Power Sellers Unite

GAELICTITCA · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 1384

I've been registered over at BidVille for well over
a year (at least) and never ever heard a peep out
of the folks running the show until today. Got this
email promotional from them (shown below) which
kind of shocked me. BidVille? Making any kind of
an effort? Could it be true?

Now my opinion of BidVille has never been very high.
Seemed like a desolate place to me -- just sellers
milling about -- no shoppers. In my three separate
times trying them out (spaced several months apart)
I never had the first sale there. *zip* And looking at
my 'hit counters' on the items no one was even taking
a peek at my stuff. After my last fling with lots of
good stuff offered and not one viewing of anything at
all after almost three weeks I just ended everything
and went to concentrating on other places.

So this afternoon after reading their email I return to
their site (I still hate the way that homepage and logo
looks -- not meaning to be nit-picky, but I still think it
looks amateurish) and looked things over again. Maybe
I'm just a glutton for punishment who just never learns
his lesson, but I posted sixty TV scripts up there and
will put some other things there later on tonight.

The mechanics of the site are fine. With that I have no
qualms at all. All the pages and links are fast loading
and listing stuff is a breeze (if there's anything I hate is
having to plod thorugh a whole lot of seemingly need-
less steps to get something posted to a site).

Still hate the look of their logo and homepage though.

Who knows, maybe there's some change in the offing
with BidVille. Could it be that they're waking up to the
potential they have? Are they finally realizing that this
last uproar over Ebay's fees and behaviours wasn't just
another blip like in the past?

Of course, who knows, maybe it just took four passes
at BidVille for me to finally get it through my think skull
that my time and energies are better spent elsewhere.

We shall see.........

biddersnsellers.com · Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 771

in early 2004 bidville sold its stock and had 2.2 million to play with. They had a massive ad campaign with yahoo which personaly felt was a huge mistake. I will explain later. Also their advertising targeted sellers. As we all know good auction sites require buyers.

I personally believe the purchase of bidville was part of a get rich quick scam by the owner of the company.

Lets look at some of the facts. The stock was sold and made 2.2 million. This is a lot of money. Correctly spent this could have put bidville second to the big E. However a lot of this money disappeared into consulting and other fees by sister companies withing the group.

The owner(s) have a reputation for milking as much as possible then going bang.

The owners reside in florida that have very loose laws on these kind of transactions.

Yahoo's advertising doesnt come cheap. You can buy advertising much cheaper by shopping around. Also advertising on yahoo is going to attract scammers and other loosers. (I'm not saying all yahoo people are bad. Most are good people)

Bidville now have very little revenue if any at all. At the same time they have manages to wipe out 2.2 million in various ways. Some been very overloaded bills. Would suggest lots of fraud going on. I saw a hosting bill once. It seemed pretty overloaded. It would suggest that companies operating for bidville are been forced to overload the prices to pay for huge gifts to get the business.

Just my 2 cents

work2hard4nothing · Joined: 05 Feb 2005 Posts: 135 Location: South Florida

I received the same email from Bidville, as I'm sure many, if not all, registered users probably did. Yes, I was also somewhat surprised.

Of the 6 sites I've tried so far since moving away from FeeBay in late January, frankly I've done the best at Bidville. Sure, a lot of my sales have been to other sellers, but quite a few have also been to people who are strictly buyers. I also have a store, and have made some sales there, too. Their CS has always been helpful and responded quickly to any inquiry (the few that have been necessary). I've had no listing problems, no photo upload problems, etc. and their bulk lister works very well. In other words, I'm quite happy there and intend to stay.

Of course, I still believe that not every auction site fits the bill for every seller. This is just my personal experience with BV.

BTW GAELICTITCA, I LOVE your rendition of a future BV logo!! :shock:

http://stores.bidville.com/GreenGoddess
http://www.epier.com/stores/EndlessItems

GAELICTITCA · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 1384

work2hard4nothing wrote: › docWrite("quote")BTW GAELICTITCA, I LOVE your rendition of a future BV logo!! :shock:

LOL.... well thank you. I had to take a break from listing so I
wanted to see what I coule come up with as an alternate logo.

Did I mention how much I hate their home page and logo?.....
:roll:

angelsolutions · Posted: Tue May 24, 2005 9:06 am Post subject: Re: Is BidVille making an effort?

I've been at Bidville since March and have done pretty decent for starting over with a new userid. I love the ease of the site. True, they could do better with that home page. LOL

I also list at 4 other sites. Made some sales at the O, but lost my shirt on the listing fees. Lots of looks and a couple purchases here and there don't pay for the cost of listing. Two sales at onlineauction.com after 3 months of being charged the $8.00. No way to know the #hits there--and a PITA to list. Lots of looks at blujay and ioffer....no sales.

