Flippa.com Is Live!

Just noticed this too..

My old listing is now imported in Flippa.

Shakul

wow that page looks like a cheap freebie template!

What's up with the aqua colors for templates lately? I can't believe some of those sites are even on there. I guess we will see how it does now. I've heard so many talkin about it.

As much as I like the layout of the new site, the policies of the site could do with some tweaking. My listings got imported and one had a BIN bid just before they closed for the transfer. but it wasn't reflected in the new system. I had to close the auction early instead. Thank goodness, the buyer had already contacted me by then.

I was just about to post this. I was a very frequent visitor to Sitepoint...I think that will change now. They have completely ruined it...looks horrible!

Graham

For being from a site that's all about web development and design...they really need to hire a UI / user experience designer. Ugh.

Hey folks,

I am thinking to lodge a complain email to SitePoint about this because obviously, SitePoint Marketplace has the best user experience and obviously, Flippa sucks.

What do you guys think?

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

Flippa's design sux, and the higher and additional 'success' fees really ruin it for all sellers. I think affected will be particularly those of us who sell startup sites to say up to $200. What margin have we got left once all the flippa fees + paypal fees are paid???

I've got to disagree with you guys. I'm not too sure I like Flippa's layout, but I do like the success fee. Anything that raises the bar somewhat might help keep out a lot of a junk that's been flooding the market. I'm willing to at least be open minded and see what actually happens.

I have to say I thought the design of sitepoint was a lot crisper, but I guess I can get used to Flippa. I like it better for research because you can easily see the bids and ending prices.

I'm not too happy about the massive increase in fees. I haven't sold sites in a while but was thinking about getting back into it but the fees are a real deterrent for selling startup sites. On the other hand, it might knock out a lot of the competition so maybe I will sell more sites and makeup for it that way in the end. I guess only time will tell.

Lee

Wow, this ain't user friendly at all. The simpler marketplace was (10^∞)x better.

I'm still exploring it... but this IS going to change site flipping a lot. Not for those who have a buyers' pool though.

[BTW, I wanted to ask - No categorizing established, startup, premium sites? What about domain names, templates, WTB ads? :confused:]

It's my first day using flippa and i'm really not happy about it. there are still a lot of bugs lying around the site. plus, the success fee is really going to eat into my earnings. gosh, what a bummer.

Anyone intrested in a partnership in setting a competitor site up?

I just noticed that this fee has a $10 minimum so if you are selling sites for under $200 (which i usually do) you are getting the short end of the stick. SO, it's going to cost a minimum of $29 for a listing, plus any extras, plus domain name registration, plus paypal fees....

One good thing is that if you have to relist then you can do so for 1/2 the fees.

I think it's kind of weird that the startup and established sites now cost the same.

This is kind of like the ebay thing though - sitepoint is where they buyers are so any other auctions site, while attractive to sellers, is going to have to do a hell of a lot of work to bring the buyers.

When ebay started to get fee happy many years back, there was a lot of talk about starting other auction sites but none could get off the ground because ebay had the brand and name recognition.

I like how you can hover over the graph symbol thingy to get the stats for each site without opening the listing, and it's a lot more evident what's selling now, or even just what's attracting interest. The whole thing is more open, and having seen the ludicrous BINs and start prices that some people are hoping to get for sites with no traffic, no income, and no history, I think a more revealing listings page might actually save some sellers money by presenting them with a more realistic picture of what's likely and either dissuade them from listing until their site has more substance or persuade them to bring the price down a bit.

Yes, it does seem more open. I like that. I knew I could find something favourable to say about it. Eventually.

I'm not too bothered (for myself, at least) that virgin turnkey sites probably won't do well there, because I've moved towards selling more established sites anyway. I'm glad I did that before flippa went live though, as I'd hate it to be seen as evidence that flippa is already eliminating the turnkey sites that they clearly don't want to see there. That said, if flippa survives then I don't think it will be down to those who created it, it will be down to the sellers and their adaptability in making the best of a bad job. Whether they think it's worth the effort remains to be seen.

I still dislike the increase in fees - I've yet to see anything I think justifies that.

I still dislike the design, especially the massive, pointlessly huge header that takes up almost the entire screen on the front page.

Most of all, I still really dislike that name. It's going to end up having worse bargain basement connotations than eBay.

