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

[chiquita]

Thanks Bbh, after looking at his past articles I saw the HiBidder article, his wife also sells on there as well.
It just burns my behind because unsuspecting people might give the article much more merit than it deserves.

[Platzki]

I agree the article is misleading.

My favorite line of all time is in the comments... As long as you PAY for your store, all your listings are FREE.

PAY does NOT equal FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGH!

[Alskling]

[quote author=chiquita link=topic=3775.msg32287#msg32287 date=1163736097]
There is actually an article on bloggingstocks about WP called "Wagglepop is as fun as it sounds!" The author of the article states his wife sells on WP. The poppers are all leaving comments at the bottom.

Article link: http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2006/11/15...5#c2676355


Unbelievable. :blinkie:
Anybody familiar with the author of the article?
[/quote]

Sorry, everyone, I couldn't let this one ride, knowing that there might be folks out there taking the article and the cheerleading posts as gospel. I had to put in my 5 cents (yes, I'm bragging here -- I think my post is worth more than WP's cheerleading 2 cent-posts). I have recreated the post here to save everyone the time of weeding through the rah-rah's on Blogging Stocks to find it:

"Since the author's wife has listings on Wagglepop, I would advise all readers to not take it as objective commentary.

Having had a store on Wagglepop for several months, I would NEVER recommend it to any SERIOUS e-commerce seller. About half of its listings are composed of trading cards and similar items like magazines and books, (not hard to list a few thousand of those to pump up the listing tote board) and from what I could tell, Wagglepop offers NOTHING for the fees it charges that a dozen other auction venues offer at NO CHARGE. I did ask, but my post on the community board was deleted, for being "non-constructive." In fact, any and all comments, criticisms, or observations brought to the membership that do not conform to the Wagglepop party line are suspect and cause for banishment from the community purely at the owner's discretion. Allowing members access to any information outside of that which is fed to them through Wagglepop's own propaganda machine is considered an act of treason.
 
The site is a cultist mutual admiration society based on "faith", where members are united in their collective hatred for eBay. Sales are so rare that should a seller actually have a sale, he/she feels compelled to announce it to all the members on the Community Forum (they call it the Wagglepop "dance"), where Poppers, as they call themselves, come on board with balloons, cake and back-slapping. If it's so great of a site, why has it lost almost 1/3 of its store count in the past 3 months, despite the fact that many members opened second and third stores during that time? My guess is because these store owners weren't making any money. This is largely because Wagglepop does NOTHING to help bring buyers -- no advertising in any way. It's the seller's job to invest his/her own time, money and energy into procuring buyers by spamming internet sites singing the praises of Wagglepop (such as this one), created their own network structures (such as the one created by a previous SSPU poster to this thread), spread their banners and links over the universe (even if it means intentionally violating the policies of other sites, such as eBay, which forbids links to other auction sites in its listings), send out bulk emails, flyers, etc. And what does Wagglepop do? Send out invoices every month.  

E-commerce professionals considering joining Wagglepop need to do their homework. Wagglepop wants to present itself as a site of civility, where courtesy and respect reign supreme, when, in fact, the hot-headed owner has used every explative in the book on eBay's Community Forum (he is curiously absent from the WP boards). The owners claim to have a staff of hard-working IT professionals, when, in fact boxed software that can be purchased for $500 is used to power the site. All of this information and more can be obtained from a thread on Tulip Tools and pertenent articles on The Ross Show, complete with referencing and direct quotes. Try to find an address, phone number, names of owners, their pictures, or contact information anywhere on the Wagglepop site. You won't. What legitimate business does that? Potential buyers and sellers must FIRST register with personal information, and pledge an oath of allegiance to pay their invoices promptly through PayPal before they can even READ (let alone participate) in the posts on the Community Forum. What real e-commerce site requires that? The site owners won't even let it be known how Wagglepop got its name. The whole operation is run in secrecy.

