on 28/10/00 22:01, ahclist at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> O.K., seems to be a need here for something different than eBay or
> MacAuction. If Eric will look the other way for a day or two as list
> mom, let me solicite some ideas from the mind trust here for something
> not precisely a 2400/Duo issue.
>
> If I build a database to buy/sell items on-line, would you folks use it?
> Yes/no? Dumb idea or needed service? Now, before I sell my soul to the
> machines for a fortnight, I have to know what you want out of such a
> feature. Obviously, selling only Mac stuff -- parts, whole Macs, etc.
>
> Make it Duo/2400 specific or general Mac stuff?
>
> Is there enough demand/need to warrant such a service?
>
> Would you be willing to pay for such a service? (stupid question, but one
> has to figure out how he can afford the development time and maintenance)
>
> If so, how would you want to pay? A price premium like eBay (starter fee
> + commiss)? Subscription registration fee (can't see how that would
> attract new members of a "co-op"-like sales model, but who knows),
> purchase via escrow? Put up with bannerads and hope the marketing would
> cover costs?
>
> What would you pay? (pennies on the dollar, $10/yr for unlimited access,
> free for buyers but fee for sellers, donations out of the general
> goodness of your heart -- the shareware of classified ads?)
>
> What kind of functionality do you want? Separate goods into categories,
> obviously. Would it be beneficial to separate into locales (States,
> etc)? Listing capabilities? Sorting by price, posting date,
> alphabetical?
>
> Y'all let me know what appeals to you (obviously, you want it free, all
> postings to be cheap, and totally unobtrusive... :) )
>
> Let me know, and maybe I'll build it.
>
I don't know if there would sufficient demand for such a service. Right now,
I think that there are already a few large players in the field (eBay,
Yahoo, MacBid, etc.), so you would need to have a good incentive. It's like
the <insert your preferred brand here> sausages: more people eat them
because they're fresher, and they're fresher because more people eat them...
I've been cruising all online auction sites I know of, and besides eBay,
there's not much going on anywhere else. The closest to eBay, IMHO, is
Yahoo. But I find the selection of stuff pretty small as they have about 2-3
pages in their Macintosh Notebook section, while eBay has more like 15-20
pages. And I usually find that I can get better prices on eBay than on
Yahoo.
I also went to MacBid a few times, but it was even more depressing than
Yahoo.
So, I think it's a great idea, but you need to have a way to attract sellers
so that buyers will come.
-Laurent.
============================================================
Laurent Daudelin <http://home.cox.rr.com/nemesys>
Logiciels Nemesys Software mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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