Internet junkie's site takes on eBay

[mandy]

http://www.detnews.com/2005/technology/0...324790.htm

Launched Sept. 1, Qwixo.com sells everything from Catherine Malandrino children's clothing and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs figurines, to pet monkeys and a 7 -inch red boa constrictor. The site also advertises part-time and full-time jobs.

...Qwixo has 10,939 listings

:

[Nat]

Something is weird on that site.  I went through a few categories and saw many listings with a starting price of $0.00.  So I figured maybe the seller is charging excessive shipping fees?  But then I came across this one:

http://qwixo.com/WebUI/ItemDetail.aspx?I...2157c73fde
Starting price $0.00
Free Shipping and Handling.

I don't get it.

Also that article says the site launched on September 1, 2005 - how can there before 109014 listings already? That makes me wonder just how many of those listings are legit, especially since the site says they charge people $1.00 to list any auction (except motors and real estate cost more) - and there are 10914 listings?  that guy made over $10 K just on those listings alone? In less than one month? Something smells here.

And I must say I'm not impressed seeing some humane societies selling lives animals on that site - that makes me think twice about ever donating money to a humane society again because chances are the donations are going to go towards insertion fees selling the animals through the internet.  That's not right to me.

[Nat]

Now I'm really suspicious of this place - if something's not right and it's all legit and accurate then I'm in the wrong business, I should start one of these places up because according to the site, " Listings only cost $1, except motors, real estate and jobs which only cost $9.95."

Going through the site I found for listing fees:

5077 regular listings x $1.00 each = $5,077.00
5733 real estate, motors and jobs listings x $9.95 each = $57,043.35

So the site launches September 1, 2005 and in less than 1 month the owner of Qwixo.com made $62,120.35 in insertion fees alone? Darn, I really am in the wrong business.

[sneakymagenta]

Darn, I really am in the wrong business.

me two  ;D

[bargainbloodhound]

Starting price $0.00
Free Shipping and Handling.

I don't get it.

I think Mandy put this in the wrong category--its not an auction site. 

I think its a classified site and those $0.00 prices are "make an offer/contact seller" listings.  Why they didn't program in the ability to have 'make offer listings' show as "make offer" or "contact seller" instead of "$0.00" is a mystery.

All of our listings stay online for a full 30 days...

A seller is entitled to accept any offer at any time – unlike some other online marketplaces which involve auctions that last a set period of time

10,000 listings in a few weeks from a site that is charging $1 for a 30-day listing is fairly unbelievable when there are so many free classified sites.  Sell.com does charge the same amount but they've been around for a while and have traffic.  I'm not sure how accurate the listing count is since the article quoted 10,939 listings and today the site shows 10,935--you'd think the number of listings would have gone up after that press coverage.

I would like to know how they managed to get an article written about them in a major newspaper after only being open a few weeks.  They also have a few other mentions in online publications already.

[Nat]

I'm thinking this guy has lots of friends in the right places.  He probably promised his "friends" that if they list on his site they can list for free so that they can help to bring the numbers up which he is hoping will attract new members to register and pay his bills - thinking a newbie will come along, see this site is hopping and register thinking it's a booming site when all along I will bet the majority of those lists are friends of his who never paid a dime because him making $60K + in less than a month of it's grand opening - I hardly think so.

As for the article in a major newspaper, well, probably another "friend" doing him a favor.

[bargainbloodhound]

probably another "friend" doing him a favor.

Probably--a lot of these new sites' initial offerings are friends doing the owner a favor by listing items for free.  Since it says on this post on their forum that they will be adding free local listings, I would imagine a large percentage of the ones on the site now were also free.  The forum has a total of 6 posts which doesn't seem like a lot of activity for a site with over 10,000 listings.

On the positive side, the owner did incorporate the site as a business which puts it above the average new auction/classified site whose owner doesn't even bother to incorporate/get a business license.

[amy]

Not much growth in listings over the past 3 weeks: "over 11,000 listings".  They still haven't changed the $0.00 price problem on contact seller for price listings.

[bargainbloodhound]

The lack of growth in listings might be explained by a lack of traffic as shown by this Alexa graph.  The site received a huge spike in traffic when it received press coverage 3 weeks ago...the traffic lasted only as long as the press coverage did... http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=large&compare_sites=&y=r&url=qwixo.com

[bosox]

I don't understand how you guys don't think the listings on that site aren't legitimate???? Are they just going to post fake items with fake phone numbers attached to fake people selling??? I think that if that was the case, their operation would've been figured out rather quickly and squashed.

Nat? you think getting into one of these types of businesses is easy?? Well, you're very wrong! Two of my friends and I attempted to start a classified/auction site-during the whole ebay craze-and we failed! You know why? because it is tooooooo frickn expensive. To employ people, buy machines, and promote you company it is just an obscene amount of money; we had to give it up. So I guarantee this dude isn't making any money yet. Rather than ostracizing this guy...give him some sort of chance or try and go start your own sites like i tried and failed.

Peace Out!!!!