Flippa.com Is Live!

[RCGurus]

It looks like a rip off. The choice of aqua colors. As mentioned above all that makes it look cheap and could scare users away.

[Realdeals228]

Has anyone else been unable to manage their watch list? I am stuck with a watch list full of listings that have ended and I cannot remove for some reason. I am also having trouble with the advanced search. I think if you choose an income type, products, advertising or services it is not working with imported listings. Also the look is not as good as the old clean, rectangular white one.

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by Audrey Harvey

I logged in to Flippa yesterday and correctd that, and now I find that today they're both back to being listed as non unique.

I'm very sorry about this. Please contact Danny @ Flippa.com if you're continuing to have problems with this.

Originally Posted by Biggy Fat

Then there isn't a place to classify startups, established sites, and premiums on the front page (there is a spot for it in the filter section though). With those flaws, everyone is gonna say that it is "established" when they really aren't, just like with eBay (which is 90% garbage anyway). BTW, WHERE IN THE HELL IS MY TRUSTY ADVANCED SEARCH FEATURE FROM SITEPOINT?!

While we have the old "Premium/Established/Startup" filters in place, we are encouraging all buyers to setup their own filters & automatic email notifications.

In the old marketplace, an established website just had to be older than 30 days. Many buyers though want a website that's 12 months old, generated $500 per month in revenue from advertising, and gets at least 10K unique visitors. They had to sort through a *lot* of listings in the "Established" category to find exactly what they wanted. With the new system, they can now define whatever criteria they want, and quickly view only those listings.

Here's the link toi the advanced search feature: (click the "custom filters" button) — . It's much more robust than before, and you can save your searches for easy access in the future. Hopefully you find it useful.

Originally Posted by kanus

YES, but only if it offers some kind of buyer protection. I cant tell you how much money I've lost in buying sites. 1 out of 10 actually did what the seller was claiming, of course when I ask for a refund...

We have more people and more resources than ever before... We're working on adding in verified stats via the Google Analytics API, doing name & address verification on all bidders, and more.

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

Don't have pending bids clearly visible in the account overview. Have to go to the auction, click on bid management ... 3 steps for everything that used to take one click.

That's very good, very constructive feedback that we can act on. I've passed it onto our CTO, so that we can prioritize it. Thanks!

Originally Posted by Josh Kulp

It also looks like you can't use $ in the titles..

Good point. We've now removed it from the filter! Let me know if you find any other oddities or bugs, so that we can squash them.

Originally Posted by stayfocused

I just think it would of been a nice gesture to waive the success fee on those sites that where listed on sitepoint.com and transferred over. When I listed my site I didn't agree to any success fee.

There are no success fees payable on listings that got automatically transfered over

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by RCGurus

It looks like a rip off. The choice of aqua colors. As mentioned above all that makes it look cheap and could scare users away.

Thanks for the feedback. There's definitely room for us to tweak the color scheme going forward... I'm personally looking forward to getting rid of the ugly, placeholder logo

Originally Posted by Realdeals228

Has anyone else been unable to manage their watch list? I am stuck with a watch list full of listings that have ended and I cannot remove for some reason. I am also having trouble with the advanced search. I think if you choose an income type, products, advertising or services it is not working with imported listings. Also the look is not as good as the old clean, rectangular white one.

Thanks for letting us know about the watchlist issue.

Regarding income type, in the old marketplace we didn't ask people to specify a source of revenue which is why we don't have that data. For the next 30-day or so, it's best not to use those three items as search criteria...

[Matt Mickiewicz]

One more thing: All unsold sites automatically turn into private listings which stay on Flippa.com for 6 months FREE OF CHARGE. These are accessible via the private listings tab, and will come up in search results as well, hopefully giving you many more opportunities to make a sale without paying additional listing fees.

[stayfocused]

I put my first site up for sell on sitepoint.com. I listed it for 4 days.

It got switched over the flippa and it just ended. I ended up getting my BIN price.

I guess that means people are still buying sites on the new platform.

Now I got to figure out how to get paid and get the site transferred.

Now the fun begins

[ASM Marketing]

One bug that BUGGED me is that immedietly after my auction was transferred, Flippa is claiming that my content is NOT unique. I think this feature is heavily flawed... My content is 100% unique and not one sentence is copy and pasted from another site. I would bet a lot of people have been instantly turned off by my auction having that attached to it. Any online marketer worth their salt knows that that ONE bug could be worth $100+ or more.

If I'm honest, I think Sitepoint has substituted some of the customer satisfaction factor for increased profits... Not something that I am overjoyed with, but perhaps this IS a good time for a competitor to put their hand up.

Alex

[LegitIncomes]

Is there a way to specify the auction length?

I don't want a 29 day auction, I want a 7 day auction,
but I don't see a way to edit it.

[John Durham]

I like it.

I got a good feeling on their site, as a person who was surfing casually just to see how much good websites cost... Isn't that what matters? The Buyer?

If everyone was as savvy as a warrior about web design then they might be skeptical too, but I think alot of people surfing to buy sites aren't that savvy and they just go with what "feels right" to them.

Being that person, I really enjoyed my visit to the site.

I think whoever advertises there will do well. Call it blind intuition.

