Time to start our own auction brand!?

[A_Iverson_I]

Hey guys...... with all the talk about QuickSales I have been thinking, thought it may sound stupid at first and I wondered even if I should post up the idea, but why not start our own auction type site!?

At first you think, well what's the point of that when any idiot out there can grab an auction script and setup a crappy site that will get no traffic and go nowhere!?

Well, I think our situation is a little different. The way I see it is with the way a massive amount of people here and elsewhere are so peeved with ebay et al we can get a good support going for it.

I'm thinking the site would be run by many of the OCT members here (kinda like the board of governors ) and these members (and anyone else for that matter) should be promoting the hell out of it. Put it in your sig on this site, other forums/sites and anywhere else you can think of.

The thing with QuickSales and most other sites is they have got some sellers, but no buyers. This leads to the sellers just listing up crappy cards because they don't want to risk any good cards they put up going for peanuts; so the sites never get anywhere.

If a big group of collectors were REALLY behind the site you would be listing up a lot of your cards there and because a lot of us want to see another option to feebay we could also make sure to utilize the site to bid on other members auctions... once people outside this immediate group see this, the site may actually start to get more and more sellers and bidders.

Now I don't expect anyone to list any high-end cards (without using something like "Buy It Now"), but to beat out sites like QuickSales and to make it a bit interesting you could be listing up stuff like average to goo GU cards, common to average autos etc etc

I would be more than happy to administer and host the site on my VPS server and also develop parts of the site seeing as I do web development for a living. I'm not a designer though so any design work would have to be paid for.

Now there is the subject of site costs..... I think if enough people were interested in supporting this idea then I think any costs involved with the site would be very very manageable. If the site had 10-15 "investors" then any costs really would be quite low when shared amongst the group.

The only questions being........ do we restrict the site to cards only or...........?

So......... am I being overly optimistic here or is this something that is doable!?

 

[AyiosYiorgos]

Will you charge commission?
How Will you verify sellers/buyers, that they're not scammers?
Will you set up a Help Desk (in Australia)
How will buyers pay for item's ?Paypal
Will you need to set up merchant facilities?

 

[A_Iverson_I]

All the questions you have would be something that is discussed by the BOG (Board of Governors) if you will, but I'll try and answer them the best I can..

Will you charge commission?

I imagine the site starting off being totally free, then slowly charging a % of the sale OR a listing fee, but not both.

How Will you verify sellers/buyers, that they're not scammers?

Look at eBay and how big they are and not even they can do that...... but I envision one big thing of the site would be to crack down on this type of stuff and not just "do nothing" as ebay likes to do most times.

Will you set up a Help Desk (in Australia)

I imagine the site will start off with something like a ticket based system which can be handled by several of the people running the site.

How will buyers pay for item's ?Paypal

I'm sure this will be one of the biggest discussion points. As of right now I can't really answer that, Mike had some good points of Paymate in that other thread though. But do do have to offer Paypal to increase the buyers!? ...or does this new site want to avoid eBay's companies altogether!?

Will you need to set up merchant facilities?

For what exactly!? You mean for people to pay for their purchases or for billing sellers if and when the site starts charging a fee?

 

[ooneil]

I like the idea Brett but i think trying to take on ebay or quicksales with an auction site is a waste of time.

I think we need something more like a COMC or even something like Becketts Marketplace or Sportlots. Maybe someone could look to do a joint venture arrangement with COMC?

Just my opinion but if something like this started in Australia i would be happy to give it free and prominent promotion in ASCC Magazine.

 

[A_Iverson_I]

I like the idea Brett but i think trying to take on ebay or quicksales with an auction site is a waste of time.

I think we need something more like a COMC or even something like Becketts Marketplace or Sportlots. Maybe someone could look to do a joint venture arrangement with COMC?

Just my opinion but if something like this started in Australia i would be happy to give it free and prominent promotion in ASCC Magazine.

Well the way I see it is we need a new auction system as we are all peeved at feebay, COMC is already a great system so there is no need for another service like this, though one based in Australia could work, I agree. Only difference with that though is that it would take a lot more "hands on" as you would be storing the cards, categorizing them, taking the orders and sending them out. Sure it could work, and I would be interested in that too, but I targeted an auction service because of the way people are just fed up with ebay atm.

 

[goldcoasttradingcards]

Hey guys...... with all the talk about QuickSales I have been thinking, thought it may sound stupid at first and I wondered even if I should post up the idea, but why not start our own auction type site!?

At first you think, well what's the point of that when any idiot out there can grab an auction script and setup a crappy site that will get no traffic and go nowhere!?

Well, I think our situation is a little different. The way I see it is with the way a massive amount of people here and elsewhere are so peeved with ebay et al we can get a good support going for it.

