Bid-A-Lot Stores Are No Longer Free

[amy]

Bid-alot's "free stores for life" are no longer free:

Monthly Store Subscription, 1000 items; Price: USD 5.00, recurring, every 30 day(s)
Yearly Store Subscription, 10000 items; Price: USD 50.00, recurring, every 365 day(s)

We had a store. We never received an announcement about the fees.  We only found out about the new fees because there was a post on MooTalk.  :

Bid-alot is down to 4 active stores with 2 items listed in them

[bargainbloodhound]

We finally received an email tonight...but nowhere in the email do they tell users that their formerly free stores are no longer free...you have to log into your account to find out that important bit of info.

1. Note the bolded part about 'will have to re-activate stores'.  Yes, that's right, they deactivated everyone's store without letting people know beforehand that their stores were being deactivated (we didn't know until we logged into our account ).  Really reminds me of eBay's habit of shutting down sellers' stores without prior notice.

2. '128-bit SSL certification' - does this mean that  they previously were using a shared SSL certificate fron their host and now have their own certificate?

Hey Traders,

  Quick note to let you know (if you didnt know already) we have made some great upgrades at Bid-Alot.com and will be continuing to do so over the coming week.

  These include -

    * New layout easier to use member area
  * 128 bit Secure SSL Certification
    * Seller stores are now seperate to auction (subscription based 1000 items to 10000 items)

Old store owners will need to re-activate their stores and re-add items as these are now totally seperate from the auction. (best to login to the memberarea and you will understand better)

We have made many other changes to the way things run which will improve the experience for both sellers and buyers but rather than babble on, I invite you to check things out.

[Bid-Alot]

Hey there - - Jim from Bid-alot here . . .

thought id shed some light on why we have made these changes.

As you guys know we had pages upon pages of stores....  Yes these were free and only showed items which were added to the actual auction.
Unfortunatly this then meant that people were purely opening stores to promote and advertise their websites..  We had hundreds of stores with simply no items in ..  This was not acceptable and only led to people  genuinly shopping thinking "well why are these stores empty".

We have completed revamped this - stores are now stores - users can add items to their stores or the auction or both.
This means if you users want to simply have their own store and promote it they can.
The reason for the small subscription fee is simply to stop people abusing the system for advertising only.
Users can add 1000 items to stores for $5 a month or 10,000 items for $50 a year - In order for us to improve this we had to make some major changes.
Items in stores had to be disbaled as ive explained this is now two totally different sections. - but you will still see all stores are still available and all logos, descriptions etc are all still their  - they just need activated from the member area.

This is something that had to be done to benefit all members -  the stores are now independent stores and only users who genuinly want to sell will obviously subscribe to them.  I hope you guys can understand the decisions we have had to make.

As for the SSL  - -  we own our own servers so no - we do not and have never had a shared cert
As you know all transactions have always been made through Paypal in the past - As such we have never needed to encrypt information as we have never held that sort of information. As stated in the mailing you received last night this will change this week - We have gone to great lengths to make Bid-alot more accessible for both buyers and sellers whilst being able to maintain our 100% no fraud record - - This will mean users who dont have Paypal will be able to join with a valid credit card - -  hence the introduction of encryption (SSL) for the security of all.

I hope this explains better - no one likes change - us included - but in order to move onward and upward sometimes decisions have to be made for the good of all.

Regards as Always
Jim
Bid-alot.com

[bargainbloodhound]

Items in stores....this is now two totally different sections.

Will store inventory items appear in the main auction search (like eBid), or are there separate 'auction item' and 'store item' searches (like eBay)?

[Mojavelyn]

Amy, BBH,

The "stores" that were disabled were actually just shops. There was no distinction between them and the regular auctions, except that there was place for a logo, as now.

Jim is right, there were countless pages of empty shops, he had to  make them list by amount of items listed, otherwise when someone looked there, all they would see would be empty shops.

[Bid-Alot]

yes - -  all will be searchable..   Of course...  Search engine optimisation is our forte!

[Mojavelyn]

BBH, Amy, another feature of the upgrade is when listing items, you can list in either store, auction or both.

I'm still experimenting with the listings.

[amy]

;D

Bid-Alot Store Owners]

Due to the recent upgrades at Bid-Alot stores had been deactivated with the intention of users having to reactiavte them.

We underatstand this was a little unfair and came without warning so in a way to make ammends we have re-activated all the member stores and gave everyone a free month to try out the new system.

  Please note all the stores previously set up by our users will run free until Aug 21st by which time if you won a store you will need to decide whether to renew your subscription.

Enjoy !!

Regards

[Mojavelyn]

Since you have the sign, "I'm with Stupid" does this mean you'll put your B-A  shop tagline in your signatures on the other boards?

On thing I like about Jim, he might make a mistake and put a cart before the horse sometimes,  he does try to rectify it. And I don't know anyone living who walks on water today... do you?

Oh, and I saw you're relists, you can go to member's/ selling/edit/and click and add to your store or auction or both.

[bargainbloodhound]

Since you have the sign, "I'm with Stupid"

I just noticed her sign.    I think I'll go and write Amy's home phone number on a bunch of public bathroom walls. 



on second thought, that might not be a good idea since we have the same phone number.  I know, I'll wait until she goes out and then I'll write her cell phone number on a  bunch of bathroom walls.  Much better idea!

Off to play with  our Bid-alot store (and to write Amy's cell phone number on everything along the way )