[Kate Anderson]

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

Yeah ... I'm keeping track of the Flippa stats to see how they compare in a month from now.

Flippa Stats
June 22 498 sites listed
June 23 499 sites listed


June 23
24,442,321 Total Sales
34% Sold
41,415 Total Listings
36,613 Total Members

We're keeping track of the overall progress/stats as well, and so far, in two days, only six sites have sold on Flippa.. pretty disheartening results so far.

Recent Sales On Flippa

[Kate Anderson]

Josh,

You can't change it once it's live.. (either to extend the date or reduce the end time).

Originally Posted by Josh Kulp

Is there a way to specify the auction length?

I don't want a 29 day auction, I want a 7 day auction,
but I don't see a way to edit it.

[MeTellYou]

I don't think anything is going to matter as far as protests go. They think they will be making more money (which obviously they won't) but the only way we can protest this is stop using them. any good alternatives?
Sebastian

[Diana Lane]

Originally Posted by kadensnga

I got a good feeling on their site, as a person who was surfing casually just to see how much good websites cost... Isn't that what matters? The Buyer?

Yes, naturally, but if the sellers aren't happy and won't list as a result of it, then the buyer experience is not going to amount to much if there is little to choose from. The name of the site - which is really my biggest objection and bothers me far more than the fees - would baffle the most unsavvy surfers, those who've never heard of website flipping and just want to buy one for the income they'd hope to generate from it. I'd owned websites long before I'd ever heard of site-flipping, and I'd have been completely mystified as to why this site appeared to be named after a giant fish. Life's complicated enough already, for cod's sake, but let's not carp about it...

Believe it or not, I actually want this site to succeed. Despite the fact that I think it's currently a pile of codswallop (enough with the fish stuff - shut it), I know that behind it are the good people whose generosity had them leveraging the power of their brilliant web-dev books by holding an almost give-away sale to help the Australian bushfire victims (and which I could not post on here about and praise them for soon enough at the time). I liked the old marketplace a lot, although it had huge limitations and needed the user-friendly revamp or replacement that I always believed SitePoint more than capable of creating. I just don't feel that this is it - it falls short by a long way.

In all honesty, I don't see a credible alternative to the SitePoint marketplace emerging at the present time, but unless we speak up and voice our dissatisfactions (and are listened to), flippa will be no different from any other of the old marketplace's mediocre competitors and everybody loses out - SitePoint, the sellers and the buyers.

[John Hixson]

Originally Posted by Matt Mickiewicz

While we have the old "Premium/Established/Startup" filters in place, we are encouraging all buyers to setup their own filters & automatic email notifications.

In the old marketplace, an established website just had to be older than 30 days. Many buyers though want a website that's 12 months old, generated $500 per month in revenue from advertising, and gets at least 10K unique visitors. They had to sort through a *lot* of listings in the "Established" category to find exactly what they wanted. With the new system, they can now define whatever criteria they want, and quickly view only those listings.

Here's the link toi the advanced search feature: (click the "custom filters" button) — . It's much more robust than before, and you can save your searches for easy access in the future. Hopefully you find it useful.

Isn't that just throwing the baby out with the bath water though? You have recognised a need to change the advanced search functions/filter and thats fair enough - but why then also get rid of the obvious category function that many people liked AND casual surfers could flick through without having to do in depth searches?

I am also intrigued as to the thinking behind the new fee structure. You have basically wiped out the profit margin for a lot of the brand new websites - which will lead to them having to stop listing in their present forms, whether that means changing methods, giving up or using other sites is yet to be seen. Is it you feel that this sector is one that you have no interest in as a business model?

[sbucciarel]

[QUOTE=Matt Mickiewicz;908525]While we have the old "Premium/Established/Startup" filters in place, we are encouraging all buyers to setup their own filters & automatic email notifications.


I just want all the info "at a glance" that I had before. On SP, I instantly knew how many credits I had, whether or not I had any instant messages, WHO was selling a site. With just one click, I could then see if there were pending bids, comments on my auctions, how many were getting close to closing, how many days left on each auction. I could see whether or not a new auction was a startup, established or premium. I'm not a fan of the filters at all. I liked the convenience and time saving of the format that gave you the maximum amount of info "at a single glance."

Because you seem to want this narrow template, upon first view, half of the titles are cut off so you can't read all of the major selling points the seller is trying to convey, and no seller is visible unless you open the auction.

I am not going to sit around and open every auction to get the full title and the seller. The seller info is very important to me. There are sellers that I will not buy from and sellers that I want to see whatever they are selling. I'm not just a seller ... I'm a buyer and a seller.

You keep playing up the point that there is more support, more people available. That's not a selling point to me. I never needed support. The only thing I ever used support for was to report some auctions that were against TOS.

In addition, the sites I have listed are not generating any interest now. The category featured upgrade always generated some pms and questions about the sites and got them noticed. My traffic stats are way down now and I'm not getting any pms on my auctions.

One more thing: All unsold sites automatically turn into private listings which stay on Flippa.com for 6 months FREE OF CHARGE.

