06-14-2007, 05:32 PM
[quote author=Riverwood link=topic=3775.msg57038#msg57038 date=1181837140]
[quote author=bratpack link=topic=3775.msg56941#msg56941 date=1181781343]
I really think/hope that this months round of store closings will be quite hefty. Â I think the ones that our left sell as a hobby and must not need to make income off their wares or they are just staying because of the false sense of family amongst the members. Â I think after the announcement of Karen departing and Andrew's bad cop routine, the feeling of belonging to an on-line "family" will be gone and thus many hard core poppers. Â Anyone who stays after all that nonsense must be beyond the realm of help. Â Its really very sad.
[/quote]
Morning All!
As a soon-to-be ex-koolaid drinker, I have a question for you folks that have been around this block a few times. I know there's a million auction sites out there, many of them doing quite poorly with no traffic, some better than others, some of them charge, some of them don't, some of them advertise, some of them have virtually no advertising budget....very few of them seem to have the highly charged emotional impact that WP has had - neg. & pos.... (that I'm aware of).
Initially, WP seemed to be one of the auction sites that could be quite successful; it had numerous ebay refugee sellers, a similar set-up to ebay and lots of hype. Myself and many other sellers spent months & months promoting & promoting, only to find it extremely difficult to lure our customers over to buy there, or to get new traffic onto the site. I can tell you from my own perspective that getting even my regular customers to make purchases there was like pulling teeth without the novocaine, not sure why. WP ballooned up to over 900 stores, only to dwindle back down to barely over 200.Â
This is my question: What do you think is the one biggest contributing factor to the gradual decline of wagglepop?...is it Ray's treatment of sellers? is it bad karma from the first failed go-round? poor public perception of the site? lack of advertising? ebay being the place to buy? the efforts of nay-sayers? something else??? Just curious as to what people think
:cinqo2:
[/quote]
I don't think it was the failure of WP1 that is causing the failure of WP2. Â I beleive that it's Ray's fault. Â He had many sellers willing to give WP2 a shot. Â He in turn did nothing but make bad decissions every step of the way as some of the people who were around for WP1 said he would. Â He had a chance to prove them wrong and he failed.
His treatment of sellers is bad.  His heavy finger on the delete key is bad he does not listen to anyone's opinion at all.  He did things like implement  adsmart instead of fixing things such as the invoicing to allow for instant payment from buyers.  Then implemented the phone verification which I and many other sellers thought was a bad idea. Â
But as usual our opinions did not count. Â Then there is the marketing he really did nothing. Â I think he could have done things to market the site. Â If I'm not mistaken I believe BBH posted a list of things he could have done that would not have cost him a whole lot of money. Then there are the many lies which have been told by him. Â Lies about marketing, implementation of certain features and so on. Â
Even if he had done all these things when there where over 900 stores there it still would be hard to get buyers away from ebay. Â But I think WP would be a better position than it is right now instead of going down hill like it is. Â If the sellers had been treated better and if they had seen some effort on his part to do the right things I think more would still be there right now. Â I see WP2's failure as Ray's fault and no one elses. Â He had his chance and blew it.
[quote author=bratpack link=topic=3775.msg56941#msg56941 date=1181781343]
I really think/hope that this months round of store closings will be quite hefty. Â I think the ones that our left sell as a hobby and must not need to make income off their wares or they are just staying because of the false sense of family amongst the members. Â I think after the announcement of Karen departing and Andrew's bad cop routine, the feeling of belonging to an on-line "family" will be gone and thus many hard core poppers. Â Anyone who stays after all that nonsense must be beyond the realm of help. Â Its really very sad.
[/quote]
Morning All!
As a soon-to-be ex-koolaid drinker, I have a question for you folks that have been around this block a few times. I know there's a million auction sites out there, many of them doing quite poorly with no traffic, some better than others, some of them charge, some of them don't, some of them advertise, some of them have virtually no advertising budget....very few of them seem to have the highly charged emotional impact that WP has had - neg. & pos.... (that I'm aware of).
Initially, WP seemed to be one of the auction sites that could be quite successful; it had numerous ebay refugee sellers, a similar set-up to ebay and lots of hype. Myself and many other sellers spent months & months promoting & promoting, only to find it extremely difficult to lure our customers over to buy there, or to get new traffic onto the site. I can tell you from my own perspective that getting even my regular customers to make purchases there was like pulling teeth without the novocaine, not sure why. WP ballooned up to over 900 stores, only to dwindle back down to barely over 200.Â
This is my question: What do you think is the one biggest contributing factor to the gradual decline of wagglepop?...is it Ray's treatment of sellers? is it bad karma from the first failed go-round? poor public perception of the site? lack of advertising? ebay being the place to buy? the efforts of nay-sayers? something else??? Just curious as to what people think
:cinqo2:
[/quote]
I don't think it was the failure of WP1 that is causing the failure of WP2. Â I beleive that it's Ray's fault. Â He had many sellers willing to give WP2 a shot. Â He in turn did nothing but make bad decissions every step of the way as some of the people who were around for WP1 said he would. Â He had a chance to prove them wrong and he failed.
His treatment of sellers is bad.  His heavy finger on the delete key is bad he does not listen to anyone's opinion at all.  He did things like implement  adsmart instead of fixing things such as the invoicing to allow for instant payment from buyers.  Then implemented the phone verification which I and many other sellers thought was a bad idea. Â
But as usual our opinions did not count. Â Then there is the marketing he really did nothing. Â I think he could have done things to market the site. Â If I'm not mistaken I believe BBH posted a list of things he could have done that would not have cost him a whole lot of money. Then there are the many lies which have been told by him. Â Lies about marketing, implementation of certain features and so on. Â
Even if he had done all these things when there where over 900 stores there it still would be hard to get buyers away from ebay. Â But I think WP would be a better position than it is right now instead of going down hill like it is. Â If the sellers had been treated better and if they had seen some effort on his part to do the right things I think more would still be there right now. Â I see WP2's failure as Ray's fault and no one elses. Â He had his chance and blew it.