Flippa.com Is Live!

[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?

[kkchoon]

I miss the old sitepoint market place...

[absolutelee]

Well, I tried to be open minded about Flippa. But I'm over it. The old SitePoint was not perfect, but it was light years better than Flippa. I think I'm moderately versed in internet stuff , yet I can hardly find my way around. I loved how in the old SitePoint with just one glance I could get a real feel for what was happening in the various markets. Hopefully, SP will get the hint, kind of like Coca-Cola did when they tried New Coke and everyone rebelled.

One more thing. It's not the fee structure that bugs me. I totally understand raising your prices and seeing if you can make more money. I'm all for that. I do that, too! It's the layout that I hate.

Anyway, that's my two cents.

Lee

[sbucciarel]

Quote:
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.

Or you can list your site at Sitepoint and pay through the nose to someone who thinks it's customer base are a bunch of whiners. I flipped sites before I discovered Sitepoint and there are at least two new sites being developed as we speak. Any company who does not listen to it's customers ... you know, the ones who actually pay you ... will not succeed for very long.

If you think the buyers won't be finding new sites rather than sit around and click all day on Sitepoint, you're mistaken. I am a buyer and Flippa's format is a time waster. I'm sure I'm not the only buyer who finds the format too time consuming to browse any longer. It's not about your crappy logo, your crappy design, your crappy colors. That's just bad taste and we could live with the bad taste if the format had the same usability as the SP marketplace. It falls way short of that.

As for the smart sellers listing ... not very many from what I can see. New sites would scroll off the front page in less than a day on SP ... I'm still seeing sites on the front page that were there yesterday, so you aren't kidding anyone about savvy sellers. Savvy sellers will be looking to get a lot more bang for their bucks, and Flippa does not deliver. That quote above is so arrogant, it's unbelievable that you have so little regard for your stinking, whining, paying customers.

[Biggy Fat]

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.

This is just another way of them saying this: "You don't have to like it but we're not going to change. So all of you can kiss our asses".

[Ursa Anzur]

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

Quote:
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.

Or you can list your site at Sitepoint and pay through the nose to someone who thinks it's customer base are a bunch of whiners. I flipped sites before I discovered Sitepoint and there are at least two new sites being developed as we speak. Any company who does not listen to it's customers ... you know, the ones who actually pay you ... will not succeed for very long.

If you think the buyers won't be finding new sites rather than sit around and click all day on Sitepoint, you're mistaken. I am a buyer and Flippa's format is a time waster. I'm sure I'm not the only buyer who finds the format too time consuming to browse any longer. It's not about your crappy logo, your crappy design, your crappy colors. That's just bad taste and we could live with the bad taste if the format had the same usability as the SP marketplace. It falls way short of that.

As for the smart sellers listing ... not very many from what I can see. New sites would scroll off the front page in less than a day on SP ... I'm still seeing sites on the front page that were there yesterday, so you aren't kidding anyone about savvy sellers. Savvy sellers will be looking to get a lot more bang for their bucks, and Flippa does not deliver. That quote above is so arrogant, it's unbelievable that you have so little regard for your stinking, whining, paying customers.

Exactly!!!

I completely agree with everything sbucciarel said.

And I'm glad there are other "savvy business people" out there who actually know how it's like to buy and sell websites. And they are taking action with buyers and sellers in mind, unlike Flippa and its people who think that they are irreplaceable.

A friend of my is selling her first website. For the past few days all she does is trying to remove all the bugs from her listing.

I have a website ready for sale, but I won't list it, just because there seem to be too many bugs and many, many other problems. I refuse to pay $20 for this.

[INFOSEEKER-2009]

Sitepoint flubbed on this one ...

These guys started out as techies ....

And now they want to be designers ....

The easy technical database features are gone now ....

It's like they're trying to integrate an iPhone with Twitter to create an auction site ...

Hopefully, they'll realize that this format only works for media content: videos, etc ...

"Oh Well"

P.S. - Who Here is Going to Give us a New Auction Site ???

[LMC]

Shamless Plug for you Infoseeker

Down Below -->


In regards to Flippa, I think they just needed to stick it out in beta for a bit longer, or still let us use the old sitepoint marketplace...

When Google, Yahoo, or any of the big ones make drastic changes they usually leave the old one for a while until everything is set to move.

Lets go back to marketing class:

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by INFOSEEKER-2009

Sitepoint flubbed on this one ...

These guys started out as techies ....
And now they want to be designers ....

P.S. - Who Here is Going to Give us a New Auction Site ???

One thing I've learned over years of site development is designers are not programmers and programmers are not designers. They make an excellent team and I've been on many such teams and have learned to work with many programmers .... and great programmers know that they are lousy designers and the other way around with few exceptions.

As for new kids in town ... looks like me and LMC were posting this at the same time, but
it's already being done and I'm a freaking impressed
If you plan on selling a site, or already are please read...

Check it out and tell these guys to at least put a Buy Me A Beer button on the site to help with development costs.

Also, pm Kate Anderson ... another one in the works by someone who will know how to get one done.

[Imran Naseem]

Well we have to accept Flippa now. A New era for website flippers

[John Hixson]

Originally Posted by Imran Naseem

Well we have to accept Flippa now. A New era for website flippers

If we listen to them we do

Or we can continue to let them know whats wrong with it, as well as searching out viable alternatives.

