posted on March 1, 2001 11:44:44 AM new
I want to thank you for the nearly two years of free service you have provided me. You, your administrators, moderators and technicians always have been a class act in my book.
I certainly have no objections to your being rewarded financially for the excellent service(s) you provide.
But I would like to ask you some very straight-forward questions, which I hope you will answer in your usual no-nonsense way. I'm sure you did a lot of research before this announcement, and have the statistics available.
How many auction tool users do you currently
have? How many of these do you expect to stay as 'standard' users? and how many as 'power' users?
It seems that your users, to a man (or woman, as the case may be), object to the 1% fvf 'surcharge' for the 'standard' plan - yet, as someone else has pointed out, that is where the real charges will be. On the other hand, no one seems anxious to pay a $200.00 annual fee for fear that so many users will leave that AW can't survive.
Did you, or will you, consider a flat monthly charge for use of your services? I certainly can't pretend to speak for everyone, but it seems that more users would go for this than either of the options you have given us.
posted on March 1, 2001 01:25:23 PM new
I agree with Sondra: A flat monthly fee would be the way to go. I could stomach a $15.99 monthly fee. This is what the new Ebay service is going to cost from what I understand. I understand your need to make money. I need to make money too. This is how I make a living. Please be reasonable and think this thing through.
5¢ per auction + $16.66/mo. would cost me $60+ per month. I just can't pay that when other venues can provide me with the same services for so much less. I really only use AW for convenient auction launching anyway. I have my own web space for image hosting and I don't use any of the post auction features, because I've found that my customers don't like it.
Yes, I like AW the best by far. The interface is the easiest to use and the customer service is the best I've seen of any website. But - No, I can't justify paying 3 to 4 times the fees. No way.
Stick with the proposed fee structure and I'm afraid you'll see a mass exodus of AW users the likes of Yahoo recently. I'd hate to see that because AW is my favorite website.
Whichever fee structure you decide on, I have one more question: Will you guys be making enough money then to get rid of the annoying, blinking casino banners?
