Quote:I'm basically comparing him to anyone else with a small auction site,
See the definition of "no buyers" below for the one thing all small
general auction sites including Wagglepop have in common
(and the "sellers buying from other sellers to boost their confidence" like happens on Bidville..or in eBay groups like SRG..don't count as true buyers because there is a limit to how long that game can last before sellers realize they're not showing any real profits--for most small sites it only takes a few months for sellers to realize that "sellers buying from other sellers" is no substitute for "real" buying activity..and when that happens the brief burst of sales activity that occurs when every venue first opens dries up).
The difference between Ray and other small auction sites is that Ray is suckering sellers (who for the most part are inexperienced with the rest of the OAI outside of eBay) into paying fees that are significantly higher than established OAI sites with buyers like Overstock (we pay 1/10 of one cent to list), Yahoo (free), Amazon etc.
The WP sellers' money (insertion fees, store fees) would be better spent on either their own web sites or on established OAI sites with buyers that have the finances and infrastructure to support a large number of listings and users (Wagglepop doesn't).
Quote:50 stores right now...$500 per month from stores alone
BidWhale: closed. owner attempting unsuccessfully to sell domain name on SEDO
BluJay: monthly expenses ?, no profits, no buyers*
TheAuctionMan: (111 stores, 29 preferred stores 25 featured stores, 24,000 listings) monthly expenses ?, no profits, no buyers* (uses same RScript auction script as Wagglepop)
AuctionCities: monthly expenses $140,000, no profits, no buyers*
Bidville: monthly expenses $160,000, no profits, no buyers*
uBid: monthly expenses $6.5 million, profitable, buyers
Bidz: monthly expenses $7 million, profitable, buyers
*no buyers definition: the average seller on the site receives less than 10-15 yearly sales.
Even to achieve the level of buyerless unSUCCESS of Bidville, Ray is going to need several hundred times more stores than he has now in order to pay the bills.
Quote:none of these other auction sites seem to attract the large numbers of established sellers that wp1 and wp2 are attracting
Established sellers on Overstock Auctions: Jennifer Lopez (frequent charity auctions), Ritz Camera, a couple dozen
PeSA members, and
  * CompUSA
  * eforcity
PeSA
  * Gem Affair
PeSA
  * Guthy-Renker
  * homeclick
  * mjr sales
  * Neimans
  * Shoplift
  * Superior Galleries
  * The Sharper Image
  * ...and several other very established sellers
Plus manufacturers Bose, Creative Labs, and Olympus Camera also sell on Overstock Auctions
Comparing the lists of established sellers on Wagglepop and Overstock, where do you think the average online buyer (i.e. someone who is not a seller) would choose to shop? ...and then compare WP to the sellers on Amazon, etc, etc and ask the same question...