Frankly, I'll keep the B. I actively promote my own listings...I never wait for ANY site to advertise for me. Here's some other info about the B.

Advertising

The baseball team...LOL

I'll just keep at it over there. I really like the place myself.

peace,
sylvia
angelsolutions

GAELICTITCA · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 1384

angelsolutions wrote: › docWrite("quote")I love the ease of the site.

The easy and fast listing of items is something I really like and wish
some others would imitate (is it really necessary to spread your
listing process across 5 steps or more?).

angelsolutions wrote: › docWrite("quote") Made some sales at the O, but lost my shirt on the listing fees.

I wasn't much impressed with Overstock. Still the infernal listing fees to
get you with in addition to paying them a FVF. And I honestly didn't find
their fees to be enough lower than Ebay's to instill any excitement. The
big thing that I find to be a problem was that according to their policies
if they cancell or remove one of your listings they don't have to reimburse
your listing fee. That little clause more than anythng else made me very
wary -- I've seen enough mischief people can cause on Ebay getting a
seller's items removed for spurious reasons.

angelsolutions wrote: › docWrite("quote")I actively promote my own listings...I never wait for ANY site to advertise for me.

You really have to spread the word yourself. Especially as the online
marketplace becomes more and more fractured. One thing I did when
I shifted the bulk of my stuff to iOffer was to go back through the
history of my PayPal accounts and compose an e-mailing list of all my
former customers to send out an message to about my store on iOffer.
Worked pretty well too.

angelsolutions wrote: › docWrite("quote") I'll just keep at it over there. I really like the place myself.

Oh, I plan to give BidVille a long haul committment this time. Since I
sell everything at a set price anyway, I'm posting all my goods for a
30 day period with automatic relist if it doesn't sell 20 times. 600 days
should be a sufficient amount of time to make a final decision if I'm
going to stay with them or not..........LOL

By the way, did I mention how much I HATE THEIR LOGO and homepage?
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Roundabout926 · Joined: 08 Apr 2005 Posts: 2832

LOL I definitely like that stone logo. Hell, anything's better than the faces I saw trapped in the logo in that email you copied.

They tried to have the cliché group of friendly faces smiling at the akwardly positioned camera (notice the tilt of their heads, you'd think they were flirting with security cameras). The best is when those classic photos have a very unrealistic crowd. One I saw at a survey site I joined (one of my many blunders) had this woman in a working suit, and about 5 feet away was some Lounge-Around-Bill kind of guy in jogging pants and a raggady T-shirt. I should have clicked the back button and maybe even cleaned out my harddrive, but instead I joined the stupid site. I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this but I'm just glad I found a thread where I can complain about those overused "working crew" photos that always pop up on sites that try way to hard to look professional (when if they'd stop with those gags they'd seem a lot less smarmy, not bashing bidville, everyone does it)

GAELICTITCA · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 1384

Guess I'm gonna have to lay off bashing BidVille.....just posted another
100 books over there.

Well, they've got 600 days to prove themselves.........LOL

Geez, the next thing you know I'll be listing at BidMonkey!

......oh the horror.......

angelsolutions

Cool how fast stuff goes up over there, eh?

Add a link to your signature G, my hubby is a book fiend! :shock:

cya
sylvia
angelsolutions

GAELICTITCA · Joined: 25 Apr 2005 Posts: 1384

angelsolutions wrote: › docWrite("quote")Cool how fast stuff goes up over there, eh?
Add a link to your signature G, my hubby is a book fiend! :shock:

I'm sure I could feed your book fiend until he popped!

My "problem", as it were, is that I come to this business
by way of being a hobbyist and collector -- a compulsive
collector at that. Doesn't matter that I've already got a
copy of The Man From Uncle #10 (or three or six)
what's one more to the hoard?

Probably why at my last real count (which was, oh, 'bout
nine years ago) I had 42,000 books squirreled away in my
mini-warehouses.

Anyway, your hubby can find my stuff at the following:

iOffer.com: GAELICTITCA

eBid: GAELICTITCA'S STUFF

BluJay: GAELICTITCA'S STORE

TheAuctionMan: GAELICTITCA on TAM

123BUY: GAELICTITCA at 123BUY.com

BidChasers: GAELICTITCA'S BidChasers MARKETPLACE

I've got a more representative sample of my stuff at iOffer only
because I've had more time listing there than anywhere else (I've
got around 1200 items up there). The other sites I've spent varying
amounts of time just yet listing things. I haven't added BidVille to
the above list yet but you can look up my user name to find me
there.

And I began posting on Webidz today too.

But, damn, BidMonkey STILL hasn't sent me my confirmation
email yet for my registration!

