- Fees strengthened the site p190
- Works best for items of uncertain value p199
- Setting a min bid is most successful
- Always ask the community about changes
- Bad PR is controversial PR, which is good PR
- Add a private msg board so you can refer to conditions
- HALF.com
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- any to many sites more powerful than one to many
- best way to make a site sticky is to give them a type of social component
- referred to as community, not customers
- ask the community for its opinions
- automated aspect is appealing to community (too much time to follow an auction & keep up with bidding)
- some companies use artificial scarcity – beanie babies were removed off the market annually, making all of the new ones a scarce commodity
- auctions excel when they are called on to set prices for items whose value is inherently indeterminate
- Collectors are amongst the earliest and most enthusiastic posters
- Antiques
- Philosophy: the community knows best
- Questions & Answers msg board – they never know what they will see when they drop by
- Strengths : # of users, community
- Seasonal: peak in new year
- There are several people using the web who have nothing better to do
- People who pus the limit posting get suspended
- Characters were added to the community
- Be quick & nimble
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Allow users to give feedback on what they think the price should be.
Let them control the price. Or influence it up or down.
Items can be like stocks, with the price increasing as more demand occurs, decreasing with less.
Blogs where a different person makes each post continuing the last.
Accounts are suspended until people send in the $ to cover them.
Know when to scale down, and make sure you do it, unless you can sell your way out of it first.
Black & white photograph instead of color?
Webcam to webcam social site, supported by bandwidth between the 2 users.
Contact high volume sellers from ebay.
Set up notification system “Legal Buddies” and allow users to conduct their own searches – remove illegal items we are notified about.
How do you identify bots on your site? What do you do about them?
You don’t pay more than a customer is worth.
Going public attracts analysts, who can publish reports that get picked up by the media.
Go public and only make available 2 shares.
Be able to contact people who didn’t get what they want (those with lower offering) and offer them.
The difference btwn the internet & myspace : anyone can easily create their own page on myspace, whereas the internet is not as user friendly. – website creator, where people can easily plug different types of code into their webpage and create it.
One of your friends says – site where your friends anonymously tell you what they think.
Create bidding that’s not time sensitive – the bidders are notified when the final bid is about to win and have a period of time to counter. Have a blind final bid. Contact the users and have them bid aloud online.
Create live auctions on myworld.com or whatever the site is
“You make sure it breaks the surface at just the right trajectory so it has so much speed by the time it hits the radar that it’s too late for the enemy.”
- half.com
- ratings affect price
- suggestion board, where people vote on ideas
- page views per item, maps of where visitors are from (on aggregate scale may indicate demographics
- Where an offline community exists, internet can serve to strengthen social bonds w in
- Min. amt of feedback needed before it registers for everyone else to see ex. 10 ok deals to get a star. 1 complaint – pending till another ok given, 2nd complaint
- Remove offer
- Buyers did not think it was worth participating in an auction for a mass produced item whose value was well established
- Make it easier to sell an item than throw it away
o Autofill fields according to serial #’s
o Less keystrokes
- Monitor ISP address so people who abuse the system and have another acct are flagged if they use the same computer
o Mail sent should be registered so proof of delivery is available
o Checks can be traced to see whether cashed or not
o If possible it is recommended the people meet so they can view the goods
- Porn section will gain reputation as free porn site
- Mature audiences
o Prohibit ref. to bodily fluids
o Sexually explicit terms & items
o Film taken w hidden camera
o Items w necro, incest or other themes
- Individuals are main, business list themselves as indiv.
- See what ppl selling in misc to determine new categories
- Find bot programmers
- Storefronts?
- Put stuff from Winners up
- Get insurance co. to put up items
- Customer returns – major dept stores, Can T
- Problem in Canada – to far to ship, need closer communities
- Out of date stock, unsellable, discontinued
Consider
- warehouse square footage
- access to cheap labor
Profits go to school
- read, type
- electricity
- mail – pack, address, stamp
- receive money
- maintain equipment
- doing deals w big co.’s to sell their stuff takes away from little guys selling their stuff; always has to be a level playing field
- used u-wear problem; ppl want to post it; it will offend others; separate area for offensive items.
- Needs a time limit to create urgency
- Search function: arranges results in categories first so users can narrow it down.