BlueFuzzySlippers.com- Wanna Pay $499.95 for a Crappy PHPProBid Store?

[mandy]

Today e-commerce goes far beyond simply setting up a Web store to sell your products. To succeed and be competitive, you often need to provide visitors with a forum for exchanging ideas and reviews, as well as tools for selling and marketing, and that's exactly what Sherri Baldy, a self-described "womanpreneur" did when creating BlueFuzzySlippers.com, a social commerce site offering e-zines, video and affiliate marketing and much more. The new site combines the features of MySpace, FaceBook,YouTube and eBay all in one network. ..

For those looking to set up a storefront in the BFS mall, you will find that subscriptions are slightly higher than what is being offered on eBay and other auction and storefront sites. Monthly store fees start at $15.95, and go up in price and levels to $499.99 per month...

Currently Blue Fuzzy Slippers is offering a promotional store that is free for two months and lets you list up to 50 items. So, why not, as the site suggests, kick off your shoes and slide into BlueFuzzySlippers.com and relax while your sales increase?

full article: http://www.ecommerce-guide.com/news/tren...hp/3763261

There are several reasons why not...

1. lack of traffic - the site's current traffic levels are far below the anemic traffic levels of even Wagglepop or Plunderhere.  BlueFuzzySlippers may be the only site that makes Wagglepop's $29.95 monthly fee look like a bargain.

1a. lack of infrastructure to support a significant increase in traffic or listings.  The site is hosted on a shared server with 686 other sites (source: domaintools) and the ecommerce side of the site uses the slow £110.00 phpProBid script which will slow to an unbearable crawl if the site ever tops 100,000 listings or receives any signficant traffic.  The site is currently hosted at budget host Cirtex which doesn't even offer dedicated servers if the need arises for one.

2. cost- the site charges $15.95 (max 100 items) to $499.95 (max 700 items) monthly for storefronts.  The site is using the buyer unfriendly phpProBid script for its BFS Shopping Mall storefronts ( sample store , the BFS Mall home page ).  If your desire is to drive away buyers by opening a store on a platform (phpProBid) which has been proven to turn buyers away in droves you can do it for free elsewhere.  If your desire is to build a viable ecommerce business you would be much better off spending your money on a hosted store at Volusion, Make-A-Store, 3DCart, Pinnacle, etc or on setting up a website using Magento, Zen Cart, or any of the countless other shopping cart scripts.

3.  Lack of support for merchant accounts- by hosting your site on the phpProBid platform you are eliminating as potential customers the 81% of online buyers who don't/won't use alternative payment methods like PayPal or Google Checkout. Do you really want to pay $15.95-$499.95 for a significantly reduced slice of the ecommerce pie when you could have a crack at the whole pie by setting up your own website?

edit:
4. No SSL- unsecure unencrypted login, registration, account access, you name it.  Lack of SSL is another surefire way to drive away buyers.

We'll use the latest security measures to protect your information from unauthorized users.

The lack of an SSL certificate says otherwise.

5.

The new site combines the features of MySpace, FaceBook,YouTube and eBay all in one network. ..

There is little to no integration of the site's various social networking features on the stock phpProBid product listing pages or stock phpProBid BFS Shopping Mall pages. Likewise there is little real integration of the ecommerce features on the social networking pages (unless you count links to the standalone phpprobid "mall") The site is a collection of various scripts with little integration between scripts.  The "sell directly from your profile page" feature is in reality nothing more than a link to the seller's store or website - there is no way to purchase items directly on the profile pages.

6.  The "free promotional store" is in reality not free unless you don't  place any value on the time you spend working on your business.  Devoting resources to unproductive "free" channels rather than more productive channels will cost your business far more in the long run than what you save on subscription prices.

[amy]

$499.95 (max 700 items) monthly

[regic]

Gee, I'd really love to join your site you SPAMMING FUCKTARDS 

from: members@bluefuzzyslippers.com
to: webmaster@tuliptools.com
dateThu, Feb 26, 2009 at 1:11 AM
subjectFUZZB Blue Fuzzy Slippers TEAM Has Invited You To Join bluefuzzyslippers.com!
mailed-byhost.itcommercials.com
hide details 1:11 AM (12 minutes ago) Reply

Images are not displayed.
Display images below - Always display images from members@bluefuzzyslippers.com

FUZZB Blue Fuzzy Slippers TEAM would like you to sign up and be their friend on bluefuzzyslippers.com!
(If the link above does not work, please paste http://bluefuzzyslippers . com/ signup.p...rer=100257 into your browser's address bar.)

[LittleOnlineStore]

Wow, a lot has changed since August.

The sites new name is FuzzB....LOL I guess they got sick of blue slippers.

Now, they are $5 a month for life or $25 a year for life (Of course, we all know "for life" mean until they find some sappy reason to unfortunately have to increase the rates.)

BTW, if your a guy, don't waste your time. Unless you are into frilly bath soap and such, you ain't gonna find anything there.

It's actually a bit confusing as they have a bunch of marketplaces, such s Fairy, Cotton Candy and so on.

Definitely in their own little world ;D