Some of it is a step in the right direction. Most of it is a step in something a bit smellier

For people selling new sites, it really sucks. Costs $9 extra to list and you have to pay 5% of the final sales price (assuming you pay it and not the buyer).

For people selling established sites it costs $1 less to list the site but still the extra 5% on top. So that sucks too.

The site design sucks. You have to click way more links to find out what is happening with your auctions.

The site has many bugs. So that sucks.

Oh, maybe I'm not being clear here - I think it sucks!

Tony

I hate it. The queasy, cheesy Web 2.0 Twittery design does not POP at all. There's very little contrast between the listings, even the highlighted ones since everything is now blue. Obviously a developer's idea of graphic design rather than a designer's idea of graphic design. Make everything blue, make everything big, build in functions to slow the site down and provide less actual usability.

The seller's name is now NOT shown until you actually open the auction, which is a time consuming mess. There's a ton of scammers that I never even bother to open their auctions and now I have to look to see. By the same token, there are some of my favorite sellers that I may miss because I didn't open the auction to see it.

The site is not user friendly. The fee increases are outrageous. Of course, Flippa has now given us, the sellers, the option of being the bad guy and making our buyers pay it.

"Better for Buyers" ... lol

It's not better for buyers with so many unhappy sellers. How happy are buyers with nothing to buy?

None of my saved pms migrated along with the site so my contact list is gone. Would have to go into all my sold auctions to find the buyers to get contact info. Real pain.

The domain name is so unbelievably cheesy I can't imagine that they thought it was a great idea.

And what additional services are we getting for the price increase? Haven't found them yet.

I'm waiting for the smart entrepreneur to come along and sweep all us unhappy sellers away.

Did I mention that I hate it?

You say that it might take time to get traffic of buyers and sellers - maybe the WF owners (just started here so dont know who is who) might consider setting it up like the old sitepoint? It has the traffic of people who buy and sell, the know how and the good will of many influential marketers.

Seems to me there could be good money in it for the forum owners

I had a listing migrated over from Sitepoint to Flippa. The listing has been migrated incorrectly - it now says non unique design and non unique content, whereas both are unique. 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.

If you've had a listing moved over from Sitepoint, check it carefully.

I have mixed feelings about it. I absolutely hate how they raised the fees THEN turn around and take a percentage out during a successful sale. 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?!

The name fits with me simply because it is Web 2.0 and it's an Ebonics sounding name (replacing the "er" with an "a"). I guess the design is okay, and the eBay like interface is nice, but as Suzanne says, the buyer's name isn't visible until you click on an auction. Which means unless you're signed up to your favorite buyer's list, you won't be able to know that it is from him/her.

But hey, I'm thinking that since the site is still new it probably isn't awfully saturated ATM, so people can jump on this. I could be wrong, though. I think that it will hurt sales thanks to the new layout, however.

Not a very good idea if you ask me, I hate it already. Why fix what aint broke?

I think it's terrible.

I really liked how everything was integrated and easy to search on Sitepoint... Shop for a website, see a good deal on a designer or a script, hire a whatever.

It was a one stop webmaster shop... Now it's a pain to find anything.

The old marketplace was great, they should just leave it as is.

-Scott

Sounds like an interesting website. I have one website up for renewal next month, but will not renew it due to lack of conversions on it (plus I made a better version of it on another domain name, and so I might sell the one that needs to be renewed).

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!

Are they serious? Their old marketplace was ten times better.

I do not buy and sell domains but if I did and ran into this site just by the looks of it I would think its a total rip off lol.

Flippa flat out SUCKS! I can only hope that someone takes advantage of this situation and starts a new service. On top of that they completely screwed up a listing I currently had on SP when they migrated. Been trying to get it corrected all day with no luck.

It appears to me that they went out of their way to build in inconvenience. I am not even looking at the new auctions since I can't see the seller without opening the auction. I seriously doubt that my listings will sell at all in this format. Before I could upgrade to category featured listing for $10 to get noticed but that's gone too. 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.

It's the worst.

I wonder if anyone from SitePoint is actually reading this thread.

Hope they realized their mistake. They probably invested some money into Flippa but it's gonna be a failure anyway.

Damn Flippa.com is terrible n' horrible. The design itself is like a $30 design bought from DigitalPoint. The design is not compatible with my monitor's resolution which is 1920X1200 . the way the listing is seen suks. People won't notice the listings. It's being placed in such a way . Some competitor should be there and we should no longer be dependent on Flippa

-Akky

I've thought it would make things easier, but dude, what the heck?
I agree with the ones who said the former marketplace was better, even thus I like changes, this one was really a bad move..

