Hello everyone. This is Jogelina. I am from chicago, IL.
I am thinking of opening up an auction website in near future. I really need to share my ideas with you but first I would like to get help from you. Can any one please tell me If I have 2 million dollars and If I spend those 2 million dollars in advertisements for my auction website.

What would be an estimate of visitors to my website?
how many people are going to join?
Based on people who will be joining my website, how many sellers and buyers would be?

Before you give me an estimate please note that since I would spend 2 million dollars in advertisements. I should have great web design for my site, sellers tools such as: turbolister, selling manager, blackthrone, sales report, and other tools that ebay is offering for their members. Great customer service, phone support, live chat help, seller and buyer protection & other services that ebay is offering. And would offer users free online store and free membership for up to 6months-1 year which includes free listing, free featured, free bold, border, final value fees and other fees. So based on that what you think how many sellers I would get on my site?

Your information is really helpful, please!

Hi, thanks for your help. 2 million dollars are lot of money for advertisement and since I would be spending 2 million dollars, I do think that I would get a lot of sign ups. There are so many alternative auction websites, but none of them are spending 2 millions on their website. They only spend 5000-20,000 according to my idea. This is why they are not getting so popular because they are not spending alot of money for advertisement. eBay and Amazon started their business as a new auction site and they got succeeded. There are billions of sellers out here and according to my idea If I advertise online, radio, television. I think I should atleast get 1 million users with in the 6 months. Like you said there are businesses who goes well in the starting but then goes down later on. But let me ask you something, do they spend that much money for advertisement? What could 20,000 do? nothing! Unless have a million or two, then there is no chance to go down in future.

And none of the auction alternative auction sites are good designed, live chat, employees. I am not talking about the sites like them. I am talking about the real site, like a real company. One more thing, eBay got popular because they spent a lot of money in advertisements when they first started in 1995 or 1996. Don't you think If I build a new and serious company, I could get sucess? I have the money but not sure If I will loose in this or not?

jogalie wrote (View Post): › Hi, thanks for your help. 2 million dollars are lot of money for advertisement and since I would be spending 2 million dollars, I do think that I would get a lot of sign ups. There are so many alternative auction websites, but none of them are spending 2 millions on their website. They only spend 5000-20,000 according to my idea. This is why they are not getting so popular because they are not spending alot of money for advertisement. eBay and Amazon started their business as a new auction site and they got succeeded. There are billions of sellers out here and according to my idea If I advertise online, radio, television. I think I should atleast get 1 million users with in the 6 months. Like you said there are businesses who goes well in the starting but then goes down later on. But let me ask you something, do they spend that much money for advertisement? What could 20,000 do? nothing! Unless have a million or two, then there is no chance to go down in future.

Amazon got started by allowing people to put afflicate links on thier websites and giving those people $1 per book sold thru their affiliate link, then as the site grew, they added more content. Amazon also got alot of free advertising from radio talk shows by the hosts having amazon links on thier sites and interviews with authors and the plug Buy this book from the website by clicking on the link... Case in point... Art Bell originator of Coast to coast am...

Ebay didn't start out as ebay either. And they did start out vey small indeed, and grew. There are several posts here about the origins of ebay. And they also benefited from some free advertising on the talk radio shows.

Now your talking about advertising... but what about your auction script? Servers? staff?

mojavelyn wrote (View Post): › Now your talking about advertising... but what about your auction script? Servers? staff?

Yeah. Most people who haven't been in this business long enough think that sites don't flourish due to lack of advertising. The way I see it, that's far from the biggest issue. I think sites struggle more due to lack of sufficient funding for site upgrades and operating expenses, and lack of sufficient support from online sellers. Oh, and the overly-dilluted marketplace doesn't help matters any.

Offcourse i will buy couple of servers as well. I will be running a company offcourse I would need servers. Please do not compare my upcoming auction site with wagglepop. Wagglepop is a simple auction site. Look at their designs & all. They probably invested $5000 for their auction script. I am investing about $100,000 for my auction script that will allow people to buy and sell globally not with in united states like wagglepop. You need to have good domain name in hand as well. Not like wagglepop, biddersnsellers,webidz & etc. Anyways where are all the other people? I need the ideas from everybody than just from 2 people.

