecrater listings and put them on "the ranch" instead.

The day Wagglepop died

Today, 6/30/2009, is the day that Wagglepop is scheduled to die.

It is a rather rare occasion that you can actually witness the death of a website. Usually websites die either from just being ignored by their owners or they just disappear without any notice. Oh, and of course the occasional site takedown by the site's host (usually not a good thing to have happen to you).

Wagglepop, though, has quite clearly stated their termination date. They're pulling the plug tonight and the machine that goes "ping" will cease to make a sound.

There was so much fanfare when this site started up. But despite all its promise, it never got any bigger than the other dozen or so sites out there aiming to become the next ebay.

But I don't want a "the next ebay". I want something better. And personally I am glad to see Wagglepop go. Too many bad stories, too much bravado from the owners, too much failure.

Any bets on who's next?

The Danger of the "all your eggs in one basket" mentality

Many a seller had hitched their wagon to ebay, thinking that it would be the only venue they'd need to become big-time on-line sellers (or at least sell enough to help pay the bills).

Ah...reality.

When ebay decided to alienate the smaller sellers and focus on the big box stores and manufacturers to become a venue for overstock goods, many of those smaller sellers felt like they were being pushed out.

And they had no place else to go.

They had fallen prey one of the biggest pitfalls of the small seller: dedication to a single venue for your sales.

Whether you sell on Amazon, ebay, bonanzle, ebid, ecrater or even your own site, it's important to realize that any one of these could fail, stumble, or in some way seriously hurt your business on it. Even having your own site doesn't make you immune. There are others out there looking at your site thinking "Yeah, I can sell that, too" and POOF - there goes whatever exclusivity you may have.

Lesson 1: if you want to sell and even think of being able to make a living at it, you need to look at all venues out there. You may not need to necessarily sell on them, but at least be aware of them and perhaps have a presence there, just in case your current venue decides to "ebay" you!

Lesson 2: be sure to have a contingency plan. Do you sell your hand-made items on ebay? Excellent! Have you looked into bonanzle? Or etsy? No? Then why not? Etsy is a fantastic site for artisans and crafters to sell their wares. If ebay starts to fail you, where will you go? Or is the market already dried up for your handmade toaster covers made from recycled Bud Lite cans? Ok...so what you gonna sell now?

Now, you may ask, "What about you? Did you have other venues in line?" Well, I started to ween myself from ebay long before they started to become closeout city. When I saw the disaster eBay Express turned into, I knew they didn't have any idea how to re-invent themselves...at least without hurting its then-present seller base.

So, yeah, I had contingency plans. I went from selling antiques and collectible to selling new goods. It took me like 3 1/2 weeks to convert, including suppliers, venue, and profit required to make it at least match what I was doing on ebay.

I'm not bragging. That's just the benefit of planning.

And so far, the plan is working pretty nicely.

In other words, if you need to change venues, product lines, or any serious portion of your business plan, PLEASE have a folder in your desk (or in your head) labeled "what if's" to fall back on just in case that great venue is still a shooting star, but no longer wants your wagon hitched to it.

Hmm...just opened my THIRD booth on Bonanzle

At first, I thought that one booth (funkybydesign) would be plenty for the stuff I have to sell.

Then I got into the Halloween stuff I have. And I have lots of it. Also, quite a bit of Christmas stuff. So, yeah...another booth was born (Holiday Finds Of Ohio).

So...I started getting into more stuff to list, and it became painfully obvious to me that I just have too much stuff. I have boxes and boxes of vintage and antique stuff that I want to sell.

But I didn't want to muddy the waters of my first booth (which is new stuff like toys, home decor and the like) or my second booth (retro wall hangings just don't fit alongside pumpkin carving kits).

Hence...my third Bonanzle booth: Vintage Finds Of Ohio.

Now I just have to work on cross-promotion, so if someone stumbles upon one of my booths, they can see I have others!

Bonanzle....MAYBE an ebay alternative

In the past few weeks I've spent some time listing some things on Bonanzle.

OK...I can hear most of you ask..."what's bonanzle?"

Imagine ebay listings, but without all the clutter. Better search results. Great prices. Big selection of unique things. Easy navigation. Happy sellers. In other words, just about everything that made ebay what it was just seconds before it hit "the big time".

Getting the picture?

Don't consider Bonanzle as an ebay alternative yet. As of today, ebay has about 27 million listings. Bonanzle has a bit over 2 million. But then again, it's only been around since 2008.

But what Bonanzle lacks in listings, it makes up easily in the happy, positive, gung-ho attitude of its sellers (versus the depressing, "why can't they fix Best Match" 'tude at the bay).

Bonanzle may not replace ebay, but they are a serious contender for fixed price listings of lots of nice items, both new and old.

Give it a quick look. Just about all the sellers are great people and willing to help whenever they can.

One big Ecrater plus...free google feed...usually

I have a few items listed on ecrater under my funkybydesign id. Not a lot, just a few items to test the waters.

The biggest thing about ecrater is that they are free/free/free. As in:

• no fees to join
• no fees to list
• no fees if you sell something.

You get a free domain (mine's funkybydesign.ecrater.com). You get a little bit of customization for your own "storefront", but it will still look like everyone else's there...except perhaps for your logo if you upload one.

One powerful tool they have is an automatic upload of your products to google. Google has pretty much become the place to find products. And they know it. That's why they usually have their shopping results at the top, that's why they have so much invested in ad research. That's why their search engine just plain rocks!

But there's a catch...actually more like do's and don'ts. I don't have an exhaustive list, but here are a couple of items I've read about that you may want to avoid.

• Skip the "all caps" product titles. Some people have had their products not included in google's search just because they capitalize all the words in the title.
• Don't include "free shipping" as part of the title or description. If you want it in your desc., put it WAY at the end.
• Include as many importatnt descriptive words as possible in the title. Size? Color? Make? Model? Yep...good stuff. L@@K? NICE? NEW? fuggetaboutit.

If I come across any more little gems, I'll be sure to try to remember to remind myself that I have a blog. Then maybe I'll remember to list them here.

ebid, wagglepop, blah blah blah

So...who's in competition with ebay?

Well, nobody, really.

Huh?

Well, there are sites out there that let you auction off your grandma's old knick-knacks, but they are all pretty bad. Bad as in not known, not a lot of listings, sometimes just plain ugly.

There's ebid, for example. Hate it. Sorry to be so blunt. Looks confusing. Not really a great selection. Horribly policed. Looked under collectible lamps and found 2 cheap new radios...both with no pics!!

There's wagglepop. Oh, wait. No there isn't. Wagglepop is going under on 6/30/09. Some would say good riddance. They came storming out of the gate with their "we're gonna beat ebay attitude" and prompty ticked off their new-found customer base with poor support and no advertising for the site.

There's CQout. Decent site, but the prices are all in pounds, even when I change to the US listings. Decent # of listings, but not much impressive stuff.

There's blujay, whose home page has a showcase of items hovering around $3 each. I did find some decent, impressive items, but not lots. Besides, they don't do auctions.

So in general there is no "next ebay" on the horizon.

But don't fret. There are some decent alternatives slowly rising.