posted on March 4, 2001 01:08:35 PM new
I disagree, Bob.. the #*!@ing and moaning is FEEDBACK - an essential and important part of any system.
Negative feedback is much more likely to be produced than positive feedback in a context of change, but both should be monitored and appropriately responded to. AW can choose to ignore the feedback if it wishes, or it can choose to modify its proposals in the light of it.
Users can choose to abandon AW or stay, depending on its response to the feedback, or even judge AW for how it has implemented the change and decide their future relationship with AW.
posted on March 4, 2001 02:17:42 PM new
As I see it, If I pay AW $200., that's $16.66 a month. If I do 300 auctions a month, that's another $15.00. Thus, $31.66 per month. What do I get. I get convenience and time. I don't have to maintain my own website and manage my space. I've had as many as 2000 jpgs on AW at one time before I got around to deleting them.
I wish we could go back to Ebay in 1996 and 1997. I liked the system better then. It wasn't filled with all this junk. I found better items to but then. And the prices I got, overall, when selling weren't any less than now. But times change. That $31.66 a month won't hurt me. Not like I'll miss a meal or anything. And if the complainers leave, then maybe my jpgs will upload faster.
Complain. Complain. Complain. This is just small stuff. Wait until Ebay starts requiring that you give your Social Security to sell and then starts sending reports to the IRS. Then you'll really have something to complain about. I don't know when that is going to happen, but it will.
posted on March 4, 2001 02:25:56 PM new
TraceyG,
I am a middle class homemaker.
I have been for 20+ years, I my self have taught people how to do html and images. I did have a few jobs with in that time, but all were from home. Example, My Tax Business, Image Hosting Employee.
But I learned how to do the codes, (all but background, Music and tables) I will not do those, I had broken too many boards on eBay on the Html board, Cafe, and AOL Cafe, when trying to teach people how to do those.
Infact, I am going to be Hosting a Thread on the 18th of march for eBay, what I wished I knew how to do when I started selling.
One of the things will be Html, and Image uploading. I did have auction Watch in my things for people, but I am removing them, being they are starting to charge the 1% final value fee, that I do not agree with. I could handle the .05 per auction, I also found a way to relist with out paying an extra .05 for each relist. But believe me, I will keep on teaching people how to do things where they do not get ripped off by paying the extra fees to AW.
I just hope AW will reconsider the 1% Final Value Fee, if they do, I will stay and pay the .05 listing fee.
Most middle class homemakers can not afford the extra 1% to pay, they are trying to sell things to make money for family and etc. Nor can most anyone else. Nor do they want to pay that 1% fee.
Oh, can you explain to me what a befuddeled middle class homemaker is?? I really would like to know (truthfully)
posted on March 4, 2001 02:41:07 PM new
<i>rubylane, your post seems very insightful to me. I assume you're rubylane.com, and you can relate to the ad issue first hand?</i>
Thanks, I am half of rubylane.com, with my business partner and co-founder owning the other half.
Can definitely relate to the ad issue. We stopped considering it a serious source of revenue more than a year ago. Once in a while an advertiser will want to run a simple ad campaign and we do it, but by and large, the proposals we received were not worth the time it took to talk about them and negotiate their crazy terms and review their 20-page ad contracts, let alone make money.
There is too much sales overhead if a site tries to generate its own ad sales, and no profit if a site uses an ad broker like Doubleclick or FlyCast. We used FlyCast a couple of years ago for about 5 months then dumped them. Extremely easy to setup on the site, but it guarantees you will never do any profitable direct ad deals because advertisers will go to FlyCast and buy your ad space for peanuts. FlyCast only sold around 60% (or less) of our ad space, sold it for $2.40 CPM (1000 ad displays), took 40% off of that in commission, and paid us $1.45 CPM. At 1M impressions per month (our traffic level at the time) that's $1450/month. [Correction: $870/month because FlyCast only sold 60% of the ad space.]
Yahoo is struggling with advertising revenue, and is the first place advertisers buy web ads because it is the easiest way to reach a large population (they have a 66% reach). Any other service relying on advertising income these days is in deep doo-doo, IMO.
