Comments Invited

[Kickoff3pm]

Over a year ago now I decided the world, well the football world, could do with an alternative to ebay but just for football. This started ok but kind of stalled when we found the software wasn't up to the job or rather we couldn't afford to deliver what we really needed to and wanted to.

We I thought I would tell you that we haven't given up and we are having another stab at it after a major upgrade.

Currently doing some tests and clearing some bugs while also deciding on the best options for members both buyers and sellers. Open for testing should you have the time, you can even do test transactions.

Feel free to offer your thoughts.

http://www.kickoff3pm.com/football-auction

[The Voice of Reason]

Can't see the point mate. The ebay boat has well and truely sailed. A fantastic medium for both us collectors and also dealers. Most of us have unearthed gems for our collections from it and dealers can't grumble at 10% fees for their sales - any business would be delighted at just a 10% cost of their turnover as an overhead.

All the major dealers are already on it and I can't see them moving. Of course the beauty of it for us collectors is if you deal in say antiques and already sell on ebay and you pick up a small batch of pre-war Scottish football programmes you are going to put it on ebay and see what happens. They would not dream of going to a 'football memorabilia only' auction.

My crystal ball sees a whole lot of work/investment for you with eventual failure and closure.


Its not meant as a dig and as you have asked for constructive remarks I have to say your test page looks very early 2000's and the banner ad extremely dated. That said, I honestly think you could throw hundreds of thousands at a beautifully polished site and get the same result - ultimate failure.

[Kickoff3pm]

Please don't ever try to talk anyone down off an high building will you

Thanks for your comments.

[The Voice of Reason]

Kickoff3pm wrote:

Please don't ever try to talk anyone down off an high building will you

No, but I'd have a go at dissuading them from going up it in the first place!

[Flackwell Lad]

Good comeback, I liked that one

[Kickoff3pm]

Well as we are already on the roof it's a tad late to discuss if we should have went up in the first place. But if no one else minds, it seems not many people around to comment, I'm happy to discuss the reasoning behind spending all this money

From what your saying I guess you never bother to look on other sites selling anything because thats pointless it's all on ebay right ?

No your talking from the point of a seller, why list on another auction when ebay holds all the cards in terms of traffic ? I can't argue with the fact that ebay just can't be beaten when it comes to traffic and so wouldn't suggest for one minuite that my site is looking to do that. But traffic is less importent when it comes to fixed price items isn't it ?

In that respect the site then becomes just another place to shop just like all the other dealer sites on the internet. If we can make is easy and secure then I don't see why people won't use it.

When it comes to sellers I would be happy with a group of say ten regular sellers. I would prefer a sort of community where people sell yes but also exchange good and views. Get the comunity thing right and you have the kind of trust not even ebay can compete with. It not about making money it's about expanding the interest and giving choices. I'll never get back the time and money already spent.

I get lots of people coming to me asking if I want to buy things, I can't buy everything but I do hate sending them a site that's not even British.

[Ann Orack]

As Samir Benuit once said 'the higher you climb the more you can see'

Congratulations for having a go. It used to be the case that no one got the sack for buying IBM computers. Can anyone rember IBM?

Ebay is great. Is it perfect - hell no. Will your site be perfect - I doubt it, but it deserves to be given a chance. I'll have a scrute this evening and try to post something that makes more sense and possibly identify a usp.

By the way is the request for Shoots mags pukka. I've got 75 cluttering up my study that all need to go

nils carborundum illegitemi and all that

[Kickoff3pm]

Ann Orack wrote:

As Samir Benuit once said 'the higher you climb the more you can see' Congratulations for having a go. It used to be the case that no one got the sack for buying IBM computers. Can anyone rember IBM? Ebay is great. Is it perfect - hell no. Will your site be perfect - I doubt it, but it deserves to be given a chance. I'll have a scrute this evening and try to post something that makes more sense and possibly identify a usp. By the way is the request for Shoots mags pukka. I've got 75 cluttering up my study that all need to go nils carborundum illegitemi and all that

Thanks PM sent regards Shoot

[ashburton-grove]

Hi there, just had a look at your upgraded site.
It's the fees I look at first (being Mr tight) and I noticed that :

1. No listing fee under £10....excellent
2. No Final Value fee under £10.....?
3. 10p fee for picture.......?

To get me listing on your site, I only want to pay if my item sells.
As it stands there will be no images of the items for sale and you'll get no fees if they do sell.
I only sell cheap programmes 99p stuff, and I would be delighted if you charged me 10p when it sold, but as I would like to list hundreds of 99p items with pictures, many won't sell as they are more modern, I would be faced with a bill of £40 -£50 without having sold a single thing.