Due to the owner's admitted bad judgment, the first Wagglepop effort in 2005 fizzled in a week, leaving a lot of pie-eyed and misguided sellers blinded by his hasty retreat into the woodwork with their credit card numbers, email addresses, names and other personal information. Although the owner claimed to have destroyed the data base, and publicly professed he would NEVER EVER try creating another on-line auction site, only one year later a majority of these members received spam emails soliciting their participation in Wagglepop's current effort. I'll leave it up to the reader to figure out how this may have occurred.

Wagglepop sees itself as David and eBay as its Goliath. The religious references in the site don't end there. But unlike David, Wagglepop has no slingshot and its owner Ray Romeo does not walk on water. And unlike Goliath, eBay is not a big, mean ogre all e-buyers hate. Like it or not, the reality is, eBay, despite its size, reputation, experience, and longevity in e-commerce, still activity works to maintain its presence and position which pure and simply brings the site business. Wagglepop is simply a novelty, a party line largely composed of disenfranchised eBay sellers of books, post cards, magazine ads and trading cards (curiously these were the types of items the owner of the site sold on eBay, where he still has a store, although he claims to have severed all ties with eBay) and stay-at-home moms selling crocheted doilies, home-made candles and their todders' out-grown overalls.

Why a thread such as this would even appear on a venue entitled Blogging Stocks escapes me. Wagglepop has no stock and there is absolutely nothing public about it, which is just how the owners want it. I'm not cheering for eBay. I don't own a single stock in the company. But at least I know where it's headquartered."

[Platzki]

WOW :o

... wish I'd have said that... you rule!

[chiquita]

Alskling, bless you for doing that. I am still so surprised that the author of the articles praising WP and Hibidder is allowed to post on bloggingstocks.com, absolutely amazing.

Once again you summed it up better than anyone I have seen. I tip my hat to you.


I bet you some credits that Ray and SB will be reading it too.  >

[Sweet Girl 70]

Hey it is 3:49 pm CST here and I am not able to pull up the WP page.  I tried going into one of my friends stores and can't get in that way either.  Just a bunch of error script.

[chiquita]

[quote author=Sweet Girl 70 link=topic=3775.msg32336#msg32336 date=1163800222]
Hey it is 3:49 pm CST here and I am not able to pull up the WP page.  I tried going into one of my friends stores and can't get in that way either.  Just a bunch of error script.
[/quote]

Ray will blame it on a power outage, you probably remember when he posted as Karen that there was a power outage on the east coast which made WP unavailable, and then a bunch of poppers who live back east posted that they didn't have a power outage. 

Or he will say it is due to all of those "surprise" enhancements he is making to the site. 

[Sweet Girl 70]

Ray will blame it on a power outage, you probably remember when he posted as Karen that there was a power outage on the east coast which made WP unavailable, and then a bunch of poppers who live back east posted that they didn't have a power outage.  happy001

Or he will say it is due to all of those "surprise" enhancements he is making to the site.  tongue3

It is back up again, I tried for a good ten minutes before posting here.

Alskling has quite a little chat going on the Stockblogger site.  The poppers are all happy about their "Positive" attacks 

[Sweet Girl 70]

Party time!! 

Ray/Karen has exceeded the downsizing goal of 700 stores after going through billing!! 

Current stores: 698!!! 

[Alskling]

Yes, I think I may have ruffled a few Pooper feathers over on Blogging Stocks. On  WP's forum thread that gives the link to Blogging Stocks, one of the poopers even bragged about how he'd left his "post ... er, ad." The lurking Poopers gathered their forces to engage in an all-out assault of my posts, defending KarRay like a bunch of angry killer bees. I'm worn out and feel a little hung out to dry, like I did whenever I would bring up a question on the WP boards. So, should any one of you ex-Poopers feel the calling to bring another voice to the table on Blogging Stocks, please feel free. The wagons have encircled me and I could use some reinforcements.

Oh, and here is what one of the Poopers said on the WP board, bragging about his retorts to my posts on Blogging Stocks. It's classic Pooper-speak:

"Hi All,
I put in my 2 cents twice lolol 4 cents to try to make Lindy have some sense, Sense or cents of direction, Sense or cents of mind body and soul but not all can be saved. Q the music playing Taps for any and all negitive people".