Question
Or know anything about it (no, a "friend"didn't tell me about this great new site ).
http://www.onsale.com/onsale/
The reason I ask is I was looking through an old "Money Advisor" book by Money Magazine before I pitched it out (wound up keeping it, for a bit) and there was a section on buying at online auction. They mentioned onsale.com, and described it as "the largest online auction site".
ebay was not even mentioned.
The copyright on the book is 1999, BTW.
This prompted me to go take a look at it. It appears to be a liquidation-type place now, no mention of auctions.
I just wondered if anybody remembers it from when it was "the biggest".
Answer
Nope!
Can't check the old site on the Wayback machine either.
http://www4.archive.org/
Here's the message when you try:
Robots.txt Query Exclusion.
We're sorry, access to http://www.onsale.com has been blocked by the site owner via robots.txt.
Read more about robots.txt
See the site's robots.txt file.
Try another request or click here to search for all pages on egghead.com/
See the FAQs for more info and help, or contact us.
Answer
The original Onsale.com auction website was started in 1995 by Jerry Kaplan and it eventually merged with Egghead.com in November 1999. At that time, the name was changed to Egghead.com.
I remember it being more of a retail online auction venue which sold surplus computers and electronics so it wasn't of interest to me. I was only interested in antiques and vintage collectibles. I also think they had 2 different venues - Onsale at auction and Onsale at cost.
You can find lots of old articles about Onsale.com by searching Google. It's better to click on the cached pages because many of these articles have disappeared:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=1999+%2Bonsale.com
Blanche
Answer
I remember it. Some business associates ordered off of it back then. Then it was primarily electronics - computers etc as I recall from various companies. And Egghead did eventually buy it out as I also recall. I did watch quite a few of their auctions, which always seemed to go high enough I would not bid. I do recall buying one or two items however.
Answer
Prehistory from here
Jerry Kaplan is widely known in the computer industry as a serial entrepreneur, executive, technical innovator, and author. Most recently, he was co-chairman of Egghead.com, Inc. Previously, Mr. Kaplan served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of online auction company Onsale, Inc., which he co-founded in 1994.
Prior to Onsale, he was co-founder and chairman of GO Corporation, which developed PenPoint, a pen-based operating system. Mr. Kaplan wrote a best-selling book about his experiences at GO Corporation entitled "Startup--A Silicon Valley Adventure", published in May 1995 by Houghton-Mifflin.
Before founding GO, Mr. Kaplan was the principal technologist at Lotus Development Corporation, where he co-authored Lotus Agenda, the first personal information management software. In 1981, he co-founded Teknowledge, a public company specializing in artificial intelligence.
Ms. C.
Answer
Recent history of Onsale:
The OnSale name was bought by PCMall in 2002. In 2003 the Onsale site was relaunched as a consumer-2-consumer auction site (complete with user stores). In late 2004 OnSale added the PCMall driven retail store to the site and moved the auctions/user stores to a tab (onsale.com/marketplace) on the menu bar. In early April 2005 the auction tab was removed from the site and the entire auction marketplace deleted. No notice was given to users that the auction was shutting down (at least we didn't receive an email). At the time of closing this year there were approximately 3500 listings.
More on the recent history of OnSale can be found in this old thread at FAS:
http://freeauctionscripts.com/commun...opic.php?t=288
...as well as in this PCMall 10Q report:
http://biz.yahoo.com/e/040811/mall10-q.html
In June 2002, the Company formed Onsale, Inc. as a wholly-owned subsidiary. The Company acquired the URL and software that operated the original OnSale.com website for approximately $0.4 million through bankruptcy proceedings of Egghead in December 2002. In October 2003, the Company formally launched OnSale.com, an online marketplace including auctions. The OnSale.com website has been rebuilt on a technology platform using the latest .NET solutions. As of June 30, 2004, the Company has invested approximately $0.9 million in capital expenditures and software development costs in connection with its OnSale.com business. As OnSale.com is a marketplace service, and is not itself a seller of the products sold on its website, the Company expects that for the foreseeable future, revenue through OnSale.com will be immaterial.
Answer
Thank you for your replies. I remember egghead.....
I looked at the book again today. The author of the section on online buying told about buying a box of frozen steaks at auction on onsale. Apparently it was more than just electronics in those days.
Thanks again.
Answer
Originally Posted by d.u.i.fridays
Thank you for your replies....
Apparently it was more than just electronics in those days.
Ah, but I didn't mention the time frame.
You see, I'm older than dirt.
Those things start and then grow in categories.