Bad Monkey...............

beckem · Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 133

I believe Bidville sellers will be leaving as soon as they discover blujay.com

Blujay is everything I was hoping to find at Bidville.
100% free - No Final Value Fees - Free Stores - PayPal Buy Now -
Automatically lists your items on Froogle

Easiest one page listing I've used (including up to 4 pics per listing).
Fast page loading with none of the glitches you find on Bidville.

angelsolutions · Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 9:21 am Post subject: Re: Is BidVille making an effort?

Nice plug for Blujay....

Bidville is making an effort. They are making great strides in improvements to the stores and ALREADY had a better set up than many of the newer sites...Blujay included. (yes, I list at Blujay & have yet to make a sale & they REFUSE to use a bulk lister)

This is a recent announcement from Bidville to us. Hope it's okay to post it here. It's pretty neat.

"Dear Valued Bidville Members:

We wanted you to be the first to know: Bidville has entered into an agreement with Global Media which, through their media distribution entity, NewsUSA, will be assisting us in getting the word out and increasing awareness of Bidville. It may take a little time before you see Bidville’s name in lights, but please bear with us and continue to grow with us. While we carry on improving the site and its functionalities for our current and future members, we’d appreciate your continued help by telling your customers, friends, co-workers, and neighbors to shop and sell on Bidville. Watch for your online marketplace- Bidville- in the news!

Thank you.

The Bidville Team"

Admin....if it's not cool, please do what you gotta do. I'll understand. It's a little early for me.

sylvia
angelsolutions

angelsolutions · Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2005 9:45 am Post subject: Re: Is BidVille making an effort?

This was the other article I found to be pretty cool.

"Bidville, Inc. Completes $2.5 Million Financing Substantially Above Current Market Price to Compete in Marketplace Dominated by eBay
CLEARWATER, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 17, 2005--Bidville, Inc. (OTCBB:BVLE - News), a rapidly growing online auction company and an alternative to eBay (Nasdaq:EBAY - News), announced today that it has completed a $2.5 Million financing at a price approximately 50% above the market price of its common stock on the closing date. The financing will be obtained through the issuance of non-voting preferred stock, convertible into shares of the Company`s common stock at a price of $.60 per share.

"Bidville has structured this financing primarily to support the launch of Bidville`s next stage of marketing and advertising programs scheduled over the next twelve months," stated Michael Palandro, President and CEO of Bidville. "In addition, this funding will reinforce existing projects, continue to develop new opportunities and allow Bidville to stay committed to its loyal community of registered members and shareholders. Along with the proactive and consistent support of our financial partners, we believe increases in the current growth rate, opportunities for continued business development and continued website advancements, will allow the Company`s growth and earnings potential to continue to be positively recognized by the marketplace," added Michael Palandro.

A Director of the investor, Delmount International, Ltd., commented: "We have monitored Bidville very closely for more than six months and have been in constant touch with the management. We are very impressed by the progress the company has made and are very bullish about the outlook of the company. We have analyzed the competition very closely and believe that Bidville has a very bright future and will continue to grow very strongly. We further believe that the stock price is undervalued and have, by making this investment, taken advantage of this buying opportunity."

Bidville recently announced significant growth and activity on its website, due in part to substantial fee increases implemented by eBay (Nasdaq:EBAY - News) in February 2005. Bidville has realized consistently notable growth throughout the last year, particularly in the key area of registered users - increasing over 1,000% to almost one million members. In addition, items listed daily on the website have increased over 170% to approximately three million items. Recently expanded, Bidville`s website currently has over three million items listed daily in more than 7,200 categories and through approximately 600 storefronts."

sylvia
angelsolutions

2BOYSandTOYS · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 10095 Location: Kansas

I am at BluJay and have been since February - no sales...Gotta few looks here and there, but no sales. Agree it's very easy to use and the admin is customer focused, but my items aren't doing well there.

Bidville is next on my explore, list and see sites...I just gotta have more time in a day!!!

OK - now my emoticons aren't working at all (here) - they do on all other forums - wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

beckem · Joined: 21 Mar 2005 Posts: 133

I was listing with Bidville before most of their sellers even heard of it.
It was called "nobid" (it was fixed price).

I thought the 5% FVF from a site that promised to always be free was
a slap in the face, but not enough reason to leave. I left Bidville when
I discovered my items were not showing up in the search.

I'm not saying Bidville is a complete waste of time. Just that they have
some serious glitches in their search that they are unable to fix. The
same glitches have been going on for years.

Bidville has too many problems to invest a lot of time.

Blujay.com has everything I've been looking for in a site. No fees.
Free store. PayPal buttons. You can post links to your own website
in every item you list.

Bidville has one of the best bulk loaders I've used but its so easy to
list on Blujay that using a bulk loader would not be much of an
improvement.

I'm not encouraging people to leave Bidville. If it works for you thats
all that really matters. Only that Blujay is a 100% FREE site and I believe
most sellers will find it is a big improvement over Bidville.