Classifieds or Auctions?

[carpman]

Seems to be a thought that the auction side of things is wrapped up by ebay, but that GC lacks the buyer/seller feedback or buyer safe system that ebay offers.

GeoClassAuctions looks promising and may fill this gap.

Personally i think that if you have good niche market then auctions is still possible, being that i have corresponding domains for both classifieds and auctions and the new api allows users to join both at same time, this is the route i shall be taking.

[chrison600]

Hi Carpman,

My feelings as far as an eBay monopoly on auctions are rooted in my thoughts about promotion of my site. If I invest time and money convincing potential sellers that it is worth it to place a listing on my site, and my site is an auction site, I fear that they will understand the benefit of web/auction exposure yet elect to expose their items to the largest apparent audience.

I can see your point that niche exposure certainly carries weight, but I'm not sure that implementing GA would be equivalent to reinventing the wheel (eBay). Perhaps you can offer superior niche exposure in the form of awareness of your "portal", yet still leverage the existing technology of eBay AND assure your user base that their items are being viewed by the largest possible audience, niche or not.

The concept for my site was motivated by feedback from people complaining about the overhead of managing multiple exposure points for their items. I would simply like to provide a cure.

Chris

[carpman]

Hi, i am not sure that ebay does offer greater users and exposure for niche markets. For my market i have used ebay and reseached it for users, yes they use it but many more use forums or post items on ebay and then a link to ebay in the forum.

I see ebay as auction supermarket, lots of choice and great for some items, ie computer stuff, but if you are in niche market then a supermarket does just not do the job.

Example, i have been toying with idea of doing classic vehicle auction site. Yes users can use ebay but if you setup a auction site plus user forum and market it to right websites and mags whilst offer value for money service i am sure it will do well.

A great idea would be to to link each item for sale to a specific forum or forum thread !