The old SitePoint category URLs are redirected to their flippa equivalents now. There are no websites for sale on SitePoint, just services.

I was just going to post that I got this email from Kate Anderson about development of a new site, plus another Warrior is also developing a site, so go on over to Kate's new site and get on that email list to be notified plus go here and subscribe to this thread
http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ease-read.html and leave a comment so you get on his list also to be notified. Flippa will find that there are "Plenty of Fish" when it comes to our options. I personally am not spending any more money on Flippa.

Just signed up!

I noticed that there are only 4 listings today on Flippa under the startup category - I have to admit I haven't checked in there in quite a while, but surely this is way less than normal?

Lee

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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?

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 =)

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.

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

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

I miss the old sitepoint market place...

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

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.

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 ???

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

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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

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

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 will be getting fixed.

Thanks for your ongoing feedback.

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.

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.

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.

This is not true. Sites are selling through.

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.

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.

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.

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 bullshit 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

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.

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?!

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

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.

Hey,

Thanks for all the kind words Suzanne. I'm loving your store, and your such a great user of the site already! Just like in every marketplace a "buyer confidence" must strike the potential buyer of the product, our goal was to create a system that the seller can do just this by creating a About Me page, Store, and Reputation System...

Fraud Protection is coming to SiteDeal with a few features, one is, the Block Users feature. Suzanne, if you look in your member area, you can see the feature.

Basically, if we ever grow as big as SP, controling SPAM and crap would get tough, but if someone is annoying you with PM's and bids, and fake BIN's, you simply block them from any of your stuff inside of SiteDeal.

We then get notified of the Blocking, and check to see what is up for ultimate deletion or suspension from the site.

We were going to allow upen comments as well, but have made the final decision to only use Private Messaging. Our goal is to reflect a true marketplace, one where your not getting interrogated on your listing, but being asked true questions, and you can choose to answer at your own discretion.

Once again, thanks for the comments,

Steven

Hi Matt,

Thanks for your response. I'll try to get in quickly while you're still online here.

Yes, I do think there are some inadequacies in the feedback system at the moment. I think that a problem that has been increasing is sellers trying to reduce competition by attacking other people's listings. It's common on ebay and I think it was growing more common on Sitepoint. My main suggestion is that there should be some clear cut "Has paid" or "Hasn't paid" type of status against every auction. If a bidder fails to pay, they should thereafter be prevented from bidding on other people's auctions.

In regards to 3rd party systems to flag IP violations, I'm assuming you mean to automate the process? I'd have to leave those specifics in your capable hands. Are you suggesting that if there is no 3rd party application, you wouldn't be able to have a moderation process? My suggestion is that you should consider having each listing run, even if only very briefly, before human eyes. That in itself would be a discouragement to sellers who know in themselves they are doing the wrong thing, because when human beings are approving each listing, no-one can know when they might be flagged for illegally selling material they don't own.

For me personally, I am willing to double the listing fee I pay if I know that at least a portion of that goes to paying an individual to screen my listing, and all of the others that go online. I don't mind if its just a cursory check, I understand this would still provide no guarantees, but it would be like having a security guard standing at the doorway of a store. Even if the security guard can't do a lot, how many people does his mere presence deter from trying to sneak something past him?

It's a tricky question on verifying bidders via checks like the ones you mention. I'd have to agree it would probably make most people not bother bidding - I wouldn't jump those hoops myself. The other tricky part is that the horse has already bolted with Flippa given that it went live so quickly. I wonder if it's too late now for some suggestions, but I'll make them anyway.

There really ought to be some kind of system to ensure that bidders are serious. I actually have just come up with an idea that could have some legs. Could the credit system you use for sellers be extended in some way to be used for bidders as well? If a bidder has to put some money up front in the form of credits, then it shows they are serious and gives that extra layer of protection that sellers are looking for. I doubt an individual whose only plan is to sabotage listings would be willing to buy auction credits, then risk losing their money with fraudulent bids.

A full escrow system would be ideal, but I think it's probably a little late for that with Flippa now. Perhaps your existing infrastructure could be adapted though. You could then actually secure your success fee payment as well. Bidder purchases auction credits and gives money to you. Seller auctions a site. You take funds from the amount given to you by the bidder, keep your success fee, and pass the rest onto the seller. This would also solve the non-paying bidder issue I described above. Plus, I think we'd all feel much more like the 10% was highly deserved then, as it would become in a sense a transaction fee as well. You don't have to wait for your fees, sellers don't have to wait for payment, everyone is more secure, and we all live happily ever after.