I want your site to work, and I believe that most of the people on this forum do too.
_________________
"We have a problem with Sol Campbell" Arsene Wenger. 04/02/06

[ashburton-grove]

I just noticed this.

Free Store 100 items, Price: Free, flat fee
Basic Store 500 items, Price: 5.00 GBP, recurring every 90 Days
Medium Store 1000 items, Price: 8.00 GBP, recurring every 90 Days
Advanced Store 5000 items, Price: 15.00 GBP, recurring every 90 Days, [ Featured Store ]

You'll have to ditch this idea too. I think.[/b]
_________________
"We have a problem with Sol Campbell" Arsene Wenger. 04/02/06

[Kickoff3pm]

ashburton-grove wrote:

Hi there, just had a look at your upgraded site. It's the fees I look at first (being Mr tight) and I noticed that : 1. No listing fee under £10....excellent 2. No Final Value fee under £10.....? 3. 10p fee for picture.......? I want your site to work, and I believe that most of the people on this forum do too.

Thanks for looking, first everything is just working ideas but we are very close to the final fees struture. The needs to be more clearity in the documented stuff - for start as you intend to list only items under £10 the would be no fees at all, unless you added the little extras to make your items stand out. The image things is first image free and next 10p The is no problem increasing that further to say 4 images free but we would want to see the site at work first.

Fees are designed to create a totally free sale for your average collector/seller where only fees are what you decide to add and small charges for using extra resource - We are more using fees to stop over use and to make people think before they open a store for example or everyone would open one.

So listing free if start is less then £10
Final value free is end is under £10

One thing I would point out is you will not have any paypal fees if you don't want them - well we hope so any way. More on that late as this edit box is driving mad.

[goonerboy]

your time and effort on this will be very much appreciated by all collectors/dealers if it works so i hope that it does. Although ebay is the market leader and likely to be the case there is also room for a complementary site where collectors/small dealers can list their spares, duplicates, leftovers from job lots etc. The issue with ebay is that it is fine for 99p items and for waiting for the free listing days for higher priced items but there is a gap in the middle. I could see that this is the cyberspace that your site could easily occupy. In the early days of online auctions, yahoo used to have a similar auction site with fees only payable if item sold. I hope you succeed and would be happy to participate as seller and buyer.

I am not sure what helpful advice I can provide except to say that do your research and get a realistic estimate of how much resource it would take to set up but more importantly maintain such a site. Early interest would soon dissipate if the site's functionality or performance was not seen as reliable or sufficiently user friendly

[JJPROGRAMMES]

Hi, Most sellers (& buyers who sell on) of football memorabilia arnt interested in any fees unless there item sells, so how about a totally free site ie free listings (any start price) free pictures (upto 6) etc and forget about bold & Highlighted (that looks like your trying to make money out off old rope), ebays fsf is 10% and ebids is 2% so how about for your site say 5% across the board?, with 5% fsf you`d get income from from the smaller sales as well as the larger sales at a percentage which would suit most if not all of the sellers, also the categories need a bit of jigging about (tickets handbooks and maybe add in stickers) these are just a couple of ideas for you to think about, do hope the site gets going and may use it myself (if the fees are right).