That's an ok feature, but I already have all the cheapos in town offering me private offers that are completely unacceptable and I imagine having auctions sitting around in "make an offer land" will be more of the same. When I list a site that I've paid good money for and have driven real traffic to and have some income generating from it, it is hard to "bite my tongue" when someone pms me and says I'll give you $200 for this right now and you can end the auction.

There are also no smilies on the pms. Smilies are a normal part of online communications so that people can add in a little extra meaning to communication with strangers without the benefit of facial expressions.

In addition, the new pricing will probably eventually eliminate all the real bargains available for bargain hunters like me. A couple of weeks ago, I purchased a PR 3 site with great content for $60. It needs some sprucing up, but it's a real bargain. This person and many like him will probably think two or three times before listing again with a sizeable cut being taken from their profits.

[John Durham]

Originally Posted by Diana Lane

Yes, naturally, but if the sellers aren't happy and won't list as a result of it, then the buyer experience is not going to amount to much if there is little to choose from. The name of the site - which is really my biggest objection and bothers me far more than the fees - would baffle the most unsavvy surfers, those who've never heard of website flipping and just want to buy one for the income they'd hope to generate from it. I'd owned websites long before I'd ever heard of site-flipping, and I'd have been completely mystified as to why this site appeared to be named after a giant fish. Life's complicated enough already, for cod's sake, but let's not carp about it...

Firstly,

You are hilarious! I love it.

Secondly,
I see your point about the name.

Thirdly,
You obviously understand your market place better than I do, and are one of the people who made it a great market place to begin with, so you should absolutely have a voice, as a person with vested interest.

Fourthly (is that a word)?

My opinion isn't really worth much on the subject, but I enjoy listening all the smart people talk about it, so every now and then it kinda makes me feel "smart by association" if I can add my "Two Cents"

You go on with your bad self Girl! Stick it to "the man" !!!

Screw "Flipper"!

[LegitIncomes]

Originally Posted by Kate Anderson

Josh,

You can't change it once it's live.. (either to extend the date or reduce the end time).

Well that sucks. I guess I just missed the option to edit the length before it starts...because I didn't see it. Oh well, next time.


I also agree with sbucciarel, I want to see my credits, PMs, etc...all at a glance. I hate having to click multiple links to see all of that stuff.

[newton]

I'm trying to list an auction on flippa at present but cannot get past Stage #3. When I click to go to stage #4 I get an error that says "Invalid Listing Type".

Checked all the settings and everything is filled in correctly.

Maybe this is why there aren't many auctions going live in the past few days?

Tony

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by ASM Marketing

One bug that BUGGED me is that immedietly after my auction was transferred, Flippa is claiming that my content is NOT unique. I think this feature is heavily flawed... My content is 100% unique and not one sentence is copy and pasted from another site. I would bet a lot of people have been instantly turned off by my auction having that attached to it. Any online marketer worth their salt knows that that ONE bug could be worth $100+ or more.

Yes, you're absolutely right that some of the imported auctions had their unique/non-unique status screwed up. If this is still the case with your auction, please send an email to support. I'm happy to waive the listing fee on your next auction as well, for the mix-up on our part, just send me your Flippa username via pM.

Originally Posted by Josh Kulp

Is there a way to specify the auction length?

I don't want a 29 day auction, I want a 7 day auction,
but I don't see a way to edit it.

Yes, we've now added this to the listing wizard. You can select the auction length when you first create your auction.

However, you still can’t extend your listing while it’s in progress. We’ve left this feature out on purpose because it was being abused. We take the view that sellers shouldn’t be allowed to pretend an auction is ending in two days, then constantly extend by two days until it runs for a full thirty days. Buyers have the right to know under what conditions they’re bidding.

I just want all the info "at a glance" that I had before. On SP, I instantly knew how many credits I had, whether or not I had any instant messages, WHO was selling a site. With just one click, I could then see if there were pending bids, comments on my auctions, how many were getting close to closing, how many days left on each auction. I could see whether or not a new auction was a startup, established or premium.

We've now added the PM count notification, we'll definitely make the pending bid notification more prominent, and comment counts are definitely making a come-back as well. It's obvious in our attempt to simplify the layout and reduce clutter, that we should have been less aggressive in removing information from the main listing pages.

Because you seem to want this narrow template, upon first view, half of the titles are cut off so you can't read all of the major selling points the seller is trying to convey, and no seller is visible unless you open the auction.

Could you email me a screenshot of the cut-off titles that you see? matt [at] sitepoint . com .

I am not going to sit around and open every auction to get the full title and the seller. The seller info is very important to me. There are sellers that I will not buy from and sellers that I want to see whatever they are selling. I'm not just a seller ... I'm a buyer and a seller.

Thanks for this critical piece of feedback. We tried to simplify the layout and reduce clutter, but since we've heard this from a number of people, and it sounds like we'll have to change the layout of the listing page to display this information.

In addition, the sites I have listed are not generating any interest now. The category featured upgrade always generated some pms and questions about the sites and got them noticed. My traffic stats are way down now and I'm not getting any pms on my auctions.

The "Private Message Seller" link is a lot harder to find now since we want questions to be asked publicly, so everyone can benefit from the answers. Do you think we should make it more prominent?

In terms of gauging interest in your auction, we've now got auction view counters going.