And yes, forgot to mention. I would definitely have referral program like eBay does.

jogalie wrote (View Post): › Offcourse i will buy couple of servers as well. I will be running a company offcourse I would need servers. Please do not compare my upcoming auction site with wagglepop. Wagglepop is a simple auction site. Look at their designs & all. They probably invested $5000 for their auction script. I am investing about $100,000 for my auction script that will allow people to buy and sell globally not with in united states like wagglepop. You need to have good domain name in hand as well. Not like wagglepop, biddersnsellers,webidz & etc. Anyways where are all the other people? I need the ideas from everybody than just from 2 people. And yes, forgot to mention. I would definitely have referral program like eBay does.

Wagglepop was intended to be a very large company. Their script includes more than $50,000. of custom code, and due to a dismal lack of support from online sellers, they lost a deal with a major ISP that would have provided serious advertising and a complete site redesign to cost between $225,000. and $400,000. if I remember correctly. The framework for that has already been done, so it's possible that they could finish that project and many others that were in the works if funding were made available. Wagglepop does allow buyers from many countries, and currently sellers from the US, UK, and Canada. Again, they could move forward with expansion plans if they had the funding to do so. As far as the domain name, have you ever heard of Google or Yahoo? Wagglepop is a fun name like those.

As for why you have only heard from two people, so many other people have come to PSU with ideas similar to yours that I think members here are just tired. Sellers don't have enough energy or interest to go around for all of the many new sites and many new possible sites.

I understand what you are saying. And I really appreciate your response. What I am saying is that in this world there are only two main websites where sellers sell and buy. eBay and Amazon. And my aim is to become one of the 3rd largest auction site in the world. I have the funding, it is not issue. $2,000,000 means more than $300,000 advertising per month up to 6 months.
What is so speical about the wagglepop auction site? It is the basic auction website script that was purchsaed from rscript.com. And they did some web designing. If you compare their web designing with eBay. You will know what I am talking about. Our web design will be so professional that allow members around the world to sign up. In other way, It will be so attracted. Plus continous advertising. Who wouldn't want to be part of it specially when the site is getting more than 2 millions of hits per month, being advertised on tv, newspaper, online, radios each day. How did craigslist became to famous even though it is not good looking at all? Because they advertised continously. Web design is not so important the most, advertisement is. I see many auction websites are launch each month, and when I check them later. I see many auction sites having sellers putting something on sale. But then when they get tired of it, they leave the site because they are not making any profit, sales like they are making on ebay. And I assure you that our sellers will make alot of sales because of hits we will be getting on our site per month. Wagglepop or any other alternative auction websites are getting hits from 15,000-50,000 per month. If you check on www.compete.com and compare that with ebay, ebay is getting more than 68 million per month. Now since ebay is getting 68 million per month because they are known company compare to ours. We will be spending about 2 million dollars in advertisement so I am not expecting 68 million per month traffic on our site but atleast I could expect 1 million or 2 out of 68 million and billions people out there. Anyways, let's just forget about it. I don't see people are so helpful except you and the other person. Thank you. I will still give it a try, I don't have anything to loose. 2 million? not a big deal

Offcourse i will buy couple of servers as well

Frankly, you haven't got a clue about what it takes to make/run a good alt site. That's probably why others haven't posted here yet.

You have gotten decent advice from the 2 that have posted and that would more or less be what I would also give you.

And just because you seem to have money you are willing to part with, doesn't mean your site would be a success.

Case in point -- Yahoo auctions. Yahoo had an auction service for quite a few years. It worked fairly well for some sellers too. Until Yahoo ignored that part of the site and never fixed aging code and scammer problems. Many think they did that at least in part due to a money deal from eBay for advertizing.

Anyway, where is Yahoo Auctions now ?? Closed about 15 months ago. No one can say Yahoo didn't have the money or advertizing to promote the site. But some of the execs put the site on "auto-pilot" because they didn't have a clue and it withered.

You or Yahoo aren't the first ones that don't have a clue that thought throwing money at something would solve all the problems. I've been at several other sites that claimed to have money investors behind them, but never could get off the ground.