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by Imran Naseem

Well we have to accept Flippa now. A New era for website flippers

Uh ... no we don't. Read the post above yours and you will see other emerging options and I'm telling you, LMC's site is some kind of fantastic. Features that I hadn't even thought of and the design feels just like home.

[Kate Anderson]

Originally Posted by Imran Naseem

Well we have to accept Flippa now. A New era for website flippers

Absolutely disagree. The old SP marketplace didn't have a ton of bells and whistles, yet it worked very well (for the most part). It isn't difficult to create one similar to it.. it was the traffic and exposure that they had to offer that kept them at the top.

I don't have a problem with the new site fees, I don't even have a problem with the design although the layout itself is horrible, but with what I have earned from SP personally, I would never complain about handing some of that back to them:

IF ..

1. They listened to our feedback, from both buyers and sellers.
2. They resolved the problems from the previous marketplace that have trickled over into the new one.
3. They were more responsive to complaints, problems, fraudulent accounts, auctions, etc.

Before you jack up a price, you need to justify it. A fancy design doesn't cut it.

What I have always had a problem with, goes way back to the old marketplace a year ago.. and it has never changed (it's also the #1 reason I stopped listing much on the old marketplace over the last couple of months).

People could win your auction - pay it - chargeback via Paypal and then turn around and sell the SAME site on the marketplace to someone else.

Competitors could BIN your auction repeatedly to keep it from appearing within the marketplace, just long enough for their site to sell.

People could outright deceive customers with claims of original content that was plagiarized, etc etc etc - and our "report" tickets would go into some dark hole, where they'd pick and choose which ones to address, leaving the rest to rot.

I had to weigh out whether it was worth it for me anymore. I have a list, I have a customer base.. did I really want to direct them to that?

I am trying to give Flippa a chance, but I'm far too irritated at this point to do so. I'd rather have seen what was broken FIXED rather than simply CHANGED..

/end rant..

Whew!

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by Kate Anderson

What I have always had a problem with, goes way back to the old marketplace a year ago.. and it has never changed (it's also the #1 reason I stopped listing much on the old marketplace over the last couple of months).

People could win your auction - pay it - chargeback via Paypal and then turn around and sell the SAME site on the marketplace to someone else.

Competitors could BIN your auction repeatedly to keep it from appearing within the marketplace, just long enough for their site to sell.

People could outright deceive customers with claims of original content that was plagiarized, etc etc etc - and our "report" tickets would go into some dark hole, where they'd pick and choose which ones to address, leaving the rest to rot.

All good points. It seems to me that Sitepoint is trying to cater to buyers only and forget about the whiners who pay their bills.

I had to add onto all of my auctions at the end that I would hold the domain name for 46 days (1 day longer than Paypal allows for disputes) for buyers that did not have 100% feedback from numerous transactions to prevent the Paypal dispute fraud from happening.

In addition, the comment thing ... many of those little Sitepoint auction spoilers that leave negative comments all over Sitepoint are actually just other sellers who try to degrade your auction so that it won't sell. That, along with the fake BINs is just an effort to eliminate their competition.

Flippa ... more bugs. I just tried to close one of my auctions early ... twice now and both times it went back live. Sent a support ticket.

Also, when I open my auctions up, nowhere do I see whether or not reserve has been met.

[newton]

Sold a site on flippa today and have been invoiced twice for the success fee!

I wonder what happened to the golden rule of testing products before letting your customers get hold of them

Tony

[sbucciarel]

I've only got one word to say ... Twitter
lol ... ok maybe a couple of words to say. Twitter the new site and Twitter Kate Anderson's site when it is live. My guess is that they will both be a smashing success. I'll be doing a blog post shortly about both.

[LMC]

Wow Newton...

That really blows...

I don't really understand the success fee. With a site broker background, I use to charge my clients for a success fee, but did not charge to list their site, that was the package.

This works well. It says, we are confident in our marketplace that you will sell the site, and this is why we take a fee.

Taking listing fees, fee here, fee there, and a success fee is just becoming crazy, unless it is there goal to only sell high-level websites that are going to sell four figures or so.

If this is there goal, so be it.

[sbucciarel]

As an aside, I just listed two sites on LMC's site and it's been a couple of hours and I already have pms on both of them requesting more info and one is very interested. That's more activity than I've had from Flippa ... since I've had no activity from Flippa.

[cashcow]

As an aside, I just listed two sites on LMC's site and it's been a couple of hours and I already have pms on both of them requesting more info and one is very interested. That's more activity than I've had from Flippa ... since I've had no activity from Flippa.

Nice, I have a couple I'm gonna put up on LMC's site later today or tomorrow - there will probably be more new listings on that site than on Flippa!

[John Hixson]

Good to hear the positive experience on LMC's site. that being the case I have two I will be putting on after the weekend.

Lets hope you're on the start of something big LMC!

[LMC]

Thanks Suzanne, I'm glad your seeing good results, can't complain about that. We are doing what we can to help promote each individual listing by sending an email to past buyers of our own sites.

Of course eventually we will need more buyers, so that is where we are headed over the next month.