For us, a huge component of winning on the Internet is maintaining extremely low operating overhead and reasonable revenue/profit expectations. I think this is very hard to do in a VC-backed company.
Jim
[ edited by rubylane on Mar 4, 2001 03:01 PM ]
posted on March 4, 2001 02:48:53 PM new
jbantiques,
If I went back to 97, in the place I list items we would only have about tops 200 items. Instead of the over 4300 average they have now.
I used to get great prices for my items, Now, I do not even get most of the time, the price I paid for these items. I am selling at a loss, and most of the time it is a big LOSS. But I need the money to survive, so I have to list, I will go with out food, if I do not get my items sold, and that money they want me to pay to them, will take food from my family.
So the .05 per auction I can handle, I have like a little over 1000 items here, to sell. So Just listing once for each would cost me only 50.00 That I can handle. or tops 100 if I had to list two times.
But it would be the final value fees, I would have a fit with. say my items sold for 10.00 the price would be .10 times 1000 would be 100.00 but most of my items will fall under the 25.00 or so part so that would be 250.00 final value fee I would have to pay. So I would be dishing out between 300 to 350.00 I my self do not see why I should pay someone this amount of money which should be in my own pocket.
Or I could take the pay the 200 for all the listings you want to list and then still pay for each auction you list .05 each would still be the anywhere from 50 to 100 just to list, would equal 250 to 300 I would have to pay them. And just hope that they do not flounder and fall by the way side into the graves of the .com's.
I believe I will just do things like the old days, have my list of descriptions and list my items one at a time by hand or find another program to help me with setting times for when I will not be here.
posted on March 4, 2001 02:51:15 PM new
Well AW, I understand it's a business decision on your part, and I don't fault you for it. I only used AW for launching and image hosting, and would be willing to pay something, but not the FVF percentage. If you change your mind I may be back, but not under the current terms.
posted on March 4, 2001 04:01:56 PM new
For those of you that don't want to learn FTP, You can store pics on Netscape and MSN.
Use photo album on MSN. Upload your picture. Right click on mouse and up will come your URL. This is a free service.
posted on March 4, 2001 04:19:20 PM new
I had no idea that there were so many other auction managers out there....I have been using AW for some time now and have felt like it couldn't get any better....Now...that so many posts have educated me on other programs and sites it's going to be real hard to continue to post with AW...especailly with the FVF added.....I have filled out and applied for the new AW program but...boy...with a little investigation I get to find "all" these other sites that offer the same as AW...and MORE....at NO charge or a small investment fee...I'm afraid AW is going to go out of business and I don't want to have my pictures and auctions in a place that may be non exsistent in the very near future....Thanks AW you all have been great, and I'm sorry to leave....It's a forced issue on your part though....I knew you would some day charge but with the FVF added I have to go to one of the other sites available to me....
posted on March 4, 2001 04:46:03 PM new
I would be in favour of a monthly or yearly price, or a once off price and pay a smaller price for upgrades or a yearly fee. Like a joining fee then a yearly membership fee. I hate the idea of a FVF and think it unfair.
I dont use the post sale tools, but if I did I would like to be able to use them off line, and not have to log onto the internet to do so. I would like to be able to send my own email notification without the link to the form. I am in a remote area of Australia and being on the internet means long distance phone calls, so being able to do as much as possible off line is important. Also having all our winning bidders in an easily accessable data base for off line use would be a big help. I also need the scheduling option as our times differ, so if I have to pay for it I would want to make full use of all the bells and whistles.
[ edited by suzannetoo on Mar 4, 2001 04:47 PM ]
posted on March 4, 2001 05:44:16 PM new
Resistance to the FVF pretty much sums it up. Most people would agree to pay the $0.05 perlisting to launch, but the 1% FVF with a cap of $30....
mercenanow grannyfox
It appears my eudoramail account is not showing all the emails I should receive correctly. I sent myself one to test it and I haven't received it yet. I have set up a new account and updated my AW account info.
