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Alton, Ia | What do you mean "start an online auction"?
Are you contemplating establishing a website, writing code, etc., basically building an Auctiontime/Proxibid site? Or are you meaning you would establish a service utilizing an existing site listing local items?
If the first, I'd say you are nuts. Or at least you better come well prepared. The work it would take to build a reliable website is significant. And then, what counts is exposure and views. You would have to spend a fortune to get your site out there. What would come first- items or viewers? Who's going to be the first 1,000 listers? Why would they list on "Treybid.com" vs AT, etc. The small difference you MIGHT be able to offer in commission is peanuts compared to getting the eyeballs of the right two people.
Without items, who's going to waste their time on your website?
What's going to make your site better than AT for example? They have very good categorization, I can search for items fairly quickly. Find auction results quickly for like items. IMHO, other sites such as BigIron & Purplewave absolutely suck at both of these. AT isn't perfect, but they are pretty good and I would bet they have > 50% of all the online auction listings already, and increasing. So what are YOU going to do to be better?
The only real complaint I hear is "buyer's premium". Yeah, I don't like it either, but guess what? I was blessed with a brain and schooling that let's me add x% every time I bid on something online, knowing that 1+x is my actual bid. It's really not that hard.
The online auction ship sailed 15 years ago. | |
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Starting an Online Auction
