Atomic Mall's Owner Preaches the Seller to Seller Sales Doctrine

[let the truth be told]

That's because your screen resolution is set to something less than 1280x1024.

Great, just what I want to be doing, switch to a different screen resolution just to view one site out of the billions on the web who couldn't figure out what resolution comes standard when you buy a PC.

[quote author=regic link=topic=18789.msg73655#msg73655 date=1230330419]

Over 69% of all online users use IE, with the largest percentage of those users still using IE7 and IE6 respectively.........

20% (according to an 11/2008 W3C survey) still use IE6 with the majority of those users using it from their offices.  Corporate IT departments are notoriously slow to upgrade their systems. In December 2007, one year after the release of IE7, 55% of companies were still using IE6.  The overwhelming majority of companies use the bug filled Internet Explorer (IE7 is most common now). AtomicMall's strategy of writing off the majority of people who make their online purchases from work doesn't seem like the brightest move if they (um, he) really wants to be a "viable eBay alternative".  FYI, 50% of all CyberMonday shopping was done from "work" (source ComScore) and very few of those users had access to Firefox at work.
[/quote]
Bolding mine.

Exactly!!! My partner works for an international company, when he installs a PC or Laptop for use within the company the system is installed as an image (don't ask me why, I have no clue) IE7 on all new installs, no FF and they can't even view a link to FF what what I am told.

Edited to add: Correction, they are loading IE6 still. Something about bugs with legacy applications for IE7. In order to download FF you have to go through him to allow the security clearence, some do but most don't since there website was built with an IE application anyway. I know you are thinking this is a small company right? Wrong, it is a not for profit and I am told george Clooney and Tom Brokov sit on the board.

Let the Truth be Told

[regic]

[quote author=let the truth be told link=topic=18789.msg73656#msg73656 date=1230334780]

That's because your screen resolution is set to something less than 1280x1024.

Great, just what I want to be doing, switch to a different screen resolution just to view one site out of the billions on the web who couldn't figure out what resolution comes standard when you buy a PC.[/quote]

You and 62% of Internet users who stumble upon AtomicMall are forced to scroll sideways.

A survey of display resolution usage of Internet users (January 2008):

Display Resolution
Above 1024x768 38%
1024x768 48%
800 x 600  8%
Unknown 6%

[amy]

Please provide meaningful, valid, and specific information about the difference between shared SSL certs versus private SSL certs

If you don't know the difference then you're a moron.  It's called buyer trust. A shared SSL makes your business look less credible and less professional--if you're a small unknown ecommerce business the last thing you want to do is to do anything that will make buyers trust your site less.

A shared SSL certificate has someone else's company name on it--not the name of the site the buyer is giving their money to.  The secured URL a buyer sees when they are giving their payment information is different from the website they purchased the product from.  Both of these factors lead to diminished buyer trust in your site.

There is absolutely no excuse not to buy your own SSL since you can purchase a SSL certificate for as little as $15.

Forget everything Jakob Nielsen ever taught, forget the hundreds of surveys of ecommerce buyers that have been conducted,  AtomicMall's hobbyseller mod is the new usability guru! 

Good advice if you want to keep your 9-5 day job and dabble in selling on the weekends...bad advice if you're running an ecommerce business.

edited to provide a link to one of the oldest posts on TT: Disadvantages of Using A Shared SSL Certificate

[mandy]

SERVER CHANGE
« Thread Started Yesterday at 4:07pm »
Hey everyone,

Sorry for the outage - we are moving to a new server today and our current host "disconnected" a few things a bit too early, leaving us without a working database. I had planned to "prepare" everyone for this move, but because of Hostgator's little new years surprise today, we were caught a bit off guard. My sincere apologies.

Anyway, with any luck we should be back up and running later today with a much faster, more robust server platform.

Thanks!
Mike

Re: Is Atomic Mall Down?
« Reply #5 Yesterday at 3:20pm »
Hi guys, we just upgraded to a different server, and it looks like HG took down our database. Should be back soon...sorry for the inconvenience.

Mike

A tracert shows the "new" " more robust server platform" strangely enough has the exact same gator340.hostgator.com hostname, shared Hostgator SSL, and 74.54.128.18 IP address as the old shared server. :

Traceroute to atomicmall.com
...........
..........
74.54.128.18 AS0
IANA-RSVD-0
[Reached Destination]gator340.hostgator.com.

