Wagglepop 2: Deja Vu as Auction Site That Left Sellers Stranded Reopens

[stardust]

# of stores doubled this morning.  41 Stores and counting.  6 of those Featured.

[vitalfinds]

...

[vitalfinds]

...

[iron_chick]

And with good products, brings buyers, which then brings more sellers.

But it only brings in (new and unique) buyers . . . if they know the site exists.    Otherwise you just have sellers buying from other sellers - not a very self sustaining model. 

With no verification at all, I'd be very hesitant to buy from a seller on WP unless I *knew* them.  Of course, although I haven't checked, I suspect that I would recognize most of the current sellers.  But if I *know* a seller, I'd be more likely to just buy from them directly rather than going through WP (or any other venue).

[regic]

I don't know how he did it the first time, but he seems to be doing it again

Doing what again? Wagglepop participation was primarily limited to the members of a few message boards. The number of users and listings it attracted the first time weren't enough to rank it in the top 25 third tier auction sites.

Amy posted the following yesterday for some perspective.:

Overstock Auctions "registered users: 660,000" (from press release). Bidville "almost 1 million users" (also from press release)

Bidville 970,000 listings, Yahoo Auctions 870,000, Overstock 235,000, eBid (US site only) 165,000, ePier 130,000 (380,000 counting stores), OnlineAuction 118,000 listings (2 million total items), .
MightyBids 155,000 listings

Wagglepop first go-round in 2005: over 4000 signed up on FAS but only 2400 registered on Wagglepop as users, only 11,000 items

The AuctionBytes Blog has a few comments about Wagglepop today:

That kind of track record makes it difficult to take a re-launch seriously. But what make us approach any new site like this with some trepidation is the way the re-launch was announced. A marketing email was sent to "the thousands of people who showed interest in and support for our desire to provide a real and lasting online auction alternative."

Interesting. In February 2005, when asked what would happen to the information of its users, the founder of this site stated, "The site software, data, and information have been wiped clean from the servers." Yet evidently, there must have been a back-up of the email addresses.

It's impossible to vet every company we write about, but our policy has been to always verify the WhoIs registration information and search for the registrant's name to look for any signs of trouble. If a business won't reveal their identity, we won't write about it...

That's why you won't read about the launch of "the site with the funny-sounding name" on AuctionBytes.

full article: http://blog.auctionbytes.com/cgi-bin/blo...49200.html

[bargainbloodhound]

Never before had there been such a loud outcry and stampede away from something!

This is one case where I'm going to have to agree with Meg Whitman.  When questioned during last year's fee increase protests she said she wasn't worried because eBay had seen far bigger, more vocal, seller protests.

The protests over eBay's introduction of checkout in 2001 were far larger and resulted in far more listings being moved to other OAI sites like Bidville, BidBay,ePier, Carnaby,etc.

Ditto for the outcry over the combination of eBay's site problems and Pierre Omidyar's infamous "it's only $1 dollar" introduction of reserve fees in 1999 and the stampede to Gold's Auctions, and other OAI sites.

Ditto for the outrage over eBay's plans to introduce banner ads in 2000 that resulted in the Million Auction March, and the estimated moving of 500K-1 million listings from eBay to other OAI sites like Yahoo...that's 500K-1 million listings moved from eBay compared to WP's 11K.

[vitalfinds]

...

[bargainbloodhound]

[quote author=vitalfinds link=topic=3775.msg14499#msg14499 date=1148067107]
I'm probably going to make myself gag with all the "nice" things I've been saying about Ray, but here's another ... I don't think that it's "fair" (if that's the right word) to expect WP1 to have gotten into the top 25 third tier spot within 10 days.
[/quote]

Overstock did...and that's the problem.  Ray is trying to compete in a multi-billion dollar industry and his competitors in the general auction site market are sites like Overstock who have marketing budgets in the 6 figures and advertise on TV compared to Ray's habit of advertising via forum spamming...even Bidville and AuctionCities' marketing budgets are in the 6 figures.

The other problem with Ray and WP is that he brings absolutely nothing new to the table (although the ability of Ray with his limited SEO knowledge to sell WP 1 based on its SEO Magic was an innovation in BS-ing).  He is copying eBay.  A site like Etsy on the other hand did bring something new to the table with several of the site features it introduced.  Even BidBay with its MLA (multi-level auctions) idea brought more innovation to the table (even if MLA was a dumbass idea).

The other problem with Ray (besides being a liar and having absolutely no regard for user's personal information) is that despite the beliefs of the 100's of eBay PowerSellers who go out and spend $200-$500 on an auction script and think their eBay selling record alone qualifies them to run an auction site...auction sites are technology sites.  Ray's knowledge of running a web site/web servers is limited to WP and he has absolutely no programming knowledge.  Contrast that to a site like LiveDeal whose founders have a wealth of tech knowledge--LiveDeal's founder is the person who founded eBay's search team in the late 90's.  Every venue that has been successful, or marginally successful, from eBay to Yahoo to Etsy has been led/founded by tech people...WP doesn't have that and it crippled WP 1 and it's already showing signs of hurting WP 2.

[stardust]

Every venue that has been successful, or marginally successful, from eBay to Yahoo to Etsy has been led/founded by tech people...WP doesn't have that and it crippled WP 1 and it's already showing signs of hurting WP 2.

Exactly.  Doesn't *seem* yet like much is different.  Wait and see......

[vitalfinds]

...