Will and cashcow look forward to your contributions, let me know if you need help with anything.

[Diana Lane]

I had a quick look round your site this morning, LMC. It's looking good. I have no plans to list anything for the next three or four weeks, but it's likely I'll give your site a try when I do. Good luck with it

[sbucciarel]

Thanks ... the couple of questions I had were answered very promptly and I continue to get bids and pms on sites that have literally languished on Sitepoint. It's exciting to see response from my auctions again and I am stumbling, blogging, bookmarking, tweeting and otherwise promoting your site. To your success ...

Cheers

[red172]

I think the 5% is a bit much. Where did all this greed come from? lol

[mailco]

Originally Posted by mithunhero

I am smelling a new marketplace in somewhere..Certainly its not Flippa.
something new apart from sitepoint's hands

I see one already and they are giving away credits to get people started.
It started yesterday: siteflippa.com
I think I will give it a try seeing it's free at the moment... : )

[Pattaya-Addict]

i agree that flippa looks crap

looks like it was designed by a 5 year old

[cashcow]

Just put one up on LMC's site - Kudos to LMC and your team for designing a great site with lots of cool features. Easy to use.

Oh, and my listing went smoothly with NO BUGS.

But the best part ..... I already have a bid after like only 10 minutes of it being listed!

Lee

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by cashcow

Just put one up on LMC's site - Kudos to LMC and your team for designing a great site with lots of cool features. Easy to use.

Oh, and my listing went smoothly with NO BUGS.

But the best part ..... I already have a bid after like only 10 minutes of it being listed!

Lee

Yeah ... me too. I have all my auctions there now and I have bids on several and have been getting pms like crazy. I can't believe with just a day start-up, I'm getting so much interest. No glitches, no bugs. I'm loving this site.

Another Bug Flippa: Just noticed that all my auctions that were on Flippa had that they were not unique, even though I've got numerous sites that had been listed as 100% unique.

[Audrey Harvey]

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

Another Bug Flippa: Just noticed that all my auctions that were on Flippa had that they were not unique, even though I've got numerous sites that had been listed as 100% unique.

I found the same thing, and I couldn't fix the listing without it reverting back to "non unique", but when I brought it up in another thread, it was fixed very promptly.

[Kezz]

Wow this is really encouraging to hear about people's good experiences so far on SiteDeal. Can't wait to get a site up there and start selling again, yay!

Kate, I'm also really looking forward to your marketplace as well. I think both can run very successfully.

The success so far makes me think what I've suspected for a while might be true. It's not just the 'economy' that's been the reason sales dropped on Sitepoint. It was other issues too that are local to Sitepoint.

My guess is that there are plenty of people who want to buy and sell sites, now we can all come back out to play

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by 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.

I'm not sure what your SitePoint username is, but Dave did respond in this thread:

sitepoint[DOT]com/forums/showthread.php?p=4295918

To quote Dave's response: "On Flippa listing will be visible for the entire time, and will show a status of "Pending" until we're informed that the payment actually goes through, in which case it will be "Won".

As you say, this means that the auction keeps receiving exposure. Customer Support on Flippa will have the resources to look, on a user-by-user basis, at the PayPal BINs which have been put in, and ensure that no user is misusing the facility."

[Matt Mickiewicz]

I want to be able to see the entire first line of the title.

This will be getting fixed.

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.

Thanks for your ongoing feedback.

Originally Posted by Josh Kulp

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. .

This is a very tough one, and I always feel caught in the middle. I hate when paying customers get abused, but I also can't tell you the number of times that those public questions helped us spot fraud attempts and saved other buyers thousands of dollars.

I CAN tell you what we've done on Flippa though: To post a comment, you now have to verify a phone number. It's one extra hurdle for someone looking to sign up with a yahoo.com email address, creating an account, only to bash your auction.

Please report abusive commenters to us, so that we can deal with them.

There's also a great great mini-discussion about this issue on marketplace . uservoice . com that covers both sides of the comment deletion issue.

Originally Posted by newton

With these fake BIN's (Yes I've had my fair share too) what happens with the success fee?

You're not going to get invoiced for fake PayPal BINs. We're now capturing more data about BIN bidding, we're keeping auctions open & active even after someone clicks the PayPal BIN link - up to and until the point that they submit payment.

Originally Posted by sbucciarel

However, your reduction of what you call "clutter" is not beneficial to buyers. 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.

I agree. We oversimplified, and we're backpedaling to bring back the critical pieces of data that you're accustomed to such as the seller name & comment count. I do hope though that you find the brand new "Recently Sold" Tab helpful in spotting trends.

Originally Posted by yommys01

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

This is not true. Sites are selling through.

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by newton

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

Thanks for the very thorough and articulate feedback.

This is the exact sort of feedback I wish we had during our two week beta period. I've passed it onto the team - I agree 100% that we REALLY need to improve the visibility of pending bids. I've passed your entire comment onto our CTO and Mark, my business partner and co-founder.

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

Try the custom filters button instead. It's much, much more thorough than what we had before, and you can save your favourite searches and even receive automatic email notifications when auctions matching your criteria get listed.

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

Yes, we can definitely verify the name & addresses of all bidders via CVS at a very low cost. This is the exact sort of things we'll be working on once we get past the launch hurdles...