[BellisimaJ.]

A blog post (probably a paid post), re Atomic Mall.

Make Money Online Selling w/ Atomic Mall
Posted by whateverebay
at January 5, 2009

Atomic Mall offers you an online Marketplace, where sellers can offer Buy It Now or Best offers. Simply, making this site more appealing for the Buyers by allowing them to haggle the sellers. Anyone shopping for a good deal, this would be the place to find it.

Atomic Mall is Free to list and only charges you a Small Final Sales Commission.

Buyers and sellers are allowed to leave feedback. You can offer PayPal or Google Checkout for payment options.

Another appealing feature is you can promote you online store. There are no restrictions. You can place banners, links and drive traffic to your own store. All they ask is that you link back to them.

Their contact information is listed. You can email them or send them a fax. Customer Service is key and they make themselves available to you. I am opening a store there and I will also report to you how sales go for me. I think, I am going to need to hire soon. Orders are coming in. So far, I can handle them, but I expect for sales to jump for everyone mid this month.

If you only want to gain exposure to your store; list small amounts so you are not inundated with orders. In order to have a store active, you must at least have ONE item for sale. However, they offer you such a deal, that you should consider listing more than one item. You can also, import your FeedBack from eBay.

Continue reading: http://whateverebay.com/make-money-onlin...tomic-mall

[sneakymagenta]

Their beloved Quantcast shows traffic has been in a decline for the past 4 weeks.  Did they run out of OAI seller forums to spam?

http://www.quantcast.com/atomicmall.com

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=sneakymagenta link=topic=18789.msg73574#msg73574 date=1229475408]

EDIT: the original PSU "Ebay viable alternative" circa 2005, TheAuctionMan.net resurfaced under new ownership recently.  400 listings.  What happened to all the rabid cheerleaders who were convinced it was their savior? Or that BidChaser was?  Or that Gegy was?
 
A slick talking forum junkie owner and a bunch of gullible Kool-Aid drinking cheerleader sheep doth not a viable alternative make.
[/quote]

TheAuctionMan switched from RScript to PHP Pro Bid yesterday and changed their name.

The Auction Man members successfully moved To Sell2Help.com

We have completed the migration - The Auction Man members were successfully moved To Sell2Help.com. If you were a member of The Auction Man, then you’re all set we have also removed any negative balance you may have had and added 30 credits to all accounts that were moved to sell2help.com.

1,676 members...13 live auctions

[mandy]

I do have some closeout items still listed on Half, yes. These are a few of the last remnants of my software store, which have been listed there for several months without much activity.

(the bolded text) ...similar to Wagglepop owner Ray Romeo's current eBay listings: sitting there without much activity.

Half.com IS eBay. eBay Italy IS eBay. StubHub IS eBay. eBay Motors IS eBay. Skype IS eBay. eBay Germany IS eBay.

If you own a Ferrari, am I being honest if I publicly announce that you drive a Fiat?

If the Ferrari had a Fiat logo on every side below the Ferrari logo (Half has an eBay logo on every page) and the registration statement said Fiat not Ferrari  (Half is a subdomain of ebay.com), and if the Ferrari also used Fiat's feedback and DSR systems :twistedevil: then a valid case could be made that you were driving a Fiat (or selling on eBay).

[xwpopper]

Atomic Mall's "Top Seller" from their homepage shows evidence of selling just 9 items, and has pissed off about half of them when reading the "positive" feedback. From that sellers' feedback:
" Would prefer if sent e-mail when item shipped."
" The ordered item from 11/21/08 has not been received as of 12/8/08."
" I ordered something on Dec 16 and have not yet recieved it.  wish there was better customer service "
" waiting for my phone case it has been 8 days ago that i ordered this item wher is it??"
12000+ items, 9 sales, that's about a .075% sell-thru.
This seller needs to claim his free store at Wagglepop so he can double his sell through

[PowerSeller]

[quote author=xwpopper link=topic=18789.msg73796#msg73796 date=1231845017]
Atomic Mall's "Top Seller" from their homepage shows evidence of selling just 9 items[/quote]

No, a reliable source stated that this seller shows evidence of 369 sales as of January 11th, NOT a mere 9 items.