Do you guys have any new business idea??? It will be great if 100 of webmaster get togather and beat the site like Ebay. I have many friends got tired of Ebay's service charge..... Literally too expensive.... I believe If 100 of webmaster get togather and build and marketing the auction site... We can beat HIM... Just thinking...mm
In The Netherlands Ebay just bought the biggest Marketplace, Marktplaats.nl for, if I remember correctly, 220 million euros. The biggest newspaper just started a new marketplace.
I was thinking too, and you should get back to school, learn how to write properly and stop dreaming...
I'm still in school....and Please excuse my english skill.. I'm a korean and still learning... English = Too hard = Too many ways to say samething = Headache
First of all, there is a cost involved in getting 100 SEOs/Webmasters building and promoting an auction site, not to mention the amount of overhead invloved. If you are willing to throw a couple of million in as an investment knowing your chances of succeeding are still minimal at best, then by all means take a stab at it. You have a lot to learn if you think it just takes copying someone elses idea to make a successful venture. Many that post here are successful because they started with what they know after a ton of market research etc. Its about new ideas, new ways of doing old things, capital, and time. all of which would be wasted on an eBay knockoff that would fail within a month. I realize you are still in school but the best education you can get is to start a business. Then you realize what it is REALLY about.
eBay has already created top-of-the-mind awareness and even went onto branding with TV commercials. Try to compete with that even if you had 100 webmaster I dare YA On the other hand, if you had 100 webmasters and worked on something else, that'd be another story.
100% Agree.. What could be the thing??... I think I can gather at least 50 webmaster of popular site...
The thing about eBay is they have NO Competition, and they own the number one payment gateway. eBay makes a fortune off my auctions, cause they get the listing fees whether my items sell or not, plus, when they do sell they get a final sale price, then paypal socks me for their take on collecting the cash from the buyer. It is an incredible sum when you think about it. Believe me, everyone and their brother has thought of competing against eBay. To do that it would take a hell of a lot of promotion. Getting people to know about it is the key. It would be an easy sell, ie., you could do things a bit differently than eBay, like NO CHARGE if you item does not sell... Little things like that would make waves. But again, to get the masses to come? It is a daunting task. As I see it there are better ways to approach this. For instance, Regional Auctions, or Product Specific auctions. So you could have an eBay just for a certain state/city, etc., or one for just say "Pottery" or more specifically, "McCoy Pottery". At least that is what we have done. We've only had our auctions running for a few months now, but have close to 130 users, average about 60 items, and have generated enough money so far to pay for the software license and development several times over. People have bought/sold, and won on our auctoins. Now it is not HUGE, but it is getting there. The audience is limited to those that like McCoy Pottery However. Anyway, we will likely expand it to include other types of Pottery, Collectibles and Antiques. So my advice? Start small, regional, and or target a certain type of product/category vs. covering them all. To see ours in action visit: http://auction.mccoypottery.com In any event, I would happily participate in such a venture if it could be handled like a DMOZ or some other OpenSource-esqe type of venture. It would take quite a bit of work. Ultimately the promotion is where it would fail. Everyone knows "eBay", and most are likely to buy there. Sellers know they get the most coverage and visibility from eBay, vs., say a Ubid, or others so they tend to go there as well. It would be a tremendous undertaking. If I won the lottery and had nothing better to do, I would do it. The actual auction itself, ie., the programming/coding and maintenance for a site like eBay is the easy part. There is not much to it. It's only time. The promotion, etc... That is the hard part. Anyway.
Ah, not really.. That is what it is all about. Look at how many dot.bombs, copied other peoples bad ideas.. The ALWAYS failed. It works the same in reverse
For the life of me I can't think of an example. How can you be successfull copying a major company but without the capital or reputation. You said it yourself, if someone wanted to beat eBay they would have to not charge for no bids, etc. That isn't copying them, that is an attempt at innovation which is the real model for success. I'm not saying reinvent the wheel, Im saying you had better be making it better.
A company in New Zealand has beaten ebay at there own game......trade me hosts thousands of auctions every day.... These are the stats right now. >>>22,299 people online. 217,377 items for sale.<<< So it can be done, check it out, it's interesting http://www.trademe.co.nz/ They also have some related sites that are excellent examples of very usefull things that can acheived on the internet. Find someone.......Old Friends.....Flat hunt....Safetrader.
I wouldn't quite go that far...They obviously have catered directly to the new zealand market and yes, I would consider them successful at first glance. But they havent beaten Ebay as they have a few more than 200,000 auctions. They have an area that eBay doesn't dominate and have prospered there (although I don't know how many people are actually bidding as there seems to be a lot of no bids) Taking on eBay would mean competing worldwide.
There are tons of auction sites out there trying to take on the bigger sites. In the NZ space http:/www.oneway.co.nz are obviously going after trademe and their website looks technically better than trademe's.
I guess the point I was trying to make was that no amount of money is going to be successful at copying a company that failed. One that succeeded, that is another story. So you are correct, by not reineventing the wheel it is certainly possible. To coin a popular phrase, you need to build a better mouse trap. So certainly it is possible to duplicate an "eBay" by focusing on key areas where improvements can be made. The no pay no bid option is one area. I believe there are several others. One thing I like about the NZ auction site is the fact that they have focused on a geographic area. This is what is making it successful. It would be nice to harness the power of a "global" presense like eBay, but like the SEO world, sometimes focusing a keyword to a specifc geographical area can be more successful. For example, I notice others talking about concentraiting on "keyword - state" vs. simply "keyword". So with an online auction focusing on say, a niche market and or a geographical area can lead to a successful presence in the beggining. From there, you build on it. Rome was not built in a day, nor was eBay. I am seeing this work right now with http://auction.mccoypottery.com We have over 200 users now, and are signing up people at a rate of 2-4 per day. No advertising, just word of mouth. No, I am not getting rich, but it is building and is becoming successful. I am not going to have the presence that eBay has, nor the volume as I am focusing on a niche market. But who knows what will come of it. It could blosum from McCoy pottery to "pottery" of all kinds, and so on. I think that competition in the online auction market is needed. I also believe it is there. I have had some success with Ubid, and others. Ultimately it is going to take time, and as you mentioned some cash. If I had the cash and time to dedicate to an eBay style online auction, I would certainly go that route as I believe it can be done. The technical aspect is really a no brainer. There is not much to building the auction system and maintaining it. It's only time and money.
www.ubid.com That site has invested thousands of dollars. Had you ever heard of it? I don't think so...
Sure, I have. Just bought some of the "Bud" glasses (aka Elvi glasses) that Uma wore in "Kill Bill" off Ubid. I used to use a auction site called "Haggle" years ago. They seem to have disappeared however. Was a great alternative to eBay. I'm sure a great many have heard of eBay. A lot of those selling on eBay (the big ones) are also selling on Ubid.
The thing is that the reason eBay is so successful is because they were the 1st. We need to think of a new, fresh idea rather then knockoff an old idea...
I agree, ie., that having the idea first has been key. But then again, Google was not the first with the idea of a SE. However, they have been wildly successful because of inovations in the way SE's work, as well as the delivery of content based adverts. I still think that a competing auction site can be just as successful. The key is to do things which eBay has not. Aside from no bid, no pay. No sell, no pay. And last minute bidding. One of the things we have done on our auction site that is great for sellers is we allow auction sniping: If a user places a bid within Sniping Time of auction close (a user definable variable), that auction will be automatically extended by the Sniping Time value we have set, which is 20 minutes. This can extend an auction thus giving the seller a higher payout, and other users the ability to keep bidding without fear of being sniped.