What do you think?

WOW
It's the WORST transformation of the website I've saw in my life!

This is like changing good, proffesional looking websites to some junk, seriously...

I dont get why they want to this web 2.0 style. I'm not saying that web 2.0 is wrong but in flippa it's horribly implemented. I hoep they wil change it to the last design. I read on the home page they got some bad comments already so I hope they will go back to previous design. I liked sitepoint because of simplicity and clearity...

I've not gone back to list at Flippa ever since I had the trouble of having 3 successful BINs for my auction that went through. The management did not reply my ticket to resolve the matter. Needless to say, I had 2 disappointed customers who went away without getting the site they thought they had won.

Glad to see a few recommendations along the way while I was reading this thread. Looking forward to better auction sites available online!

Since the final prices for sites on SP has been dropping significantly over the past 6 months to a year, the new inflated prices will take a huge chunk out of profits, especially for sites that sell on the low end. I have not and will not ever post an auction there. My $0.02.

I truly think Sitepoint had a good idea creating a separate entity away from their forum, especially if they had "big corporate" in their mind like Ebay, and being purchased for millions from the Big G, etc.

However the process of converting marketplaces was all wrong, they should of let users use both for a while like when AOL and Facebook did their transitions.

I don't mind the fee when selling a site that will sell over $10,000, but still a $1,000 site is going to take a big hit, and back during my avid site flipping days most of my sites were between $800-$2,000.

In overall, it is just a messy launch, but I think they will get back on their feet when they fix everything.

In case anyone missed Mark Harbottles' apology for calling his customers whiners and complainers and telling to go to Digital Point, here it is:

Mark Harbottle says .... Ill stop by here Allen. Perhaps a poor choice of words, but I stand by message

I liked sitepoint better.

It would be nice if there was some way to verify buyers - before they posted a comment or whatever. I often noticed that buyers were "new" and not verified. causes a lot of problems for sellers. If someone wants to bid on my listing, they should have to identify themselves and not be able to get a new username every day. Verify who they are and require them to use the same username. Then when someone is a non payer, everyone can see it. There will be fewer auctions that get messed up.

Is there any warrior here who has sold a site on flippa ( the new one not sitepoint). I have got some sites to list but I am a little skeptical about the new market place.

IMO if the content is good it wont matter much how the site colors ect look, content is still king online. As long as the colors ect do not hurt the eyes it's all good. However with them fee'ing people to death that isn't good either. Some of the policy's suck there too such as not being able to use $ in the titles. Seems they are inviting competitor sites to overtake them on the market, that can often happen when one just gets to dam sure of themselves and starts to get greedy / slack off.

I have to agree, the new website isnt half the old one was, i for one have stopped using it since the change. Real disapointment since i was an active paying customer.

Just made my first sale through sitedeal.org ... That is nice to see.

It was one of my Niche Blogging Treasure Store Dutch auctions of which I sell numerous copies of start-ups Niche Blogs ... a small sale, but a sale none the less. I'll be listing some more of my bigger sites, which are startups later today or tomorrow. Got a couple of killer blog/minisite combos that have just been launched.

I prefer the old design of SitePoint.com than Flippa.com design.

Just sold my first site via sitedeal as well... as a relative newbie it was very easy to use and the 'recommended' and other options they award some sites are great - I am sure the recommendation technique will help many sites sell.

Good stuff, going to be listing a few more this week I think.

I managed to sell a site just 2 hours after listing it. Big plus. Is it because the marketplace is now flippa? I doubt it.

The cost is just way too expensive. $24 to list the site then $24 for the success fee. (split 50-50 with buyer). Damn $48 to sell a $1000 site. What if the buyer fails to pay?

To everyone: I am currently developing the only US-based site: domain flip central as well as AffordableFreelance [add dot com to both, no spaces]

I'm the owner of GoogleSEOExpert - and have spent a long time planning and building this out. I'd love any interested parties to contact me via telephone and/or email.

502-287-3302

Please, disregard the colors if you do not like what you see yet. It looks very clean, and I'm a usability consultant so it isn't thrown together.

I hope to hear from you all. Good luck!