That's an ok feature, but I already have all the cheapos in town offering me private offers that are completely unacceptable and I imagine having auctions sitting around in "make an offer land" will be more of the same. When I list a site that I've paid good money for and have driven real traffic to and have some income generating from it, it is hard to "bite my tongue" when someone pms me and says I'll give you $200 for this right now and you can end the auction.

You actually set a reserve price with your private listing, and offers below that are automatically rejected to save you time in having to deal with the crappy offers from bargain hunters. Hopefully that saves you time!

There are also no smilies on the pms. Smilies are a normal part of online communications so that people can add in a little extra meaning to communication with strangers without the benefit of facial expressions.

I've submitted this as a request on the flippa . uservoice . com page. Please go and vote for it

I also agree with sbucciarel, I want to see my credits, PMs, etc...all at a glance. I hate having to click multiple links to see all of that stuff.

You asked for it, we deliver. We’ve now added a link at the top of the site which appears when you have unread PMs, tells you how many, and lets you get quickly to your Inbox. This should make your workflow more smooth.

Originally Posted by newton

I'm trying to list an auction on flippa at present but cannot get past Stage #3. When I click to go to stage #4 I get an error that says "Invalid Listing Type".

We're looking into this today.

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by stayfocused

I put my first site up for sell on sitepoint.com. I listed it for 4 days.

It got switched over the flippa and it just ended. I ended up getting my BIN price.

I guess that means people are still buying sites on the new platform.

Now I got to figure out how to get paid and get the site transferred.

Congrats on your first Flippa.com sale!

We always recommend using an Escrow service to transfer the money, whether it's Sedo.com, Escrow.com, EscrowEurope.com or something else...

[newton]

Hi Matt

You're up late!

I've created a support ticket for this issue.

All the best

Tony

P.S. - Aah, I see you are in Canada not Australia!

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by Matt Mickiewicz

The "Private Message Seller" link is a lot harder to find now since we want questions to be asked publicly, so everyone can benefit from the answers. Do you think we should make it more prominent?

I'm not interested in public comments and delete all of them. These are auctions ... ads ... that I pay for and I have had far too many little auction spoilers leaving irrelevant comments on my and other people's auctions. If I paid good money for any other advertising platform, I wouldn't have to deal with ad sabotage. If there's something wrong with my auction, they can report it. If they have a question, they can pm me. It's not negotiable to me. These are paid for ads ... not blogs and comments are not welcome on mine.

Originally Posted by Matt Mickiewicz

In terms of gauging interest in your auction, we've now got auction view counters going.

I've always had my own counter installed to track the interest in my auctions and monitor it daily. It is dropping.

In regards to the titles being truncated ... the titles are a brief overview of the auction. I always put my main selling points in the titles ... the first line of the title. You seem to have a character limit in place and part of the first line of the title shows up and then it's ...

I want to be able to see the entire first line of the title. If they engage my interest in that line, I will look at the auction. Now that's impossible. I don't want to have to open every auction to see what it's about and showing the entire first line gives me enough info to be able to decide if it is worth opening.

I appreciate that you seem to be trying to handle complaints and fix things that really bug people. It may make a difference ... we'll see. The fact is ... I'm a results oriented person and if I don't get results for my money, I'll spend it elsewhere, so only time will tell, but I did want to say I appreciate you listening to customers.

[LegitIncomes]

Originally Posted by Matt Mickiewicz

The "Private Message Seller" link is a lot harder to find now since we want questions to be asked publicly, so everyone can benefit from the answers. Do you think we should make it more prominent?

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

I'm not interested in public comments and delete all of them. These are auctions ... ads ... that I pay for and I have had far too many little auction spoilers leaving irrelevant comments on my and other people's auctions. If I paid good money for any other advertising platform, I wouldn't have to deal with ad sabotage. If there's something wrong with my auction, they can report it. If they have a question, they can pm me. It's not negotiable to me. These are paid for ads ... not blogs and comments are not welcome on mine.

I agree with this 100%. There are people out there who post questions just for the heck of it, they aren't really interested at all, time wasters.

And there are others who look for those posting questions in your auction, just so they can try to sell their product behind your back, a sabotage of sorts.

And you have others fishing for information, just so they can try to create a similar site without needing to actually purchase yours.

These are all very important issues that Flippa needs to consider when they say they want questions answered publicly. It might benefit the time wasters, those who sabotage, and those trying to copycat your site. But it does not benefit the seller.

If someone is really interested, and has a serious question, they can PM it to me for the answer. Other than that, I don't want to hear from them. I put all of the information I want to make public in the description itself, anything else is on a case-by-case basis.

[Desmond Ong]

First of all Matt,

It's Desmond here and thanks for dropping by this thread.

Flippa is great. But not to site sellers and site buyers.

I know you try to protect the quality of the SitePoint brand and try to shake off lousy sites on the marketplace -- but that's life.

Even in the best marketplace in the world, there will be flaws.

The reason SitePoint Marketplace (the old one) is so successful is because we have site sellers like Kate Anderson, sbucciarel and myself who support SitePoint Marketplace and continue to list our sites there.

So, I highly recommend you to consult with both site sellers and site buyers.

