Question
The Hartford insurance and financial corporation is promoting a new program aimed at eBay powersellers called "BuySafe." The seller must meet a series of standards in order to be eligible AND pay a 1% premium on each sale covered by the service. Here's a link to the press release dated Nov. 17, 2003.
They are offering $100 to each seller that:
1. completes the buySAFE Application and entering Priority Code FA613072,
2. meets buySAFE’s approval standards, and
3. posts the buySAFE Seal on at least one eBay transaction within one week of being approved by buySAFE.
They are also offering $50 to each person who REFERS someone that completes the process.
**WARNING** The priority code above is for me. I figured if anyone was truly interested and wanted to join anyway, I've got a kid in college and I sure could use some extra moolah.
Here's the URL to the home page. http://www.buysafe.com/
I know this sounds like the old Paypal Refer a Friend deal but some sellers might sell in a category where bonding by The Hartford may be attractive to them. FYI
Gail
Answer
Hey, I've got a better idea. If anybody really does want to use this service (you get $100 for signing up yourself), maybe Gaffan could register as a referer and the $50 per signee would go to him. I don't have any idea if he would be cool with this (it's just off the top of my head), so if you want to, you should get in touch with him.
Answer
So I spoke to the folks at buySAFE and we are going to host a 5 day auction event with them starting April 27th.
All of the sellers will be bonded through buySAFE and The Hartford. If you get AntiqueWeek, there is an article about the event on page two of this weeks issue. Auctionbytes also ran an article today http://auctionbytes.com/cab/abu/y204...bu0114/s05/s03
Another thing we are requesting is that sellers only list items that have not been listed for sale online before. We surveyed about 260,000 online collectors and this was a major concern for many of the respondents. People also responded in a very positive way to the idea of every item they bid on, being guaranteed for up to $10,000 because of the bonding process.
If you would like more information, take a look at http://www.BondedSale.com
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TIAS.com, AntiqueArts.com, Curioscape.com, Collectoronline.com and Kovels.com are all hosted by TIAS.com Inc. For the sake of full disclosure, I am affiliated with these Web sites
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You want 7% of sales?
Answer
7% on completed sales. No listing fees.
Also, I forgot to mention that there is no additional 1% fee to BUYsafe for this event. Ikie mentioned that at the start of this thread.
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TIAS.com, AntiqueArts.com, Curioscape.com, Collectoronline.com and Kovels.com are all hosted by TIAS.com Inc. For the sake of full disclosure, I am affiliated with these Web sites
[This message was edited by erthlng on Sun March 07, 2004 at 09:16 AM.]
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You want 7% of completed sales for just bonding?
You need to hire new MBAs to come up with a better model. At least some that actually sells and know what it is all about.
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Why couldn't a seller get bonded on his own?
Seems like it would be a heck of a lot cheaper.
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"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President."
- President Theodore Roosevelt
Answer
You could, but the point of this auction is to have a 5 day event where every single seller is bonded. We are marketing it in trade pubs, online and direct mail, with the bonding and the "fresh merchandise" as the major points of interest to bidders.
Going back to the survey we took, about 80% of the respondents mentioned tht they would be more inclined to place bids, if they knew that their transaction would be guaranteed. It was also interesting to note that many people assumed that the auction would be listing "better quality" merchandise because every seller was bonded. This was never mentioned in the survey, but they assumed it was the case.
It should be interesting
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TIAS.com, AntiqueArts.com, Curioscape.com, Collectoronline.com and Kovels.com are all hosted by TIAS.com Inc. For the sake of full disclosure, I am affiliated with these Web sites
Answer
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Going back to the survey we took, about 80% of the respondents mentioned tht they would be more inclined to place bids, if they knew that their transaction would be guaranteed. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
I certainly hope so, hate to think bonding will make one not bid http://community.here.com/infopop/em...icon_smile.gif
Problem is how does one justify giving you 7% of sales?
Answer
That's decision you'll have to make. From our perspective, the 7% goes to cover our costs for promotion, marketing and building the site out for the event. Keep in mind there are no listing fees and all sellers that qualify are being bonded at no additional cost.
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TIAS.com, AntiqueArts.com, Curioscape.com, Collectoronline.com and Kovels.com are all hosted by TIAS.com Inc. For the sake of full disclosure, I am affiliated with these Web sites