[Kickoff3pm]

Good comments and really appreicated a hell of a lot. The most importent thing right now is to test the site, it works in every way you can even go though the payment stage the only payment is test, so to complete a transaction and to see whats in your admin area you just click that button.

goonerboy to answer your questions, I used to work in a major utility handing all their Internet. So I understand the resources and the costs that can tick up. For those who will understand the tech the site is on a 2gb VPS (burstable 3gb) with over 1000gb bandwidth and 120gb of storage space. It's on a dedicate vP4 with vP6 available should it be needed. The only other sites on the server are my own and my customers so the finger is on the pulse so to speak. Currently it's using 17% of memory.

I understand all things about ebay but a googner says the has to be room for a little'un we just have to make it happen. All I can say it I'm not in it for the money. That because I know I can't compete with ebay. so I won't.

[Kickoff3pm]

JJPROGRAMMES wrote:

Hi, Most sellers (& buyers who sell on) of football memorabilia arnt interested in any fees unless there item sells, so how about a totally free site ie free listings (any start price) free pictures (upto 6) etc and forget about bold & Highlighted (that looks like your trying to make money out off old rope), ebays fsf is 10% and ebids is 2% so how about for your site say 5% across the board?, with 5% fsf you`d get income from from the smaller sales as well as the larger sales at a percentage which would suit most if not all of the sellers, also the categories need a bit of jigging about (tickets handbooks and maybe add in stickers) these are just a couple of ideas for you to think about, do hope the site gets going and may use it myself (if the fees are right).

I happen to disagree, the vast number of people I have ever dealt with do not buy on price alone and for that reason a free site will never work. If it's free it's always going to be under resourced.

I think providing features ebay doesn't and opening the door for small transactions to take place is the way to go. Couple that with trust and friendly people who are willing to support the concept. Then feedback into the site any income to cover payment transactions and you have a site cheaper the ebay and that become the second key selling point.

[ashburton-grove]

Quote:

We are more using fees to stop over use and to make people think before they open a store for example or everyone would open one.

Alan Sugar would have fired you by now.
Over use ? Surely you want millions of programmes on your site!
Why limit it to 100,ebay did that because they don't want low value stuff. Now they are regretting it and having free listing days almost every weekend.

I'm not a full time dealer, but there's maybe thousands of spare programmes in my house, and I'm sure in many other peoples.

Let us stick on an unlimited amount and your site will be flourishing.

Good news about the 1st photo being free, but you should charge a final value fee.
_________________
"We have a problem with Sol Campbell" Arsene Wenger. 04/02/06

[Kickoff3pm]

ashburton-grove wrote:

Quote: We are more using fees to stop over use and to make people think before they open a store for example or everyone would open one. Alan Sugar would have fired you by now. Over use ? Surely you want millions of programmes on your site! Why limit it to 100,ebay did that because they don't want low value stuff. Now they are regretting it and having free listing days almost every weekend. I'm not a full time dealer, but there's maybe thousands of spare programmes in my house, and I'm sure in many other peoples. Let us stick on an unlimited amount and your site will be flourishing. Good news about the 1st photo being free, but you should charge a final value fee.

You get the reward for suggesting a final value fee, the non cheapscate award

In fact you can list millions free, the restriction only applies to people in their own store if they choose to open one on the site. If you have a store you can either list in the main auction or in your store. You don't have to have a store but if you do it will be free for upto 100 items. This is aimed at collectors who want to sell duplicates or part trade. It give them a sort of brand because you can set the header of your store to your club design should you wish.

god this edit box is doing my head in.

[Auchinleckian]

Have registered, best of luck with it.

[Kickoff3pm]

Auchinleckian wrote:

Have registered, best of luck with it.

Thanks, are you the 300th member ?

Well maybe 3 of those are my testing acounts but shows the is interest there doesn't it. I'm in no real hurry to get the site live as I'm still working out some ideas with the chaps that did the code.

I would go live now but these are key areas regarding how people pay each other for items. Still trying to work it so most sellers have not costs including payment costs like paypal fees. I would want to mess about changing things while live.

So feel free to play with the site and bid, buy the items, setup a store even - the items won't be delivered and no payments will be taken as it's all in test mode.

[ashburton-grove]

Keep us updated when you're going live.
_________________
"We have a problem with Sol Campbell" Arsene Wenger. 04/02/06