BidJam.co.uk - Lowest Unique Bid Auction Website

URL: www.bidjam.co.uk

Uniques/Month: 1,000+

Established: December 2006

Page views/Month: 80,000-100,000

Description: BidJam is a reverse auction website. Reverse auctions are a relatively new gaming concept, unlike traditional auctions, in a reverse auction it’s the person with the lowest unique bid that wins.

BidJam is the only reverse auction website in the UK that doesn’t use the “sealed bids” format, thus BidJam is a true game of skill.

The market for reverse auction websites continues to grow, one of the leading UK reverse auction websites is bringing in over £70,000 profit per month.

Currently BidJam has 423 registered members, several of which have made repeat credit purchases. This database can easily be expanded by utilising the “viral system” integrated into BidJam.

The backend was developed for around 8 months and cost close to $3,000. The script is very extensive and includes a lot of powerful features that other reverse auctions simply don’t have. As of right now, there are no turnkey solutions, if you’re interested in getting into the reverse auction market you would have to develop one from scratch. The value of this auction lies in the backend, I got a VERY good deal on this, I have since spoken to several programmers who have told me this code is worth closer to $10,000.

Feature list:

Managing auctions

When adding a new auction you can use HTML in the description, upload a product image, which is automatically resized and formatted. Other variables include the auction price (free, 1, 2, 5, 10 credits) minimum bids, max bids per person, dropdown size, buddy auction and auction start and finishing times.

Auctions can be paused, closed and deleted. Auctions can be edited in real time and auctions can be added for future listing. Therefore, it’s possible to automate the entire website, when one auction finishes another may start.

Managing users

Similar functionality to vbulletin, you can search by username, e-mail or IP address. Alternatively, you can use a quick search to see all users online in the past 24 hours or just unverified users. You can edit a users profile, manually send them a verification e-mail and ban them.

Managing static pages

How does it work?, Winners, Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy are all manageable from the backend, it’s also easy to create additional static pages.

Referral Types

This enables you to add refer types to the registration page, currently we have things such as “Google Adwords”, “Word of Mouth” etc. From within the admincp you can see a graph showing what percentage of registered members came from where.

Buddy Credits

Buddy credits can be earned by inviting your friends to join. When you invite friends an e-mail is sent to them with a unique URL, if they decide to join you will earn credits when they register or purchase credits (depending on how the system is setup). These credits can then be used on special buddy credit only auctions, this limits your overhead as your only expense is the prize you’re giving away.

Promotions

Standard coupon code system, you can create coupons to have limited uses or start and finish dates. You can also create sign-up only, which credits a users account when they join without having to input a code.

Statistics

Similar feature to vbulletin, allows you to view stats on user registrations, bids placed, credits purchased between two particular dates.

Bulk E-mail

Ability to send HTML e-mails to your members or specify a particular group, e.g Subscribers only.

There are literally dozens of other neat features, including capcha code on registration, automated results page generation, forgot your password?, “ebay like” interface for bidding and lots more. It’s probably easier if you have a play around yourself by using the following login information. Unfortunately due to security reasons, the admincp isn’t available for demo.

Username: Test
Password: Test

In my opinion the design for BidJam really sets it apart. The design was created by Nathalie at www.4design.tv and consists of 8 individual pages including a complete forum skin and flash elements. Included in the design is a custom skin for the live chat software, a quick guide and e-mail newsletter designs. I have yet to come across another website that comes close to matching the quality of BidJam.

BidJam has generated £295 since it launched, however, BidJam has been on the shelf for the best part of 8 months, in the initial 3 months when the website was being marketed, BidJam generated £115, in the next 3 months BidJam generated £75 and from June to September BidJam has generated £95 (it must be noted, we had one player who purchased £40 worth of credits) so excluding this from the revenue, it would be £55. It’s also worth noting that NO MARKETING was done after February, all credit purchases were from organic search engine rankings.

BidJam is currently PR4, it’s optimised for the search engines and it holds several top positions in Google and other search engines for popular keywords, a quick search found the following key phrases and their positions in Google.

Number 1 in Google for "lowest unique"
Number 1 in Google for "lowest unique bid"
Number 1 in Google for "lowest unique bid auction wins"
Number 2 in Google for "lowest unique bid auction"
Number 3 in Google for "lowest bid wins"
Number 6 in Google for "lowest bid"
Number 2 in Google for "reverse auction"
Number 2 in Google for "reverse auction wins"

75% of traffic comes via search engines, other traffic comes through directories, blogs and referrals via the integrated buddy system. The only paid advertising that has been done for BidJam was a press release and Google Adwords for several weeks.

I am looking for offers in the region of: $10,000+

Once the website has been sold I will not be able to provide any support to the new owner with fixing coding issues but will happily provide assistance with getting the website installed and running.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I look forward to your questions.

Cheers, Rob.

 

Hi Rob,

So you put the items purchased by you on the auction site and on basis of the lowest unique bids (ofcourse bidders have to buy the credits) you post them to the winners with postage paid, correct?