I'm thinking the site would be run by many of the OCT members here (kinda like the board of governors ) and these members (and anyone else for that matter) should be promoting the hell out of it. Put it in your sig on this site, other forums/sites and anywhere else you can think of.

The thing with QuickSales and most other sites is they have got some sellers, but no buyers. This leads to the sellers just listing up crappy cards because they don't want to risk any good cards they put up going for peanuts; so the sites never get anywhere.

If a big group of collectors were REALLY behind the site you would be listing up a lot of your cards there and because a lot of us want to see another option to feebay we could also make sure to utilize the site to bid on other members auctions... once people outside this immediate group see this, the site may actually start to get more and more sellers and bidders.

Now I don't expect anyone to list any high-end cards (without using something like "Buy It Now"), but to beat out sites like QuickSales and to make it a bit interesting you could be listing up stuff like average to goo GU cards, common to average autos etc etc

I would be more than happy to administer and host the site on my VPS server and also develop parts of the site seeing as I do web development for a living. I'm not a designer though so any design work would have to be paid for.

Now there is the subject of site costs..... I think if enough people were interested in supporting this idea then I think any costs involved with the site would be very very manageable. If the site had 10-15 "investors" then any costs really would be quite low when shared amongst the group.

The only questions being........ do we restrict the site to cards only or...........?

So......... am I being overly optimistic here or is this something that is doable!?

I have shops on both Quicksales & Feebay. I was auctioning between 200 and 300 cards a week on feebay but when they took $2,700 out $29,000 in sales, plus whatever Paypal took, I had to find an alterative. I have only been on QS for a couple of months but have already sold quite a lot of cards on there. I have over 1100 listings on there which cost $5 a month for the shop and no listing fees. Their final value fees are much fairer so I am happy to pay them but some advertising from them now would be great. There is more sellers listing on there all the time and when there is variety on there the buyers will come.

In saying all that I would be more than happy to support an Australian Trading Card Auction site. Is it possible that it can somehow be done as an extension to Ozcardtrader instead of starting a brand new site?

Cheers Glenn

 

[anakinleo]

Agree with Glenn , we need an Australian version of comc. I've got a full-time job so can only afford after hours or weekends to help out. Of course, dont mind being on the board.

 

[A_Iverson_I]

Thanks for the responses guys.

In saying all that I would be more than happy to support an Australian Trading Card Auction site. Is it possible that it can somehow be done as an extension to Ozcardtrader instead of starting a brand new site?

Nothing against OCT at all, but I think a site on it's own would have a better chance at success rather that something that is an extension of another website. Being a sponsor of OCT is something I personally would like to do though if things went ahead.

 

[goldcoasttradingcards]

Thanks for the responses guys.



Nothing against OCT at all, but I think a site on it's own would have a better chance at success rather that something that is an extension of another website. Being a sponsor of OCT is something I personally would like to do though if things went ahead.

Fair enough. The main reasons I asked that was 1 - OCT is already a well run site & 2 - already has a lot of traffic.

Either way I am still happy to support an auction site.

 

[ooneil]

Personally i think a site like a COMC or Beckett Marketplace will work better than an auction site.

As you said Brett unless you can generate traffic an auction site will fail. That's where ebay has you f*cked.

 

[A_Iverson_I]

Well I don't expect to really compete with ebay, I just plan to grow the site little by little by little over time, and if we have a dedicated team of people that want to see the site do well then I think it has a good chance to become something good one day.

 

[lilreddevil]

Not a bad idea. I think we should limit it to collectibles/memorabilia only if this would get off the ground. Targeting is a niche market, something we're all very familiar with, would be having something over Quicksales and eBay.

 

[theflyinggerco]

Not a bad idea. I think we should limit it to collectibles/memorabilia only if this would get off the ground. Targeting is a niche market, something we're all very familiar with, would be having something over Quicksales and eBay.

Niche would be the way to go.

I'd be happy to help. Let me know if I can help in anyway.

 

[lilreddevil]

Happy to help as well. Don't mind being an 'investor' either

 

[AyiosYiorgos]

ok im in as well, no harm in trying no point in bitching about things if your not willing to have a go

 

[anakinleo]

Cmon let's get a committee going. Maybe, Brett can help lead the way.

 

[drob50]

I'm in! I think it is a great idea.... shall I go and register the domain?

www.upyoursebay.com

 

[ooneil]

www.nofeebay.com.au

 

[anakinleo]

And get eBay to buy us out for $1billion after 3 years

 

[ooneil]

To get a website in this format http://www.ahwooga.com/ costs $2995 USD to set up and $495 pa for support. Does not include hosting services.