If the count of site sellers reduce in Flippa (which I am certain) -- it's not good for site buyers either because I personally even know some big guys on the internet who bought my sites on SitePoint Marketplace.

It's never too late to turn back before someone builds a dream marketplace for us.

[Kate Anderson]

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

I'm not interested in public comments and delete all of them. These are auctions ... ads ... that I pay for and I have had far too many little auction spoilers leaving irrelevant comments on my and other people's auctions. If I paid good money for any other advertising platform, I wouldn't have to deal with ad sabotage. If there's something wrong with my auction, they can report it. If they have a question, they can pm me. It's not negotiable to me. These are paid for ads ... not blogs and comments are not welcome on mine.

Absolutely, 110% agree. The babysitting that we've had to do with ridiculous comments designed to harm our auctions has been tedious, to say the least.

I do have a question for Matt.. on SP over the last couple of months, a lot of us sellers experienced "fake BIN's" tying up our auctions for 30+ minutes at a time, repeatedly. (some people would simply click the BIN each time it renewed to keep it from appearing within the marketplace). I reported this to you guys awhile back.

Has this been corrected with the new marketplace? If someone clicks BIN, how long does your site go into "pending" mode and is it removed from being visible in the market during that time?

[newton]

Originally Posted by Kate Anderson

Absolutely, 110% agree. The babysitting that we've had to do with ridiculous comments designed to harm our auctions has been tedious, to say the least.

I do have a question for Matt.. on SP over the last couple of months, a lot of us sellers experienced "fake BIN's" tying up our auctions for 30+ minutes at a time, repeatedly. (some people would simply click the BIN each time it renewed to keep it from appearing within the marketplace). I reported this to you guys awhile back.

Has this been corrected with the new marketplace? If someone clicks BIN, how long does your site go into "pending" mode and is it removed from being visible in the market during that time?

That's a good question Kate and adds to something I was thinking about myself.

With these fake BIN's (Yes I've had my fair share too) what happens with the success fee? Are we invoiced for it as normal? If we list the site again due to the fraudelent bidder, does the success fee get removed? Do we have to pay for the auction again?

Due to Flippa not being able to see if a buyer HAS actually paid, this leaves quite an open market for many support issues.

Tony

[Biggy Fat]

The moral of this whole story is this: Change isn't always good.

[sbucciarel]

Another comment: It seems to me that a lot of changes are supposed to be beneficial to buyers. However, your reduction of what you call "clutter" is not beneficial to buyers. Like I said, I am both and with the SP marketplace, all that "clutter" was valuable information that I constantly scanned and could easily pick out auctions that I was interested in. I felt like I had my finger on the Sitepoint pulse. I knew the selling trends, who was selling, what was selling best, what was selling quickly ...

All this info actually benefited me both as a seller and as a buyer. It was info that was right there on the front page so I only had to refresh the front page to keep up with the marketplace. I could spot trends and capitalize on those trends by buying hot selling sites and building/selling hot selling sites. You've now reduced, clutter, reduced information and made it a real pain to get the same info that was available at a glance.

People don't like to waste time or to spend time they don't have trying to find stuff. That is one reason why sites are not going to get the attention that they deserve now ... because you now have to waste time and dig for it. I haven't browsed the new marketplace because I don't have the time to open every auction to get the information that I became accustomed to getting at a glance.

[cashcow]

I'm not interested in public comments and delete all of them......

I agree with this - in fact, it seems to me that 98% of the comments are just from "spoilers" and really would not be helpful to anyone else who was interested in the auction. I've had comments on my own auctions, of course, but I am also talking about comments on other peoples auctions which I have read.

With these fake BIN's (Yes I've had my fair share too) what happens with the success fee? Are we invoiced for it as normal? If we list the site again due to the fraudelent bidder, does the success fee get removed? Do we have to pay for the auction again?

This is a huge concern, the fee is really overwhelming for people who sell lower priced startup sites (a minimum of $10 so if you are selling in the $100 - $200 range....) To have to keep paying it over and over again would put quite a few out of business, I would think. But I do appreciate the half price on relists.

Matt - I also would like to say that I, too, appreciate the fact that you are listening and trying to fix things.

Lee

[yommys01]

Originally Posted by Biggy Fat

The moral of this whole story is this: Change isn't always good.

exactly. The annoying thing is that I was hoping to list some established sites this week but I guess I have to keep them for now as I am not ready to waste my money.

No site is selling on the new market place. Hilarious, disgusting and annoying.

[newton]

Hi Matt

As you are monitoring this thread and it seems like the easiest way of giving feedback, here's some I've just found out:

I finally managed to get my auction listed and it has had a bid of $97. I received an email to let me know.

BUT...

#1 - I login to my account and see no mentions of any bids.

#2 - I click on bidding history and see no bids.

#3 - I click on the actual auction and it says "no bids" and no mention of pending bids.

#4 - Only when I click on the "0 Bids" link do I see I have a pending bid.

If I didn't receive an email I would never click that many links to see if I have had a bid. And that is just my first auction since Sitepoint turned into flippa. I'd hate to be managing several as I do normally.

Can we not have the old screen where you could see ALL your auctions with the number of comments and number of bids on the one page?

