Hey Guys n' Gals, I have just set up a new auction website, it has been in the pipelines for a little while and it is finally set up. However I am stuggling of ways to advertise it, I am doing the normal directory submission and attempting word of mouth however it isnt working at the minute, Does anyone have any ideas. I really think this website can do well, Its main advantage is that it doesnt charge a penny for selling items, one of the things that some of my main competitors dont offer. www.nicobid.com All ideas welcome with open arms, Thanks for reading. Kieran P.s Please forgive the logo as its being designed as we speak.
Nice looking site. First thing I'd advice you to do: Ask your developer to create search engine freindly urls. http://www.nicobid.com/categories.php/Automobiles-and-Bikes/263 Instead of http://www.nicobid.com/categories.php?category=Automobiles-and-Bikes&parent_id=263 (The above is just an example) So they will be crawled easily. .
Thanks for the comment, i will look into changing my urls asap as i know its a useful thing to have. I have thought about it but i didnt really want to chuck too much money into it if it didnt do well, plus people dont really want to post stuff because its empty so i think it would be wasting it at the minute. and yer i know about ebay, thats the main reason i did this because i want a fresh and new auction site to be more about its users than its bank account. Thanks for your comments.
The site looks great, but I think it would be hard to break into online auctions without a huge investment as long as ebay is around.
Johnny, nice site. It looks like the same script as one that my wife has developed, thestilettoe.com. First thing you should do is customize it as it still has that, "out of the box" feel. Next, as suggested above, modify the URL's so that they are search engine friendly. It may require you to modify your .htaccess file. Lastly, set it up so that it works hand in hand with Google Base, this will send alot of organic traffic and also add some Adsense ads.
You can attract new user by offering freebies to them to join your site and even pay for existing user who recruit new user to your site
If you can reward user for some kind of reward for every sales they make then it would be good. Also, content is king. If you site has NO PRODUCTS or anything interesting that you are selling, how are you going to attract people to even come to visit the site. Have some content of even SELL SOMETHING yourself first. That should be the first step. Load the site with loads of stuff selling. Sell interesting / cheap things. Thats a good start. I mean for example: if im a transformer fan and i bought a cheap and rare model, i'll be ranting off to all my other friends and telling them where i got it. Think viral! What you want is long term people coming back to buy stuffs and sell stuffs. I mean if i could sell something good there, I would go back there often. Try to team up with people to put up their items to help you build your content faster. I dont think its a good idea to start charging people now. Allow maybe just the top 100 people to have the 100% full privilege to sell for life. That will surely attract people to sign up. Next step is to work together with these people to promote their site and advertise your site. Im sure they'll be doing the same to get traffic to their store that they built up on your site. In the start if you want to move it fast, spending money to advertise it online is a must. There's no shortcut. The more user friendly it is as well, the easier for you to retain more visitors who visits your site. The more content or items selling the more interesting it can be to attract people. An idea would be i guess every random day / week, you'll hold a special auction event. Where you will post up items like probably a ipod for GBP1 (FOR EXAMPLE). Using this as a selling point and advertising on google ads will surely (100%) boost your visitors and retaining customers. I hope this helps. Good luck.
Thanks for the comment I want to be different from ebay, i want it to be more like a car boot sale than an auction, people selling stuff they dont want and not having to worry about the money they owe ebay at the end. Thanks for the comment, I am working on buttons and other items to customize the site as we speak, and i havent had chance to look at modifing the urls. And thanks for the idea i will look into google. Thats a good idea, at the minute i offer £10 advertising credit for anyone that signs up, but i could give an extra £10 for who ever they got to sign up. Firstly WOW you must have been typing for a while!! I have asked quite a few friends to sign up and sell some of their items to try and show people that the auction is in use, as i know people dont want to use an empty auction. Thats an idea i didnt think about, yer i suppose i could let the top 10 sellers each week have free extras (like bold txt and featured homepage listings etc...) Thats another good idea about the ipod will throw some stuff on there really cheap to get sales started. Thanks for the comments everyone have some good ideas to work on now Thanks again Kieran
Getting Listings Why not aproach a couple of the ebay power sellers and let them know that your auctions are free. If you have some extra time on your hands you could even offer to copy their autions from Ebay to your site free of charge - or even better, pay someone (look for them in the BST section) to copy their auctions. Just make sure you get their express permission. Traffic I really like the Ipod idea. You could run one day auctions (really pushing it using PPC and your mailing lists) for items such as Ipods etc on random days during the week (or month) Only let people know that it is happening the day it is actually hapening (using mailing lists and PPC) so they are forced to check back regularly - this should get them familiar with your site. Hope this helps, Jared.
If you are really serious, you have no choice but to "chuck" money at this project. As for being empty, why not let people buy/sell for free until you get a sizable listing. At least this way you might get more word-of-mouth traffic (fixing you money chucking problem )
Hey thanks for the idea, I thought about that but to contact them i would have to have an ebay account therefore ebay might ban me for "spamming" but i have thought about going to car boot sales and handing out leaflets telling them they can sell stuff for free online at nicobid.com. Yer i wanna put money into this project but i dont want to just throw money at things that wont work, and it will be free to sell stuff forever on the website not just why it is setting up Thanks for the comments. Kieran
Hi - I agree with a lot of people on this site. First off, like mentioned above, you need to make your site stand out from the others. If you have the same out of the box site as everyone else then why would people come to your site. Also, start getting out into the online world (forums, blogs, etc.) and mention your site. It will help draw traffic to you site. Also, if at all possible, you should add more products to the site. Whether it be some products you are trying to sell or a friend. Try to get a few more listings. Promotions may also help you attract visitors. Offer something free until your site takes off
Hey guys nd gals, just thought I would update you on how the advertising is going, all I can say is not well lol. I have submitted the site to many directories and tried advertising it between friends and no one wants to put items into an unused auction website. I keep getting really good feedback, but i dont know what to do to get the first load of people to sign up, I think that as soon as some people start to sign up it will snowball but its just getting them first few members. Thanks for your help so far and i hope you can help some more. Kieran