I'd love to hear others thoughts on this. Will bidders get scared away if we ask them to enter their credit card details?

[Kate Anderson]

I think asking potential bidders to verify themselves via credit card is a terrible idea. I think the harder we make it for buyers to purchase our listings, the worse off we are.

That being said, we need active moderation, responsive support and less resistance in removing accounts involved in fraudulent activity, (of any kind, whether it is deliberately BIN'ing without paying, repeatedly listing content as unique when it isn't, and so on). I'd be more than willing to pay the current fees if the support improved.

For months, I watched as my forum members trickled in complaining about being ripped off for thousands of dollars from the SAME Sitepoint user that screwed me over back in November (of which I reported to Nonie many times with a list of his usernames). He was permitted to continue stealing from us (literally.. he'd BIN our auctions, pay with Paypal, create a chargeback and RELIST them for sale on SP)..

It was disgusting to see that months later, this person still retained their account, still actively posted within the marketplace and yet nothing was done (and this is just one example).

Rather than even consider running buyers through additional hoops, just get the team together, and make a point of being extremely active in regards to support and in overall moderation of the marketplace.

You might be surprised how that alone, could eliminate 99% of this nonsense.

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by Kate Anderson

People could win your auction - pay it - chargeback via Paypal and then turn around and sell the SAME site on the marketplace to someone else.

Competitors could BIN your auction repeatedly to keep it from appearing within the marketplace, just long enough for their site to sell.

People could outright deceive customers with claims of original content that was plagiarized, etc etc etc - and our "report" tickets would go into some dark hole, where they'd pick and choose which ones to address, leaving the rest to rot.

We've solved the BIN bidder problem, we've integrated prominent Copyscape links to help buyers better research what they are buying, and we've added full-time staff for support and dealing with reported auctions

I agree that these are only very small steps in the right direction, there's lots more that we can and will do, including verifying stats via the Google Analytics API. Let me know what you think of Richard's idea in the post above.

Originally Posted by newton

Sold a site on flippa today and have been invoiced twice for the success fee!

I wonder what happened to the golden rule of testing products before letting your customers get hold of them

We ran a two week beta - obviously, more than a few things slipped through and I'm very sorry for that. It's inexcusable on our side. Have you already sent in a ticket to our support department?

Originally Posted by Pattaya-Addict

i agree that flippa looks crap

I think we'll launch a 99designs contest to re-design it

[Kate Anderson]

Originally Posted by Matt Mickiewicz

We've added full-time staff for support and dealing with reported auctions ..

That's great to hear, really. I had received a few responses regarding the fraud I had to deal with in the past with indication it would be taken care of, and months later, these guys still continued to screw around in the marketplace, so if this full time staff does more than just respond but rather, acts/follows up, we'll all be good to go.

I'm surprised that so many people focus on the design of the site as being an issue. Ebay isn't the nicest looking real estate online. For me, it's about functionality, prompt support and being (somewhat) protected... knowing that when I do contact you guys, something is done about the problem.

Up until now, functionality for the most part, was just fine.. the support issues will hopefully clear up, and you can continue to tweak the marketplace based on the consistent feedback you're receiving (layout, the category problem we spoke about, etc).

Flippa has obvious potential. I just think that maybe keeping a pulse on your community first, and taking baby steps with the transition might have eliminated a lot of these concerns..

[Sandy Hands]

I joined this forum today to speak specifically about Flippa.

I was a net purchaser of websites and domains on the old Sitepoint Marketplace. I have no clue as to how much I've invested, but it is significant in dollar and number of transactions.

The principal reasons I used Sitepoint over and above the other possible market places can be summarized as:
- volume of new products and services;
- range of products and services; and
- range of quality (sometimes new is good, sometimes old is better - depends on the project).

Yes, there are always variables like rogue sellers and dead-beat buyers - no different than life in main street. Buyer beware, Seller be careful.

Whilst it is true every market has a buyer at a price, the value of a busy transaction marketplace is the standardization or normalization of prices over time. In other words expectations are built in busy and efficient markets (not in the back alleys).

The reduction in volume at Flippa is obvious (listings particularly - or perhaps they are there and too hard to find - either way - same result) . Even if this reduction is not translated to a loss in revenue for Sitepoint, it will eventually. Why? Markets are emotionally driven - never forget that. People don't buy products they buy benefits, they "buy in" to the story.

When you fundamentally interrupt your nerve center, you are building a dam of resentment. I am a firm believer there are no sacred cows in business and culling winning product lines can be a brilliant strategy - if you have a better one to replace them with.

The problem is not Flippa per se. The concept of decentralizing your activities for a bigger gain down the road is a journey many entrepreneurs have enjoyed. The real problem is that you have taken a growing product that was gaining market share, credibility, respect and leadership; and belted it over the head with a baseball bat.

The bottom line is that the idea may have been sound in the Boardroom, but the execution and implementation has been absolutely woeful.

You could say that everyone hates change and that once things settle down, it will be alright...... That's corporate bull**** as far as the nose can smell. I've seen it a hundred times if any at all. Someone floats an idea over a long lunch, everyone convinces themselves they’re 10 feet tall and bullet proof. Someone raises a proposal and gets approval to spend a small fortune on development, and then hands over to the operations team to pick up the pieces and fight fires for the next millennium or until someone in the Board stands up and recognizes they made a mistake (oh - of course, that rarely happens because the egos have to walk sideways to get into the Boardroom in the first place).