I have also prepared instructions on how to use the scheduling of auctions from a home pc with a dial-up connection, unfortunately the ISP hosting the site is doing server maintenance and I can not upload it yet. The previous method is still available. Please feel free to share this method of scheduling auctions from home pc with persons requesting it. I was at work all day and could not respond right away.
Not AnonymousCoward on eBay [email protected]
posted on March 4, 2001 05:58:14 PM newIf you object to them, then don't pay. But to endlessly #*!@ and moan about it serves no purpose to them, me you or anyone else.
Actually, bob, it's good consumerism to #*!@ and moan about it. Were it not for customers #*!@ing and moaning, we'd all still be seeing "New Coke" on grocery store shelves.
How is management supposed to know it screwed up unless we tell it?
edited to fix a typo
[ edited by vargas on Mar 4, 2001 06:01 PM ]
That is why they locked other threads leaving only one -per their own words-
Brings to mind of the jewish ghetto in Nazi Germany and other segrations in the human experience. Put the undesirables out of sight -out of mind. Or even leave them by themselves and they will eat each other.
posted on March 4, 2001 07:33:47 PM new
Well I just finished looking at my Sunday auctions for this week....did my own HTML, images on my own server, uploaded with Mister Lister, and all launched easily at a popular time.
My ads sure do look better! Nice clean tables, No file folder ugly color combos. A tasteful marquee and hyperlinks to my other auctions. And I have checked with 3 friends around the country and my images are loading lightning fast.
It was actually fun to go back to doing this myself! And surprisingly, it only took a couple of minutes longer and that was to brush up on a couple things I couldn't remember exactly how to do.
posted on March 4, 2001 09:18:14 PM new
AnonymousCoward- could you please email me either the instructions or the URL where they are posted, at your convenience?
[email protected]
posted on March 4, 2001 10:40:48 PM new
HELP Where do I go to find out about hosting my pictures on Netscape. I spent hours searching Sat. and couldn't find anything.
CYE
I just finished reducing the pic sizes by almost half. The scheduler page should load faster than before. I also posted part of it back in the
http://www.auctionwatch.com/mesg/read.html?num=2&thread=340362&id=341349
thread. I had to delete the name of the auction software I use and the url of the scheduler page to remain within community guidelines.
edited for UBB
[ edited by AnonymousCoward on Mar 4, 2001 11:19 PM ]
posted on March 4, 2001 11:38:44 PM new
Dear AuctionWatch,
I just got off work and got ready to go to bed... I never should have turned this PC on first...
I've been an "old image hosting" user for over 2 years. I have been through the think & thin and I'd like to think I've contributed in some positive way with my suggestions.
I never questioned if I should pay, I gladly allowed your links on my auctions when I used your services and figured you guys knew what you where doing and you were doing it well.
I appreciate your need to charge for services now - no problem - it was eventually going to happen, so I'm not surprised.
I'd gladly pay for image hosting and services I use, but I not a FVF ~~~ your only joking about the FVF right? ha. ha. right??
I never use Auction Manager and some auctions I list have several pics while others only have 1 - So would I have to pay $.05 for each image I use or what?
...I guess I could find the answer if I took the time to sort through these posts... I'm in the dark and I doubt if I'll continue to bother looking.
AW didn't even bother to inform me about this major change and I read every monthly eMail AW sends me from top to bottom.~~~ I got the latest one 2 days ago I didn't see anything about charging - (and I just double checked to make sure) - eeewwhh! That rubs me the wrong way.
It's almost like your being sneaky or something...
I only happened to check this message board to see what's new and just now found out.
This isn't a very nice way to drum up business when you want $...
Sincerely,
SilverRolls
------------------
So... Now what do you consider as "just old junk" since you've found eBay?
I edited to make this in bold - but I forgot how... good night.
[ edited by silverrolls on Mar 4, 2001 11:40 PM ]
posted on March 4, 2001 11:49:56 PM new
I don't see what the problem is. You don't need AW's templates to make your auctions look good. You don't need to pay for their image hosting services and you don't need their post sale management tools.