I'll give you 1 hint -- Name recognition !!

eBay and Amazon have it. Most alts, even those that have been around for several years, don't. If people still don't know the names of sites like Blujay, eCrater, and eBid, all sites that have been around about 3 years, how is a brand new site going to get traffic ??

Throwing money at advertizing isn't the answer. At least not the total answer. Word of mouth is much more powerful. Basically that is how eBay got to be as big as it is today.

A brand new site has no word of mouth. As the others have said, go with one of the sites that have been around for at least a couple of years. Help them improve their script, servers (a "farm"), and CS and the word of mouth from the users they already have will spread and get you an even bigger base. Only then is throwing money at advertizing going to possibly make sense.

If you don't know why, you shouldn't be thinking about this business.

The reason is if you advertize before you have a decent selection of products, the people that see your advertizing will maybe check out the site, NOT find what they are looking for, and never come back.

Not only that, they would most likely do the opposite part of word of mouth -- the negative part. The saying about word of mouth goes like this -- If you like something, you will tell a person about it. If you DON'T like something, you will tell 10 people why you didn't like it.

I know this probably isn't what you wanted to hear, but unfortunately that's the way it is in this business right now.

Carol

Yahoo auction was the great example. I don't know why they did not pay attention to the scammers. But I have already mentioned to you that we will be starting out our companies, open branches in each state, slowly open branches in other countries as well. Beawre of scammers, frauds 24/7. Give buyers and sellers protection, help them in any fraud cases and solve the matter just like paypal and ebay... I think I will give a shot, just wish me good luck.

Since you guys are experienced with advertising. Let's just say If I invest $2 million dollars in advertising just online for the first 3 months. How many dialy or monthly traffic would I get? Just give me an estimate.

I calculated as:
2 million divided by 0.65%= 3076293 visitors for 3 months divide by 3 months= above 1 million visitors a month.

What you think about this?
I calculate 0.65% because let's say maximum $0.65 is per click

jogalie wrote (View Post): › Since you guys are experienced with advertising. Let's just say If I invest $2 million dollars in advertising just online for the first 3 months. How many dialy or monthly traffic would I get? Just give me an estimate. I calculated as: 2 million divided by 0.65%= 3076293 visitors for 3 months divide by 3 months= above 1 million visitors a month. What you think about this? I calculate 0.65% because let's say maximum $0.65 is per click

What we're trying to say is that advertising CAN'T be your main focus if you want to be successful. How many daily or monthly visitors would you get? It doesn't matter! Potential buyers wouldn't buy because there wouldn't be enough selection of anything to keep their interest. There are a buzillion other places online where they can buy what they want. As for finding enough SELLERS to poplulate your site with items, I'm talking about trustworthy sellers who will provide your buyers with the products and buying experience that you need them to have, that part of it is about as easy as trying to nail Jello to the wall! As for KEEPING quality sellers on the site, especially when you have to start charging fees to cover the site's ongoing operating expenses, well that's a lot more difficult than trying to nail Jello to the wall.

You say that losing 2 million dollars is not a big deal? It honestly pains me to read those words because for the little people like me who don't have two extra nickels to rub together, we really need for someone who DOES have money to spare to come along and invest in the sites that have been working for years to create better selling opportunities for us. Some of these people know what needs to be done to succeed in this business, but can't get the money to make it come together. That being the case, it's painful to watch the endless stream of people who don't mind burning a lot of money on poor business plans when they could do something much more powerful with that money.

Rightnow many people are buying from biddersnsellers, wagglepop and other auction sites if you check their feedback system. If these sites can do better for just thousands of money, I am sure I will do better than that.

You said there are gizzilion places online to shop then why would they shop at my site?
People still shopping on wagglepop, biddernsellers,ioffer,ebid,webidz,ecrater. Then a person who is building a great site with all the plannings and spending money, keep the website for free up to an year. Having many users and more than 20 million listings what made you think that no one will shop out of 20 million listings in a year? I have plannings but I can't share them all. Because it's secret. What all I wanted how many visitors I would get on my site If I invest 2 million dollars for the first 3 months... That's all I want to know. Rest I can't share because I don't want any one else to steal my ideas. Thank you!