I am not trying to pass any judgement or spoil your thread. To be honest, a very nice site/design but a weak business idea.

$10000 for the design is very-very expensive.
I lost money in the past and learned from my mistake.
If you want to sell it, reduce your price and it might sell.

Good luck!!

Cheers
ams

 

I'm not sure how you can possibly call it a weak business idea, ever heard of the website www.uniqueauction.com? Well, they turned over $1 million within their first year, as mentioned in my post, the leading UK reverse auction is doing £70k+ a month.

It's worth noting you don't need to buy the prizes before the auction ends. You can't LOSE money on this. People always want a bargin and this is something that will never change.

The value lies in the backend and the design. The site hasn't got the best revenue in the world but if someone genuinely wanted to create a reverse auction website, you would be hard pressed to develop something of this quality/scale for less than $10,000. Coupled with the high search engine rankings, database, numerous software licenses (live chat, vbulletin) banners, press releases....it's a complete ready made business.

I appreciate your comments, but please, if you're interested in making an offer, refrain from passing judgement.

 

What terms are you ranking for? With a decreasing Alexa rank I can't imagine they're amazing...

Also, on your hope page you're advertising having sold a PS3 for 2 pounds...how is that a business model or is it blatant lying?

 

Correct me if I am wrong.
How do you plan to buy and sell a minicooper worth 15-17 grand on bids of £1,2?
Are you waiting for an overnight miracle to happen or dodge people by cancelling the auction when only 5 grand has been bid in total by the bidders in 2 months time ?

I have to be a critic, and let you know that unless you have whole of the uk visiting your site or atleast 5-10k unique visits daily this business is a loss. It's only a software you are selling for $10000.

To update unique auction is under maintenance for a site that has generated 1 million as per you. That's well dodgy for any live running/profit making site.

Thanks
ams

 

I suggest you read the rules of the auction and terms & conditions and you will see how it's possibe to sell a mini cooper for such a low price. That particular auction is £5 per bid, therefore only 5,000 bids are required. Of course, you need to get alot of players involved, if I could have done it, I wouldn't be selling it, would I?

As stated for the third time, the value of this website lies in the software, not the traffic, members or revenue. With that being said, the design + software is worth the asking price to the right buyer. If you're not the right buyer then please refrain from passing judgement.

 

there's already a turnkey reversed auction cms for i think around $299

just need to design a new template for it then it'll look like urs....so $10000 with no traffic and incomes as yet is abit steep

 

Dude, read your site 1st, sort out your software where it says that minicooper has to be bid £5 at least as there are £1.xx bids for it, here is the link: http://www.bidjam.co.uk/my/overview/auction/9/do/status/

You want to sell the site for $10000+ and no support just install etc.

Anyhow, best of luck I am sure someone will buy it.

 

Please show me the turnkey solution? There are alot of reverse auction scripts available...reverse auction as in, getafreelancer.com type scripts. Regardless of whether there is or isn't, this script is worth far more than $299, contains tons of advanced features and the site includes a design worth over $2,000.

Again, please take the time to understand how the website works. Both those bids cost the user £5 to place. The bid price £1.xx is not what they've paid.

For the final time, if you're not interested in making an offer, please stay out of this thread.

 

you expect $10,000 for a site that looks nice (designed by someone else) but actually that is unproven in every way. If you only took £295 in bids in 9 months then that means your system has no experience of high volumes of bids, nor has it set the world alight. You are right, the system is everything, but your system could be a dud. If you could show auctions with thousands of simultaneous bids (up 100s of bids per second)

423 users in 9 months taking £295 bids means an average of £0.69 per user in total, over 9 months that comes down to a little over 7p. Hardly a great business you have there.

The concept of reverse auctions is great, but you have entered a market where there are already established companies.

I actually looked into setting up a reverse auction website about a year ago. Having done extensive research on it , you would be looking at parting with anything upwards of $50,000 to $100,000 for a system that could cope with high amounts of bids, and you need a high amount of bids to make this a sustainable and profitable business.


Your google ranking means nothing. At the end of the day you need a back end system that works well and a user base. You have proven neither as far I as I can see

Sorry to be so blunt but I don't think you have a hope of selling your software in this state

 

Hi...I think people are being a little hard! I agree it is hard to get $10k for any site with no real income. It's worth as you say the code and design cost......less the risk (which there obviously is!). Want to talk money (in £'s) but thousands of pounds buys you a lot of design/ code......there is a deal maybe but you need to rethink your price for me....Paul

 

Yes it is very easy job for us, we developed over 100 same sites, kindly discuss with me for the same.

Man Roka

 

You say it cost almost $3,000 (roughly £1,500) on coding it, yet in 9 months it only made £295. So in 9 months, you made no profit but instead lost £1205 (roughly $2400).

So, I think $10,000 for a site that has made essentially -$267 a month* is out of this world. Nonetheless, I will offer what I think is a reasonable opening bid for it of $1000.


* (-$3000 (expenditure) + $590 (income of £295) = -$2,410 / 9 months = -$267)

 

Hi,

Is this site still for sale.

Chris