Quote:SmartSell Pro will be superceded/replaced with a new participation structure, one that will generate fair revenues that will allow a smaller site such as we are to continue operation.
Was not the idea of FEE HIKE brought to the members for a vote, and was overwhelmingly rejected? I thought WP was the place where THE PEOPLE rule.
Quote:Ray and many sellers haven't woke up to the fact that the eBay alternative they've been looking for already exists. It's called search (both free and paid).
No truer words were ever spoken.
Quote:I believe that probably 99% of online sellers, given the right attitude, would be capable of building a more solid and profitable business on Wagglepop than on any other venue online.
And what "attitude" is that? The attitude that sell-thru is an "illogical consideration", making money is not a part of business, warm fuzzies are more important than feeding your children or paying the rent, supporting the site owner's decision to support the competition with money YOU'VE invested in the site is good and necessary, being chastised, ridiculed and excommunicated for asking pertinent business questions is okay, and more?
Nimrod.
I predict this seller is about to be banned :blinkie:
seller Wrote:Those 70,000 unique monthly visitors sure not hitting my showcase store. My site meter shows 99.9% of traffic to my store via trafficswarm which is a joke in it's self since one out of every 100 may stay a bit longer then 30 seconds and have more then one page view.
The other .1% of traffic comes from right here on the community boards or one of my other groups I belong to. None have come from a google search.
I started out here on Wagglepop doing fairly well for a new store with more then expected sales however, I have not had another for over 3 weeks now even though I listed 150+ new listings.
I do hope these changes encourage buyers to come here to purchase, not just browse.
seller Wrote:It's quite obvious that an increase of fees are in the works which is fine however, I want to know what Wagglepop is going to do for the sellers to bring buyers to the site????
As it stands now, Wagglepop has left it up to each store owner to do their own advertising or to bring their own customers to shop here from eBay which many of us have been working very hard to do. Just sending listings to google base is not producing the sales it should here.
If I, as a showcase store owner @ 50 bucks a month, need to continue to bring buyer to my store from outside Wagglepop, I might as well close shop and do the same on a couple of the free or low dollar sites such as Blujay or Loudfrog.
I belong to a couple very powerful seller/buyer groups that are looking for sites to list on and most are not looking at Wagglepop to set up shop. These groups were set up just for the sole purpose of finding alternate selling and buying sites other then eBay.
Most did not know the name Wagglepop until it was mentioned in the group. A couple are here and have concerns about little traffic and no sales while others are doing quite well on other sites.
seller Wrote:I'm also listing on Blujay and 5 other sites besides Wagglepop and that's my point. If I need to promote my Wagglepop store as I do the free sites, I can put that $50 to better use then to pay it here and do exactly the same thing here to drive traffic to my Wagglepop store.
I, also was a powerseller and store owner over therE and I paid to be a feature store @ the same fees as I do here to be a showcased store. I closed that store back in May 2006 and came here in hopes of doing the same here. It did not work that way so back I went.
I don't mind paying the fees, even if they are higher, that's part of doing business but, I want something in return for doing so. This is one reason I closed the other store. They were not giving store owners what they promised and I wasn't going to pay the featured store fees for nothing in return.
seller Wrote:AndRay Wrote:In response to what we will be doing to bring buyers to the site:
Absolutely nothing new beyond our normal approach."ÂÂ
Sorry to hear that Andrew. Wagglepop may not be the place for me. I have been holding out listing here in fear of just what you have said.
I'm a business man. Had my own very successful B&M store, in which the sale of, allowed me to retire prior to the age of 50. I didn't get there by throwing good money out the door. I got there by hard work, 100+ hour weeks and a lot of advertising.
Once I hear the complete re-organization plans and direction Wagglepop is heading, I'll then make my decision of which direction my business is going.
AndRay responds
AndRay Wrote:In response to what we will be doing to bring buyers to the site:
Absolutely nothing new beyond our normal approach.
We simply do not have the participatory revenues to do anything beyond solid SEO and some well constructed product feeds.
We did run several expensive advertising campaigns previously with ineffective results - buyers mostly discovered an "incomplete" sparsely populated Wagglepop.
By my own observations our most successful sellers do not operate under the need for general "traffic" to thrive - instead, they seem as a group to optimize our search engine and feed placement to generate highly targeted visits and sales.
I would have no expectation of casual "foot traffic" to the site as capable of supporting any individual seller business model as with the eBay model.
AndRay needs mo' money now!
AndRay Wrote:I am going to review this weekend and into Monday possibly accelerating both the announcement and related implementation schedules. I will update if necessary in the early part of this upcoming week.
We are equally as anxious to get started under the new structure.
The Nimrod tells the seller that Wagglepop has more buyers than the rest of the planet put together
Nimrod Wrote:Not that I qualify as a "most successful seller", at least not yet, but.......I do also operate stores on both of the huge venues, Amazon and eBay. My Wagglepop store almost always outperforms both of those stores in terms of sales, and even more so in terms of profits. Therefore, I do find search engine optimization to be a far more valuable tool than what the larger venues have as far as greater foot traffic that is generated by expensive advertising which is paid for out of the substantial fees that they charge.