Ok, that was a little tongue in cheek and below the belt, but I’m not sure you really are listening. I have seen comments posted in the last two days, by people whom I respect for their capability and service offering. They are the 100% brigade. People you would do business with no matter what they were selling. Sitepoint marketplace attracted that caliber of person........... Listen very carefully Matt, when I say this....... You can’t buy that sort of credibility........ You earn it.

It takes years to build credibility and moments to destroy it.

You now have a patient on life support and you are the surgeon, be very careful where the next cut goes, it could be fatal.

Lets look at the obvious. At least 100 maybe more of highly active Sitepoint marketplace traders are out talking Flippa down or looking for alternatives, such as LMC and siteFlippa (I guess the pun was intended). There will be many more competitors as a result of Sitepoint lowering the competitive barrier.

In many ways, you have personally done me a favor. Instead of spending 2 hours a day on Sitepoint Marketplace, I’m investing in other activities. Yes, I have flicked through Flippa, but I’ve also chased down other alternatives, including heading back to previous market places that I gave up to focus primarily on Sitepoint because of the people I knew I could trust.

You say, but those people are still there? I say, perhaps, but I know a few less are showing up each day and instead of an efficient and fluid marketplace we have a quasi listing board that is on the operating table.

Do yourself a favor and run a sql query match against frequent member logins and see how the trend has changed. I’m sure you have done that already, otherwise you would not be in such a defensive mode.

I’m not begging for the old market or ways - I don’t care that much about it. I am writing this rather long (apologies) note, because it reflected what I personally felt and also what I was hearing from others. Having invested so much into Sitepoint marketplace, I felt it was important to at least let you hear feedback which you can refer back to and either laugh at when Flippa is a roaring success, or lament over when your marketplace brand loses market share. Either way, you will know that the decisions you make going forward were not in a vacuum or based on a lack of feedback.

In conclusion, no sermon on issues, would be complete without a solution or without some creative suggestions.

Specifically: What I like about the old marketplace is the ease of seeing every listing on the front page. I can quickly scour the features to the left if I need to and navigate to targeted areas with a click. The more on the front page and less I have to click away, the better.

What I don’t like about Flippa. I don’t care if someone paid you more money to be on the front page - if their listing is worth looking at, I’ll find it. If you have anything on the front page it should be governed by views or votes by users (digs if you want to call it that). Even then I would still prefer to see every auction on the front and navigate away from there at my choosing - not yours.

Your design may win over designers and presentations in the Boardroom or at management meetings, but it is wasting my real estate. If I wanted more blue, I’d head down the beach. Make no mistake, I’m at your site to work, listen, learn and get on with it - period. I don’t want the B.S. the fancy pants logo or the bulby tabs. I steer away from sites like that every single day. I like seeing the featured ads against the regular listings - I’m a big boy, I’ll work out which is good and which is crap.

I don’t want to click on a Buy/Sell a Website button bigger than my wallet. Why else would I be there. You’re own self promotion says #1 marketplace for buying and selling websites.................. time is money, efficiency at all cost. Simplicity is not only about how little you have, but on how little you need to get the most out of a given resource with crystal clear clarity.

In hindsight (doh!), it would have been 100000% more successful had you shipped the old marketplace to the domain flippa and then progressed from there. Presently you are having an each way bet (or expensive split test) against a hybrid marketplace that does its best to confuse what ordinarily are knowledgeable internet users.

Good luck, I wish I could say I had the patience to spend anymore time on Flippa, but there are more important things in life (well to me anyway).

Kind regards

Sam

[newton]

Originally Posted by Matt Mickiewicz

We ran a two week beta - obviously, more than a few things slipped through and I'm very sorry for that. It's inexcusable on our side. Have you already sent in a ticket to our support department?

Hi Matt

Yes I have a ticket in.

Thanks for listening to feedback and acting on it. Obviously you have a LOT to act on but hopefully things can get back to as simple as they were.

Tony

[sbucciarel]

Originally Posted by Kezz

Wow this is really encouraging to hear about people's good experiences so far on SiteDeal. Can't wait to get a site up there and start selling again, yay!

Kate, I'm also really looking forward to your marketplace as well. I think both can run very successfully.

The success so far makes me think what I've suspected for a while might be true. It's not just the 'economy' that's been the reason sales dropped on Sitepoint. It was other issues too that are local to Sitepoint.

My guess is that there are plenty of people who want to buy and sell sites, now we can all come back out to play

This was a big surprise for me to find out. Unless the last couple of months, nearly all of my auctions sold on Sitepoint within days, sometimes just hours. I have a high rate of won auctions. Then all of a sudden, BOOM ... nothing but a bunch of cheesy pm offers for quality sites ... and not many of those either. I figured it was the economy, but I'm wondering now.