I'm sure like me, that screen (The My Activity Link) was the one most sellers view to see changes on your auctions. Just one click and you can see everything happening.

Tony

[Arunabh Singh]

Originally Posted by Stefan Vee

I miss the old format as well ........... BUT............

That's because I got so used to it. I was an expert in finding great stuff on sitepoint...

I am not anymore (at this time) ...

That will change, I am confident about that.

And the format of flippa will become more user friendly than ever.

Just give these guys some time.

They are marketers as well, remember? Most probably "excellent" marketers!

I am sure they will spice it up in future but I think they launched the site in a hurry. Very Un-sitepoint.

The point I am trying to make is dont launch a product or website until it is 100% ready. Nothing turns off people more than unprofessionalism.


BTW is it me or the Advanced Search feature is really missing.

[Arunabh Singh]

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

Yeah ... I'm keeping track of the Flippa stats to see how they compare in a month from now.

Flippa Stats
June 22 498 sites listed
June 23 499 sites listed


June 23
24,442,321 Total Sales
34% Sold
41,415 Total Listings
36,613 Total Members

How you got these figures, especially these sales figures?

As far as I can see there are only 13 sites sold on Flippa yet.

[Ant West]

FLIPPA!!!!! Robbing TW*** Listed my site for sale - paid the EXCESSIVE fee,

Then find out i can't log into my account - password wrong etc.. log into sitepoint fine!!

How the hell can i log into my account to upload proofs - therfore site won't sell therefore theft of $19 - what a F****** disgrace!



Sorry for the langauge but really hacked off about this site

it's a horrible twitter looka like , looks like a badly changed wordpress classified theme!
it's very very very very slow!! and i have fibre optic 50mbps + broadband!!

A snail from my garden could have run marathon faster then the site loads!!

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[Arunabh Singh]

Originally Posted by Ant West

FLIPPA!!!!! Robbing TW*** Listed my site for sale - paid the EXCESSIVE fee,

Then find out i can't log into my account - password wrong etc.. log into sitepoint fine!!

How the hell can i log into my account to upload proofs - therfore site won't sell therefore theft of $19 - what a F****** disgrace!



Sorry for the langauge but really hacked off about this site

it's a horrible twitter looka like , looks like a badly changed wordpress classified theme!
it's very very very very slow!! and i have fibre optic 50mbps + broadband!!

A snail from my garden could have run marathon faster then the site loads!!

grrrrrrrrrrrrrr

In simple words they are just screwing the sellers.

They have quite a few bugs now and I wonder if that will ruin the brand name of sitepoint.

Try to contact support and let them know about your issues.

Wait

Do they even have support?

[Ant West]

Do they hell!!! i've sent 7 support tickets in last 2 day's not 1 has been responded!

it's getting ridiculous!

i keep seeing flippa people commenting about they have good reviews etc..

i aint seen 1 F***** good comment about the site!

Originally Posted by nunu

In simple words they are just screwing the sellers.

They have quite a few bugs now and I wonder if that will ruin the brand name of sitepoint.

Try to contact support and let them know about your issues.

Wait

Do they even have support?

[Arunabh Singh]

Originally Posted by Ant West

Do they hell!!! i've sent 7 support tickets in last 2 day's not 1 has been responded!

it's getting ridiculous!

i keep seeing flippa people commenting about they have good reviews etc..

i aint seen 1 F***** good comment about the site!

Now that you have already sent support tickets you cant do anything other than waiting.

It seems like Flippa's No. of drawbacks increasing day by day.

They are not responding to support tickets too.

[Arunabh Singh]

Originally Posted by KatherineAnneCarr

I hate it.. i think its gonna bomb... but thats me...

I dont think you are the only one then.....

[Ant West]

Originally Posted by nunu

I dont think you are the only one then.....

Yes same here! i really can't stand it! i thought twitter was bad enough!

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by Ant West

Do they hell!!! i've sent 7 support tickets in last 2 day's not 1 has been responded!

it's getting ridiculous!

i keep seeing flippa people commenting about they have good reviews etc..

I'm really sorry about this. We're answering all tickets within 12 hours, 24 hours max at the moment. Sending us 7 tickets over 2 days and not getting a response is ridiculous.

Any chance you could let me know what email address the tickets were sent from so that I can track down their status in our helpdesk?

Also, if you can, check your spam folder since there is a very small possibility that our replies are getting filtered by your email software.

[Kate Anderson]

Repost: I do have a question for Matt.. on SP over the last couple of months, a lot of us sellers experienced "fake BIN's" tying up our auctions for 30+ minutes at a time, repeatedly. (some people would simply click the BIN each time it renewed to keep it from appearing within the marketplace). I reported this to you guys awhile back, many times.. as did others without ever having received a response or resolution to the problem.

Has this been corrected with the new marketplace? If someone clicks BIN, how long does your site go into "pending" mode and is it removed from being visible in the market during that time?

[Arunabh Singh]

Originally Posted by Kate Anderson

Read up a few posts when you get a chance.. a few of us have been waiting on an answer regarding the false BIN's etc - before the last few "disgruntled" folks popped in.. appreciate your attention, while we've got it =)

Repost: I do have a question for Matt.. on SP over the last couple of months, a lot of us sellers experienced "fake BIN's" tying up our auctions for 30+ minutes at a time, repeatedly. (some people would simply click the BIN each time it renewed to keep it from appearing within the marketplace). I reported this to you guys awhile back.

