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

[bargainbloodhound]

The current income level for wp based on the number of stores (281) is approaching an income of 3K per month already

Since that figure is gross not net it is a pathetically low figure to attempt to run a business on that is supposed to be "an alternative".  That figure means no advertising (except the non-stop board spamming both Wagglepop and HiBidder are encouraging their users to do on the eBay boards).  No advertising means the only buyers will continue to be sellers buying from other sellers.  Income that is primarily from 'seller-to-seller' transactions is not a sustainable business model for any seller.

logic dictates that that won't happen until there are enough things to buy,

Logic dictates they won't be able to attract outside buyers unless they have the money to mount a massive advertising campaign.  The "fill it with items and they will come" idea that is being pushed on the WP boards is a fairytale: Bidville (1.5m) , BidBay (5m), Carnaby(2m) were all filled with millions of items.  ePier was filled with almost 3/4 of a million items at one time...and yet no one came to those sites (and Carnaby was a million times more user friendly and 'feature rich' than WP).  The reason buyers didn't come--lack of advertising.  (Not to mention that at under 10,000 items WP is smaller than many many individual eBay Stores and Amazon zShops--i.e. there's not a lot of reasons for buyers to go to WP.)

[landofsmiles]

I got to agree with BBH on this one. First of all, why would an investor invest in a piece of WP when he could simply start a new site altogether and promote the hell out of it? Wagglepop is no CocaCola as far as name recognition goes. Still a relatively small circle of folks know what it is.

Secondly, how likely is it that Ray would give up control and let an investor run the show? And how likely is it that an investor would let Ray run the show? I think Ray's goal these days is to make a living by getting enough stores on recurring credit cards. Competing with ebay is a long ago forgotten pipe dream. It will always be a mom and pop show.

[stardust]

My guess is it will continue to grow until folks get tired of no sales.  All the CS in the world and warm fuzzies won't make up for no sales.

It would be nice if we were all wrong, tho..........

[bargainbloodhound]

My guess is it will continue to grow until folks get tired of no sales.  All the CS in the world and warm fuzzies won't make up for no sales.

Maybe it will even catch up to the other forum spam flavor of the day HiBidder. As of last night HiBidder had over 13,000 auctions and almost 300 stores.

Speaking of HiBidder, the following is from a post of mine on GBB (that I also posted on the Stores board) and the sales numbers are fairly typical for small sites that get lots of forum buzz but have no money behind them...as Stardust said "warm fuzzies won't make up for no sales" and most likely the cycle will unfortunately repeat and all these people will head back to eBay.  :

bbearthesockpuppet wrote on June 14th:
Just noticed the helpful stats:

HiBidder site stats:

SITE STATS
Members: 901
Total Sales: $8968.29
Items Sold: 551

So, in 6 months the total sales for the site are less than ONE Gold powerseller sells in one month? :blinkie:

0.6 sales per member? 0.1 sales per member per month?  :blinkie:

Less than $10 in sales per member...divided by 6 months= The average member who lists on HiBidder can count on a whopping $1.67 (167 pennies) in monthly revenues...i.e. not even enough to order one supersized order of McDonald's french fries.  :blinkie:


Update July 1st 

Total site sales over 17 day period 6/14-7/1:
81 sales for a sitewide total ofl $186
average sale price $2.30
average sales per member for 17 day period 6/14/7/1: $0.20

average total site sales per day 6/14/7/1: $10.94
average sales per member per day 6/14-7/1: $0.018

shocking what a total waste of time most of these sites are when you do the math. :blinkie:

Back to HiBidder    Clever bit of spamming they did with the Stores board post where someone posted "EBAY OWNS HIBIDDER????? OMG!" and then having people rush in to reassure people it's not owned by eBay.  The Spam thread might have worked better if the person who posted it and HiBidder's owner and customer service people weren't all from Idaho (it also might have worked better if HiBidder hadn't posted a large "Stay Away eBay, HiBidder is not for Sale" banner on their front page).

[vitalfinds]

[quote author=landofsmiles link=topic=3775.msg18475#msg18475 date=1153685386]
And how likely is it that an investor would let Ray run the show? I think Ray's goal these days is to make a living by getting enough stores on recurring credit cards.[/quote]

Yes I had wondered about the Ray cooperating aspect.  ;D  I understand BBH's point about it being worse overall if people are dissatisfied and then return to ebay, swearing off all other alternatives, but I'm not sure how they could be worse off than they are now on ebay.  I guess that the thing that constantly confuses me is why everyone continually seems to compare these small sites to ebay.

If no investor-type of thing that happens, then Ray will simply be comparable to the Wiz for instance, and it's possible that there may be some measure of success within these small sites -- and for the owners -- if the operation is small, then the monthly fees will be plenty of cash to keep things rolling.

Also, I know that BBH is very savvy about all of these other sites, but most people on ebay have never seem to have heard of them.  Imho, "spamming" is often a good thing because it provides information to people that they didn't have to begin with.

[bargainbloodhound]

why everyone continually seems to compare these small sites to ebay.

Probably because the owners marketing pitches to sellers consist of a comparison of MyBoxedAlternative to eBay (and with HiBidder having a huge banner that says eBay on their front page today it is very hard not to compare them to eBay).

WP and HiBidder shouldn't be compared to eBay or Yahoo or Overstock or ePier or even tiny BluJay (54k listings)...they should be compared to tiny tiny TheAuctionMan.net, WeBidz, and WhaBam...maybe if they step up the forum spamming someday they will be as big as WhaBam or AuctionMan or WeBidz (which have 20-25,000 listings each).

[stardust]

288/16/9067 

[landofsmiles]

[quote author=bargainbloodhound link=topic=3775.msg18479#msg18479 date=1153690076]

why everyone continually seems to compare these small sites to ebay.

Probably because the owners marketing pitches to sellers consist of a comparison of MyBoxedAlternative to eBay.. [/quote]

The only reason I only put them in the same breath is because Ray was going to conquer ebay.

[stardust]

:

[amy]

I stumbled on this quote while trolling reading the eBay Stores board

Without change, there cannot be growth. Without growth, soon enough, a company won't even exist.

http://forums.ebay.com/db2/thread.jspa?threadID=410300453&tstart=2800

Didn't Karen WPoop1 say that exact same quote this year?