Bidville Q & A Session

[dimucci]

http://www.bidville.com/community/messag...ead=860637&forum=150

Posted 11/22/2005 10:58:55 AM
Hello Bidville members!

As you know, we have some very helpful members at Bidville who are happy to help you learn the Bidville site a bit better and answer most questions. With all of the new changes and improvements to the site, we have decided to also have a Bidville Support and Moderator Question & Answer session on the Bidville Message Boards (Member to Member Help Desk) on Tuesday, November 29, 2005.

Please submit any questions that you would like answered in this thread and we will post the question and answer on Tuesday along with doing some live questions and answers. All questions may not able to be answered, but we will do our best. Please refrain from being rude, making statements, or asking personal questions relating only to your account. If you have a problem with your account or a specific member or action, please email BVCS using the Contact Us form.

We are excited to start some new rounds of Q & A sessions, suggestion groups, and other upcoming events on the Bidville message boards!

Talk to you next week! The time of the Q & A live session will be posted as it gets closer to the date!

buyers?

[bargainbloodhound]

Question: 5. ... could you make it easier for new buyers to figure out how to leave feedback for store purchases? Most don`t seem to know to go to the right place in TrackPal so they leave nothing.

Bidville: We are working on a section (similar to the layout of tabs in our Investor Relations section) to separate the Buyer and Seller tools to help make it more user friendly. When this is completed, the feedback system as a whole will be much easier! This should be completed by the end of the year.

Question: 6. Also, is there a possibility we could get some Bidville bumper stickers and T-shirts to purchase? It would SOOOO help in our everyday travels to spread the word and could bring in extra money for BV, too. I think sellers here would be very willing to purchase these. I know I would!

Bidville: Bidville hats, t-shirts, and other collectibles will be available for sale in the Moderator’s Store (Bidville Boutique) very soon!

Question: 7. Any possibility of a shipping calculator?

Bidville: We are currently working on either a relationship with a shipping calculator provider or developing a shipping calculator of our own. Bidville should have a shipping calculator along with other additions to the purchasing process by the beginning of 2006.

Question: 8. IS BIDVILLE EVER GOING TO START ADVERTISING TO BRING IN MORE PEOPLE TO THIS SITE????

Bidville: Bidville will start advertising when the site is ready to be heavily advertised. We are still working on getting Bidville.com prepared to be the best it can be in terms of reliability, functionality, and user-friendliness. Currently we are placing items on Froogle and many sellers are working together to get the word out about Bidville. We feel that along with making the site itself better, having a more diverse range of products and sellers is an important part of attracting and keeping buyers. Our first step of advertising will be to expand our already terrific group of Bidville sellers!

Question: 9. I am most likely the only one here that hates HTML, it sure would be nice to list and have all the options to make it look better without using HTML

Bidville: As part of our re-do of the listing process, we are going to be adding the option to use an HTML pre-made template on your auction listings in which you type in the text and it automatically formats it for you. We already do have these templates available for you to use by listing with our Express Loader.

Question: 11. When is the Dutch Take It Now going to be Instituted?

Bidville: Currently, the only form of Take It items with multiple quantities available for sale is in a Bidville Store. The Bidville Stores are a great, inexpensive tool that allows you to list multiple fixed priced items. We do not have an exact date that this will be an option for regular Bidville auctions.

Question: 12. Has BidVille considered it`s own "Paypal" payment plan?

Bidville: Yes, we have considered it. It is again, a lot of time and money to set something like PayPal up. In the future, hopefully within a year, we hope to be able to start working on a payment system.

Question: 13. When the shopping carts come, how will payment be set up?

Bidville: The Bidville Check Out System will be unrolled to the Bidville membership in multiple phases. The first phase is almost complete and will work on ‘fixed price items’ (bid = Take It price), Store purchases, and Take It items. The first phase of Bidville’s Check Out System will give sellers the option of having buyers pay for the item immediately with a credit card via PayPal. More details on our Check Out System will be announced early next week (the first week of December).

Question: 14. For the Stores section, could you please consider taking the "On Hold" stores out of the pool until they are taken off hold? I just went to the Stores front page as I`m about to Feature my store. I clicked on 3 random stores & all 3 were on hold. It was the 4th one that was finally an active store.

Bidville: The seller’s stores that are on hold and auctions that are on hold are going to be taken care of. This is the first billing period that we have implemented our ‘On Hold’ system. We are still working out all of the kinks!

Question: 17. can we have a feedback form where we can leave feedback for more than one person at a time?

Bidville: We are currently working on this option for you to be able to ‘save’ your favorite feedbacks for example ‘Great seller. A +++ Will be back’ as well as leaving the same feedback for multiple items at once. This should be completed with the overhaul of our TrackPal system (layout and features) by the end of this year.

Question: 18. . has the "migration" been completed? if so, can we have the `site stats` back on the homepage which say how many auctions and stores there are?

Bidville: Updates are continually being made to the database and its performance. We do not think that we will be adding the site stats back to the home page, possibly in the near future we will put those stats somewhere else on the site. When people come to the Bidville homepage, we want them to click, search, or browse for items they are looking to buy, not look at site statistics.

Question: 21. Will there be a more systematic upload of Bidville items to Froogle? Of over 100 items in my store, only 1 is listed there.

Bidville: As of Monday of this week, Bidville is uploading all items listed in Bidville Stores and all items with a Take It price to Froogle. The upload will occur twice a week. There are currently close to 1 Million Bidville items posted on Froogle.

Question: 23. Will sellers have the options to delete seller questions if they are inappropriate, or just forward to Bidville customer service?

Bidville: As of right this moment, you will have to email any inappropriate questions to BVCS by hitting the ‘report to Bidville’ button on the question. We suggest that you do this if the member is a scammer, is spamming you, is defaming or rude in any way, etc. In the near future we will have the option to ‘hide’ or ‘delete’ the question from alerting you in your TrackPal even if you do not answer the question.

Question: 25. Do you plan to institute an automated invoice system at end of an auction. Also should add an option for shipping cost details in the main Post Auction page. This way sellers wouldn`t have to include that information in their description where it can easily be overlooked. There should also be a way to generate one automated invoice if a buyer has made multiple purchases.

Bidville: Yes, Yes, and Yes. Within the next month there will be an automated invoice at the end of an auction close similar to the Store invoices. We also are working on adding shipping and insurance options in the item listing page. The automated invoice for more than one purchase we are still working on the logistics of. Currently, this is an ‘order’ invoice in the Stores at Bidville.

full Q&A session (you must be a BidVille member to access their forums): http://www.bidville.com/community/messag...ead=863432&forum=150

[bargainbloodhound]

I'm sure the Bidville "hats, t-shirts, and other collectibles" will just be flying off the shelves, but I thought the answer to question #8 about advertising plans was the most revealing about what sellers can expect from the "New" Bidville:  MORE OF THE SAME, meaning the site will continue to make no eforts to attract buyers.  Its advertising focus will remain on attracting sellers.  Not good news on a site where 99% of the traffic is sellers and a large percent of the sales are sellers buying from other sellers to boost their morale.