Has this been corrected with the new marketplace? If someone clicks BIN, how long does your site go into "pending" mode and is it removed from being visible in the market during that time?

I am not disgruntled Kate and I rarely post negative things about anything in public forums. I am just disappointed at Flippa's performance. As I have stated earlier thats unlike sitepoint.

I am pretty sure they will fix the bugs soon.

[Kate Anderson]

Nunu,

I totally understand, believe me.. Disgruntled wasn't meant (in this situation) as a negative connotation, I totally see/feel/know how you're feeling.

I'm just interested in having a few questions answered, (been waiting for this particular one to be addressed for oh, about 2-3 months), so forgive my impatience in bumping it up.. just didn't want him to overlook it again =)

[MHavoc]

I can appreciate that Matt is trying to be responsive to modifying Flippa in an attempt to appease some of issues, but the issue is that Flippa is an inherently broken concept and direction. All of these comments and suggestions are an attempt to get Flippa to even start to mimic the functionality that already existed in the old marketplace. I agree with all the comments that have already been stated here, but they've changed their business model and product with little or no regard to their user base, both buyer and seller. The old marketplace had it's issues, but it was a mature product that still had a lot of life left in it..... it could have easily been improved upon rather than dumped. It amazes me that they made such an un-sitepoint website. I don't want to work with them to try to get Flippa, over the next year and with all of its problems, to barely a shadow of what the old marketplace already had in place. Flippa looks like empire building with an attempt to develop new brands by spinning off their successful functions. I'm glad that it works for them and I can't wait for a good alternative to come online.

[Scott Murdaugh]

Yeah, it's ridiculous...

They're taking what was a GREAT concept, the old marketplace, and totally ruining it.

This comment from Mark Harbottle (co-founder of SP) is disturbing...

Thanks for all your positive feedback guys. We appreciate it. One thing to keep in mind...
Our buyers aren't going anywhere. They are savvy business people. They don't care about the design of the site or the fact the logo sucks (the current logo is a placeholder BTW), they simply get on with the business of buying, and we've made it a lot easier for them to do that on flippa.com.

Meanwhile while you all whine and complain about the fees, the design, etc. the smart sellers are listing their sites on flippa.com and they are attracting the majority of the buyer interest. They will also get the added benefit of the PR we're about to roll out.

So, it's totally up to you! If you want to come across to flippa and sell your site in the professional marketplace we're creating for serious buyers, we welcome you with open arms. If not, please do go to digitalpoint. List your site for free and see if the old adage of "you get what you pay for" applies.

There's a time to listen to your customers... And the fact that people don't like the new interface doesn't make calling your customers "whiners" and imply that "they aren't smart" because they're not happy with the new site a very good idea...

Personally, I wouldn't complain at all if they had a reasonable fee increase on the old system.

I'm not involved with anything on Sitepoint right now, but when you have customers experiencing REAL problems... Paying money for listings that aren't being shown, having unique content branded as not unique, these are big issues and the solution isn't to insult the people who pay your bills.

The new concept is broken, it's inferior... They need to do the right thing, make Flippa.com a blog or something, and bring the old marketplace back.

I don't see the logic in taking a service that so many people loved, turning into something that's essentially unusable, and then chastising your customers when they complain about it.

I respect Matt coming on here and addressing concerns. But seriously guys, your customers are telling you what they want, you already have it, and instead of listening you're trying to force your users into a new system that's broken at best.

It doesn't seem like a smart business plan to me... Then again, I don't really care, I have no problems taking my business elsewhere, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

-Scott

[Arunabh Singh]

Originally Posted by Kate Anderson

Nunu,

I totally understand, believe me.. Disgruntled wasn't meant (in this situation) as a negative connotation, I totally see/feel/know how you're feeling.

I'm just interested in having a few questions answered, (been waiting for this particular one to be addressed for oh, about 2-3 months), so forgive my impatience in bumping it up.. just didn't want him to overlook it again =)

Its ok. It looks like they are taking some action on solving the issues. I was also unaware that matt was from sitepoint. I hope your questions will be answered.

[LegitIncomes]

Originally Posted by scottspfd82

Yeah, it's ridiculous...

They're taking what was a GREAT concept, the old marketplace, and totally ruining it.

This comment from Mark Harbottle (co-founder of SP) is disturbing...



There's a time to listen to your customers... And the fact that people don't like the new interface doesn't make calling your customers "whiners" and imply that "they aren't smart" because they're not happy with the new site a very good idea...

Personally, I wouldn't complain at all if they had a reasonable fee increase on the old system.

I'm not involved with anything on Sitepoint right now, but when you have customers experiencing REAL problems... Paying money for listings that aren't being shown, having unique content branded as not unique, these are big issues and the solution isn't to insult the people who pay your bills.

The new concept is broken, it's inferior... They need to do the right thing, make Flippa.com a blog or something, and bring the old marketplace back.

I don't see the logic in taking a service that so many people loved, turning into something that's essentially unusable, and then chastising your customers when they complain about it.