Nimrod Wrote:seller Wrote:"I'm also listing on Blujay and 5 other sites besides Wagglepop and that's my point. If I need to promote my Wagglepop store as I do the free sites, I can put that $50 to better use then to pay it here and do exactly the same thing here to drive traffic to my Wagglepop store."
I would strongly encourage you to sell here at a Basic Store level as opposed to leaving the site. The point that I think I'm doing a poor job of trying to make is that once your Wagglepop store gets more established and starts building better rank in the search engines, you are going to be making far more sales here than on all of the free-to-list sites put together even you totally promote the heck out of them. The value of the search engine exposure that we can achieve HERE (by doing nothing other than simply listing well) is much greater than what can be achieved elsewhere even with a lot of money and effort put into promoting. I'm no good at promoting nor do I wish to put a lot of effort into it. That is one reason why I am so appreciative of Wagglepop.
Nimrod Wrote:Blujay is one of the many sites that I have personal experience with. Other sites like that are nowhere near the same league as Wagglepop. I think that in the time I've been working on my Blujay store, my Wagglepop sales have been approximately 1000 times the dollar amount of Blujay sales (actually SALE singular) LOL.
Nimrod Wrote:I am a former Silver Level PowerSeller. I started off on FeeBay taking the first few months learning how to sell enough to cover the fees. By the beginning of 2004, I had that figured out LOL. By the beginning of 2006, I was selling at a Silver Level PowerSeller level, that is averaging over $3K/month in sales. I am still right around that level now, but only a small percentage of that comes from FeeBay.
She has more sales from Waggle than other sites she lists at because:
a. she has spammed and linked to her WP store on 100 sites and doesn't link to her other stores.<--24/7 spamming not WP's SEO is why her WP store appears before her eBay store in searches
b. She has 1050 listings on WP and only 140 on Amazon, 71 on eBay, 55 on Ecrater, 1 on Plunderhere, 0 on HiBidder
So twice in 4 days my posts gets removed because I make observations but yet others talk "disorderly" and their posts are not removed..??????????????????
[quote author=chrisasst link=topic=3775.msg69521#msg69521 date=1209254228]
So twice in 4 days my posts gets removed because I make observations but yet others talk "disorderly" and their posts are not removed..??????????????????
[/quote]
The $50 monthly Ray receives from today's poster for a showcase and a featured store is probably the only reason the posts weren't removed.Â
[quote author=regic link=topic=3775.msg69522#msg69522 date=1209255392]
The $50 monthly Ray receives from today's poster for a showcase and a featured store is probably the only reason the posts weren't removed.Â
[/quote]
Not anymore. That store already down-graded to basic. So the gloves are off.Â
yet another seller Wrote:I don't feel a need to leave because changes have been announced, but rather because the actuality of the changes has not been shared with us. We have basically been told things are changing and fees are going up. No specifics. It is hard to plan your business when your venue does not let you know what is going on.
I am MORE than willing to put in the time and effort it takes to be successful here. But the uncertainty of what this site will become is holding me back. I get the same search engine exposure at another site, and it's free and not undergoing uncertain changes. And I've had multiple sales there, compared to none here. That pushes me to build on that site and let this one languish, while waiting to see what will happen. Those of us that are new took a chance on WP, even after reading about the previous site closure. I know I am not the only newbie wondering if this site is headed that way again, despite the assurances.
I do like it here, I like the community, I like the ease of listing. I do not like the uncertainty that's been placed upon us. I want to continue to build my store. I had made a commitment in my own mind to build this store, despite the non-existent traffic, and continue to promote it at least through the summer, then re-evaluate my participation here. Now, I am uncertain what to do.
AndRay is getting sick of the negativity!
AndRay Wrote:Change always brings spritied discussion along with it.
We fully respect and understand that not all sellers will be a part of the restructure if it does not fit into their own business plan. Correspondingly, we would expect the same respect in return as we adjust the business plan for Wagglepop.
We simply never envisioned a Marketplace of a hundred Stores or so, but feel now that we can restructure around that reality to make the continued offering of Wagglepop not only possible, but a reality.
The restructure means that Wagglepop will be around for many years, and I think that is definitely a good thing. I am proud to be a part of our small but dedicated community of businesspeople finding success as we all work together. That is something we should all be proud of.
"Uncertainty" comes with being in business - it may be the only thing "certain" about it. Even with all we did in building Wagglepop, we never anticipated anything less than 3-5,000 Stores at a bare minumum - but business is not about projections. It's about adapting to the realities of operation and ensuring the survival that leads to success in whatever format.
I am going to push up the announcement to this week, and I expect membership will find some very pleasant surprises within it.
In the intermim, I would ask that all members please note the requirements for participation on these Community boards. We will not allow them to become festered with negativity as on eBay or elsewhere.
Quote:I am going to push up the announcement to this week, and I expect membership will find some very pleasant surprises within it.
I fail to see how fee hikes and further reduction of features would be considered "pleasant surprises", but then, there's a lot about WP I fail to see: e.g. honesty, integrity, fulfillment of promises, sales, and much more, including a thousand or so sellers who gave it a try, got fed up and split.