MS FrontPage or a variety of other editors give you a graphical interface in which you can EASILY create very nice templates of your own in a few minutes.
MS Excel is one of the best post sale management tools around. In my oppinion. We use it to keep track of just about everything including taxes.
There are several free image hosting services left. They are EASY to find and some are even easier to use than AW. You may however have to cut and paste a URL depending on which service you use.
The only thing that is missing is the scheduling feature and bulk launching.
[ edited by outoftheblue on Mar 4, 2001 11:51 PM ]
posted on March 5, 2001 01:47:11 AM new
Silverrolls,
Don't expect any answers here... If you want get ANY kind of response, you will have to look in the Services Forum.
Basically, they are "re-considering" the issue of image hosting. Currently, image hosting is only "free" with the purchase of one of their packages, at 0.05 per listing (including re-lists) plus 1% FVF, or $200 plus 0.05 per listing.
There is currently major confusion over refunds of the FVF when you have a NPB, so I would watch that space if you are interested.
No news on how they think the service will be improved with the new fee structure (given that it appears pretty foolish to pay for something that doesn't work some of the time). No news on their long-term expectations, particularly if they expect users to stump up $200 up-front. No news of WHY they think they should have 1% FVF.
posted on March 5, 2001 02:48:10 AM new
Well, this is really depressing. And my posterior hurts from sitting in one position so long, transfixed by a trillion downer posts. At least, I think that's why my rear hurts.
I'm not sure if I have any photos still here, I'll go look. I decided I'd much rather offer my antiques and collectibles in a gorgeous store front type shop of my very own, located on a website where the traffic has been good, the deadbeat buyers are few and the gents who run the place not only speak to their clients, but actually ask for our opinions in helping make decisions that will affect us. As Dave Barry would say, "Really. I'm not making this up!"
I changed my auction approach when I realized a low starting bid was as much a gamble as a trip to Las Vegas and a reasonable reserve got me nothing but a bill for fees. I have nice merchandise and I for one have no intention of giving it away anymore. A previous post (about 2 or 3 thousand back) gave $3.05 as the cost for selling a $24.95 item on eBay using AW (under the new plan) and paying online. For this amount ($3.05) I could have had this same item hosted, along with 8 pictures, in my 'shop' for nearly a year. If I did decide I was tired of looking at it, they offer a fine and simple service to send it to an auction complete with the link that brings interested parties back to my shop. The photos look great, my shop looks great and it all loads in a heartbeat. There never was a commission to send something to auction and starting April 1st, after discussing the matter with their dealers, they have chosen to eliminate commissions on all sales. I've been there since last September and I plan to stay. Sellers on eBay are being swamped by the merchandise and bad habits of others. The new users, old users and the million or so that just left Yahoo to go back to the bay are guaranteeing failure eventually for all but eBay itself. All the complaints I have read since I started coming to AW concerning eBay or anybody else - none of them apply to the place I am now. And yes, I am making sales. And my stress level has dropped like a paralyzed falcon.
Guess I won't be able to post here after the fourteenth, unless they do indeed re-evaluate their rates for occasional or small useage. So fare-thee-well to all, just in case nothing changes. You are all a splendid bunch of Joes and its been a privilege. If you want to know where the website I'm talking about is, or just want to say 'see ya': [email protected]
posted on March 5, 2001 04:42:57 AM new
I know no one will ever read this far down
BUT I'll pay the 5¢ or even 10¢ but
never a %. Why pay when I can do it for free?
This was just the first decent free place
I had found. I can list them direct even.
posted on March 5, 2001 06:35:46 AM newEmail me your address and I'll send you a quarter so that you can complain to someone who cares. AW doesn't.I just can't understand why people keep posting to this thread.It doesn't appear that AW is reading it and they most certainly are not responding here.By almost 600 posts you might have thought posters would catch on....
You really expected a response this quickly?
This topic is 21 pages long: 1new2new3new4new5new6new7new8new9new10new11new12new13new14new15new16new17new18new19new20new21new
Now what do you 
consider as 
since you've found 
eBay?