I created listings on SiteDeal.org last night and very quickly got pms (about 10) regarding my sites. Two of the sites have been relisted on Sitepoint with no activity, so listing these sites is beginning to cost me money. They are really nice quality sites, custom design and not overpriced. I now have one guy saying that he is going to contact his business partner and is interested in a package deal on all of my listings. So now we go from no activity on Sitepoint, to buyers who are interested in everything I've got. And this on a site that is only 2 days old today. I'm excited about this marketplace and equally excited about Kate's upcoming marketplace.

The co-founder of Sitepoint has made a remark in the Sitepoint forum essentially calling his paying customers whiners and complainers and making reference to savvy buyers and sellers. Sitepoint had plenty of quality sellers and a handful of quality buyers, but let me tell you my experience with the average Sitepoint savvy buyer.

I sold a minisite recently. Installed it on the buyer's host and asked him for the Clickbank or Paypal code to code the buy button. Didn't get any response back for weeks and then he pops back in and asks me to code the order button. Again, I requested the code and went over what he needed to do to get the code. He disappears again for several weeks. Pops back in and sends a message indicating he is very unhappy because I sold him an incomplete site with no code on the buy button. I patiently once again try to get him to take some action and get the code. Instead, he leaves bad feedback saying that I am difficult to work with and then files a Paypal dispute saying I sold him an incomplete site and won't communicate. I've done everything I can to try to get him to give me the code for the button, but this savvy buyer doesn't have a clue why I can't code the button for him. He didn't win the Paypal dispute but I now have 98% feedback rating because of Mr. Clueless when I maintained 100% previously.

Another savvy buyer recently pm'd me to tell me her Adsense on the site is not working. Of course I installed the site and even went into her Adsense acct because she did not know how to do it and created the Adsense for her. What she means by not working is she hasn't made any money. Same with the ebook. She keeps looking in her Paypal acct for all the money she's made from the ebook .... this savvy buyer doesn't seem to realize that now that she has purchased a site, she will need to promote it and get targeted traffic in order to make sales.

The above examples are the norm for my buyers on Sitepoint. They are inexperienced and require a great deal of time-consuming hand holding, which I have always given them to the best of my ability but there are some that will never be successful online because they simply don't have what it takes ... they won't do independent research and they seem entirely clueless that now that they have a site, it's up to them to make a success of it.

Read post #141, the Sandy Hands post. Brilliant post coming from what I consider a savvy buyer. Flippa has alienated a lot of paying customers with that unprofessional comment made by the co-founder and with all of the changes in general.

The post goes into exactly what I've said as a buyer myself ... Flippa's overall usability has degraded to the point where it is too time consuming to browse the listings. The site runs slow and by removing what they call "clutter", they have removed all the information that people are searching for.

Flippa's support is lacking in spite of being told that there are more people to handle support. I closed 4 or 5 listings last night and then got an automated email saying that they were now live again. It appears that they automatically go into Make an Offer mode, whether you want them to or not. I sent an email to support for each one I closed and just got a response back ... only one response ... it said, duplicate post ... nothing more. Of course, it was not a duplicate post. It was one of four I sent for each site I tried to close.

In addition, still unresolved is the fact that sites that I have that are custom designed are listed as NOT UNIQUE. Already posted about it and already sent one support ticket and still I have sites listed as NOT UNIQUE. So does it matter to me that they have more support people on staff to mishandle support?

It is perplexing to say the least, that people capable of building a brilliant and successful marketplace seem to be equally capable of destroying it. Of all the things wrong with Flippa, the one thing that I find inexcusable is a co-founder calling paying customers whiners and complainers when they express their honest opinions of the new marketplace. I don't like to be insulted when I'm paying someone, and that Mr. Co-Founder is what you call a savvy buyer.

I honestly feel badly for the programmers who put in a lot of work and are now in forums stamping out fires, only to have a co-founder insult the customers and create more fires to stamp out.

[Diana Lane]

Why bother to 'remove clutter' if you're going to fill the whole front page above the fold with header? Strange.

In a way, I'm grateful for the whole 'flippa' thing. As a result, we've got more places to list than we had before, and a couple of them really are looking quite promising. I still hope flippa turns out to be one of them, but if we're going to be called whiners and complainers for pointing out it's flaws, then I can't see it making the grade any time soon, and I can't see it being missed by many if it doesn't.

[Biggy Fat]

Here's another bug I just witnessed: I was browsing through some sellers' individual listings and some of them have bids of exactly $2,147,483,647. I highly doubt buyers are bidding THAT high haha.

You know, this brings to mind one thing: If it ain't broke, DON'T FIX IT. Like I said in a previous post, the moral of this story is this: Change isn't always good.

Then the co-founder of Sitepoint defends the whole Flippa decision and calls us whiners and complainers. The whiners and complainers that have been investing in Sitepoint for years. Basically he was telling us that we can kiss his ass and that we're not going to change and we can't do anything about it. You'll have to excuse the harshness but that fool needs a swift slap in the face RIGHT NOW.

WHAT WERE YALL THINKING?!

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by Sandy Hands

The reduction in volume at Flippa is obvious (listings particularly - or perhaps they are there and too hard to find - either way - same result) . Even if this reduction is not translated to a loss in revenue for Sitepoint, it will eventually. Why? Markets are emotionally driven - never forget that. People don't buy products they buy benefits, they "buy in" to the story.

The volume of listings is very healthy... Click on the "Buy Websites" link to view everything that's getting listed.