I respect Matt coming on here and addressing concerns. But seriously guys, your customers are telling you what they want, you already have it, and instead of listening you're trying to force your users into a new system that's broken at best.

It doesn't seem like a smart business plan to me... Then again, I don't really care, I have no problems taking my business elsewhere, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

-Scott

With Flippa in it's current state, I agree. Why not just keep everything the way it was, and if they wanted to increase fees, fine.

Right now I've got a site listed on Flippa, and even with that, I still find it annoying to log in, and then do some clicking, clicking, clicking, and more clicking to get where I want to go. And the listings in their current format give me a headache. I'm not quite sure what it is, the larger font, the colors, or what...but it definitely makes me want to click away.

Don't get me wrong, I've sold $50k plus worth of sites on sitepoint, so I'm rooting for something successful to come out of this for the buyers and sellers...I just feel like they are a long way away from it.

[John Hixson]

Originally Posted by scottspfd82

Yeah, it's ridiculous...

They're taking what was a GREAT concept, the old marketplace, and totally ruining it.

This comment from Mark Harbottle (co-founder of SP) is disturbing...



There's a time to listen to your customers... And the fact that people don't like the new interface doesn't make calling your customers "whiners" and imply that "they aren't smart" because they're not happy with the new site a very good idea...

Personally, I wouldn't complain at all if they had a reasonable fee increase on the old system.

I'm not involved with anything on Sitepoint right now, but when you have customers experiencing REAL problems... Paying money for listings that aren't being shown, having unique content branded as not unique, these are big issues and the solution isn't to insult the people who pay your bills.

The new concept is broken, it's inferior... They need to do the right thing, make Flippa.com a blog or something, and bring the old marketplace back.

I don't see the logic in taking a service that so many people loved, turning into something that's essentially unusable, and then chastising your customers when they complain about it.

I respect Matt coming on here and addressing concerns. But seriously guys, your customers are telling you what they want, you already have it, and instead of listening you're trying to force your users into a new system that's broken at best.

It doesn't seem like a smart business plan to me... Then again, I don't really care, I have no problems taking my business elsewhere, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

-Scott

Wow, interesting, not seen that - cheers for posting it.

That really is a lesson in how not to give customer service - thanking the few who have given positive feedback and sticking your fingers in your ears about bad feedback, because obviously they are just whinging, no matter how many there are.

Of course saying 'buyers are still coming' doesnt look to be strictly true if the level of recently bought websites on the site is correct

I am not sure what he is trying to achieve here, other than to make his attitude look like he's saying 'we're the only game in town (digital point is not worth it), so like it or lump it'

has he decided that sitepoint is now the new Ebay or Paypal?

[Richard N Adams]

One thing that I would really like to see in a website auction site is more transparency and accountability for both buyers *and* sellers. The Sitepoint forums seem to be awash with sellers who have found that buyers (particularly those who BIN an auction) have disappeared into the ether.

I was thinking about "real" auctions yesterday and in those cases you normally need to give all sorts of personal details before you bid. However that isn't really the case on Sitepoint/Flippa. The most we sellers can aim for is someone who has verified their email/phone number.

But imagine how it would change things if you submitted your credit card details. The card was "preauthorized" before you placed a bid and then Sitepoint/Flippa could act as an intermediary.

I know it's a lot to ask - this wouldn't happen tomorrow - but "cleaning up" the market place would be a great idea. And in that case, I wouldn't be so worried about Flippas new fee schedule.

Any opinions?

All the best,
Richard

[patricialin]

Originally Posted by scottspfd82

Yeah, it's ridiculous...

They're taking what was a GREAT concept, the old marketplace, and totally ruining it.

This comment from Mark Harbottle (co-founder of SP) is disturbing...



There's a time to listen to your customers... And the fact that people don't like the new interface doesn't make calling your customers "whiners" and imply that "they aren't smart" because they're not happy with the new site a very good idea...

Personally, I wouldn't complain at all if they had a reasonable fee increase on the old system.

I'm not involved with anything on Sitepoint right now, but when you have customers experiencing REAL problems... Paying money for listings that aren't being shown, having unique content branded as not unique, these are big issues and the solution isn't to insult the people who pay your bills.

The new concept is broken, it's inferior... They need to do the right thing, make Flippa.com a blog or something, and bring the old marketplace back.

I don't see the logic in taking a service that so many people loved, turning into something that's essentially unusable, and then chastising your customers when they complain about it.

I respect Matt coming on here and addressing concerns. But seriously guys, your customers are telling you what they want, you already have it, and instead of listening you're trying to force your users into a new system that's broken at best.

It doesn't seem like a smart business plan to me... Then again, I don't really care, I have no problems taking my business elsewhere, and I'm sure I'm not alone.

-Scott

Thanks for sharing about that man.. I do agree that Mark's comments are disturbing. I don't think that SP is handling this issue well at all. In fact, I think that his comment just serves to be an excuse to brush everyone aside.

Just coming up with a brand new site that isn't 100% ready and launching it to thousands of people, well, don't blame us for making some noise here when things start to screw up.

If the extra fees are justified with better support, a better site interface, improved features etc. (generally an awesome site), we won't be making as much noise as we are doing so, would we?