The homepage of Flippa defaults to the "Featured" listings tab - which is an upgrade that people have paid for and only shows a handful of new listings per day.

I’m not begging for the old market or ways - I don’t care that much about it. I am writing this rather long (apologies) note, because it reflected what I personally felt and also what I was hearing from others. Having invested so much into Sitepoint marketplace, I felt it was important to at least let you hear feedback which you can refer back to and either laugh at when Flippa is a roaring success, or lament over when your marketplace brand loses market share. Either way, you will know that the decisions you make going forward were not in a vacuum or based on a lack of feedback.

In conclusion, no sermon on issues, would be complete without a solution or without some creative suggestions.

Definitely appreciate you signing up here and posting your comments.

If you get a chance, please read the latest blog post on Flippa
flippadotcom[dot]wordpress[dot]com . We just reduced the minimum success fee to $5 to better accommodate turnkey sellers, and we're looking for your feedback on a flat-listing fee for high-value websites.

Specifically: What I like about the old marketplace is the ease of seeing every listing on the front page. I can quickly scour the features to the left if I need to and navigate to targeted areas with a click. The more on the front page and less I have to click away, the better.

I agree 100%. The splash page isn't working. We're going to re-design. In the meantime, and as a stop-gap measure, I recommend that you bookmark the flippa.com/buy-websites page which is much closer to what we used to have.

In hindsight (doh!), it would have been 100000% more successful had you shipped the old marketplace to the domain flippa and then progressed from there.

Yes, you're no doubt right. It should have been more incremental.

Thanks for your valuable time and for caring. Happy to continue chatting via email (matt @ sitepoint ) or phone: 604 716 4638 (Vancouver, Canada).

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by Diana Lane

Why bother to 'remove clutter' if you're going to fill the whole front page above the fold with header? Strange.

Hi Diana,

The idea was that buyers would be bookmarking the "Buy Websites" page, rather than the homepage.

Obviously, that's now how people prefer to use Flippa, so per our blog post last night we're going to be re-designing. We've already added in back some of the critical pieces of data, such as the comment count on auctions.

Keen to hear your feedback on the "stats" icon next to each listing title as well. Is that helpful? Anything else we should add in there?

[cashcow]

We just reduced the minimum success fee to $5 to better accommodate turnkey sellers

Thank you.

I have to say, now that I have played around with it a bit, the new site does have some nice features. Seems easier to search for what I look at at least and I really like the recently sold tab. I still hate the design though - sorry. I haven't tried listing anything yet though so can't say whether I like the new interface there or not.

Lee

[Matt Mickiewicz]

Originally Posted by cashcow

TI have to say, now that I have played around with it a bit, the new site does have some nice features. Seems easier to search for what I look at at least and I really like the recently sold tab. I still hate the design though - sorry. I haven't tried listing anything yet though so can't say whether I like the new interface there or not.

Thanks for the kind words Lee.

I agree, there's definitely room to improve the design. The blue is definitely a bit overwhelming, and the splash page isn't working. We're moving quickly to address the issues.

[Imran Naseem]

I hope to figure FLIPPA soon as I really miss Sitepoint now!

[Diana Lane]

Originally Posted by Matt Mickiewicz

Hi Diana,

The idea was that buyers would be bookmarking the "Buy Websites" page, rather than the homepage.

Obviously, that's now how people prefer to use Flippa, so per our blog post last night we're going to be re-designing. We've already added in back some of the critical pieces of data, such as the comment count on auctions.

Keen to hear your feedback on the "stats" icon next to each listing title as well. Is that helpful? Anything else we should add in there?

It is helpful, I think. There actually was something else, but it's gone right out of my head (it's half past midnight on Friday here, and I may be slightly worse for alcohol...). If I think of it, I'll let you know - it might even have been something you've fixed already. Thanks for listening to us, it's appreciated.

[Kezz]

Sam, that post was magic. You had me cracking up!

sbucciarel I just checked out your store on SiteDeal.org and it looks great! That's such an awesome feature and I'm really looking forward to making use of it. A dedicated "ebay store" type location to be able to focus on is just perfect. How is the store going for you so far, if you don't mind me asking?

I hear ya on the savvy buyers call, which is a big part of why I'm excited about both LMC's and Kate's marketplaces. Both of these professionals have an established base of clients who are truly savvy buyers. Both of them understand from their own personal experience what it is to build and sell sites and what is involved in every step, as well as what is involved in purchasing sites as investments. I couldn't think of two better people to launch new marketplaces and I'm keen to do whatever I can to help them see success.

To Matt, I have one suggestion from a seller's perspective that I think would be a great addition to the marketplace. I'd like to see the ability to report a non-paying bidder after a reasonable duration of time, and that buyer should then not be able to bid on other people's auctions until the transaction in question has been resolved. I had multiple experiences where an individual placed bids on my auctions with no intention to buy, and then even after my reporting them, continued on deliberately ruining other people's auctions as well. There should be a function whereby a fraudulent bidder, very often a seller trying to eliminate competition, is automatically prevented from running around sabotaging listings.

Perhaps there could be an additional status flag on listings, such as "Paid" or "Complete" that an auction can be switched to when a transaction is finalized. You then have a piece of data you can use against buyer names to keep track of who the non payers are. Also, people who bid on the auction but didn't win it can see if an item they wished to procure is actually still available, and they would then know they may still be able to get the item at the amount they bid if the winner fails to complete the transaction.

I would also like to see an approval process on site listings that checks for violations of IP and TOS, to the extent that is reasonably possible, before an auction goes live. Even if I had to wait a little longer for my sites to be available for sale, I would think the extra protection and reassurance offered to both buyers and sellers would absolutely be worth it.

Yes, I understand that this would require extra time and administrative attention from your staff, but given that you are increasing fees for each individual listing, surely some of that additional revenue can go towards providing an improved process on each individual listing? If I felt that the additional fees were actually paying for something that gave me benefit, I would have no problem whatsoever in paying them.

Fraud is such a huge problem on both sides of the coin, and I really do think it has had something to do with the decline in the marketplace, over and above any economic downturn. My number one piece of feedback as a seller is that you should take that extra fee you'll have on each listing and put it towards some preventative moderation of the marketplace.

The result would be a stronger marketplace overall, which will result in higher success fees for you, which people won't have a problem with if they are buying and selling a higher quality of site due to your vigilant administration. Then, you still end up with more revenue over all by raising the quality level of the marketplace and hence the amounts that sites are selling for, and nobody feels jibbed by the extra listing fee, because you are doing something extra to earn it.

Right now, people are upset because they feel they are being charged extra for no reason. Give everyone something in return for the extra fee, like extra protection, and we'll all be happy.

[sbucciarel]

[QUOTE=Kezz;919703]Sam, that post was magic. You had me cracking up!

sbucciarel I just checked out your store on SiteDeal.org and it looks great! That's such an awesome feature and I'm really looking forward to making use of it. A dedicated "ebay store" type location to be able to focus on is just perfect. How is the store going for you so far, if you don't mind me asking?

According to my tracking code, I have one sale since I launched the store yesterday. It's an awesome feature. Not only can you sell sites, but domains would be a good listing as well.

I hear ya on the savvy buyers call, which is a big part of why I'm excited about both LMC's and Kate's marketplaces. Both of these professionals have an established base of clients who are truly savvy buyers. Both of them understand from their own personal experience what it is to build and sell sites and what is involved in every step, as well as what is involved in purchasing sites as investments. I couldn't think of two better people to launch new marketplaces and I'm keen to do whatever I can to help them see success.

Yes ... it's exciting. I would like to thank Flippa for that. By creating a marketplace that is so unusable and then trying to charge us through the nose for a marketplace that we didn't want and are not happy with, they have created a whole new list of places to get exposure, and like you said, the people creating these sites are both responsive to their market and savvy buyers and sellers themselves and are connected to savvy buyers. Did you see this: Sell Your Site On Warrior Forum at the top of this forum? This is outstanding ... There's LMC, which is a fantastic site, Kate's site coming up and now the Warrior forum. I recommend that everybody who is unhappy with the current situation, support these sites ... blog about them, Twitter and bookmark them, as well as get your listings in.

To Matt, I have one suggestion from a seller's perspective that I think would be a great addition to the marketplace. I'd like to see the ability to report a non-paying bidder after a reasonable duration of time, and that buyer should then not be able to bid on other people's auctions until the transaction in question has been resolved. I had multiple experiences where an individual placed bids on my auctions with no intention to buy, and then even after my reporting them, continued on deliberately ruining other people's auctions as well. There should be a function whereby a fraudulent bidder, very often a seller trying to eliminate competition, is automatically prevented from running around sabotaging listings.

Perhaps there could be an additional status flag on listings, such as "Paid" or "Complete" that an auction can be switched to when a transaction is finalized. You then have a piece of data you can use against buyer names to keep track of who the non payers are. Also, people who bid on the auction but didn't win it can see if an item they wished to procure is actually still available, and they would then know they may still be able to get the item at the amount they bid if the winner fails to complete the transaction.

I would also like to see an approval process on site listings that checks for violations of IP and TOS, to the extent that is reasonably possible, before an auction goes live. Even if I had to wait a little longer for my sites to be available for sale, I would think the extra protection and reassurance offered to both buyers and sellers would absolutely be worth it.

Yes, I understand that this would require extra time and administrative attention from your staff, but given that you are increasing fees for each individual listing, surely some of that additional revenue can go towards providing an improved process on each individual listing? If I felt that the additional fees were actually paying for something that gave me benefit, I would have no problem whatsoever in paying them.

Fraud is such a huge problem on both sides of the coin, and I really do think it has had something to do with the decline in the marketplace, over and above any economic downturn. My number one piece of feedback as a seller is that you should take that extra fee you'll have on each listing and put it towards some preventative moderation of the marketplace.

The result would be a stronger marketplace overall, which will result in higher success fees for you, which people won't have a problem with if they are buying and selling a higher quality of site due to your vigilant administration. Then, you still end up with more revenue over all by raising the quality level of the marketplace and hence the amounts that sites are selling for, and nobody feels jibbed by the extra listing fee, because you are doing something extra to earn it.

Right now, people are upset because they feel they are being charged extra for no reason. Give everyone something in return for the extra fee, like extra protection, and we'll all be happy.