Question
http://www.bidchaser.com
Just wanted to give you a thread of your own so you can talk about and answer questions about your site.
Please tell us all about it!
Answer
The thing I've heard that makes this site different is that they actually have plans for an advertising campaign.
I'll admit I found it hard to believe. None of these smaller sites seem to have any money in the advertising budget.
Is this rumour true?
What forms, and when is this advertising to take place?
Answer
Doof: I have the same question as you regarding this site. It is an excellent site and I hope to see it prosper.
However, the one thing that is keeping me from setting up there is the lack of advertising for the site, to date. Promises are fine, but when I see some real time advertising action I'll become a believer, and not a moment before. I bought into the advertising promises hook, line and sinker once before, and I'm not prepared to do so again. When these folks were involved with Carnaby they also promised advertising - lots of it - even to the point of having a Carnaby Antiques Roadshow type of promotion. (I can't remember the details, but it looked great and very promising.) However, the Carnaby folks never did follow through on their advertising promises. Carnaby was a first class site and should have taken the auction world by storm. Instead, it went kaput! A lot of time, effort and personal promotion and marketing on my part to my customers also went kaput at the same time.
So this time around, I'm going to wait to see the advertising materialize before I start listing (or buying) there.
Answer
Hello ToyRanch,
And thanks for "extricating" us out of the Wagglepop thread. I'll be glad to answer any questions you, or any other here member may have.
As far as strategy, we are actually executing three plans - Our overall business plan, a marketing and public relations plan, and a technical plan. I'll address them one by one as specific questions come up.
The biggest challenge we are running into, is technical right now. We are in the middle of an ambitious rewrite of the system that merges auction and store data into one "metbase" - where the listing, search and browse functions all work in sync. In the process, we "broke" some of our software. In the end, however, it will be a worthwhile undertaking.
Right now I am on the way out to a meeting, but will be back tomorrow morning EST and will gladly talk in detail about our marketing/advertising campaign. The short version is that we are preparing for traditional and online advertisting outlets. We have closed the television advertising contract, with an initial buy that will play on 12 cable channels nationwide in the US starting in early April. We have not scheduled the start date since we identified a number of technical issues that had to be fixed.
Most people are not aware of this, but it is not uncommon for an advertiser to request an affidavit of broadcast from the television stations who participate in a media buy. We'll be glad to publish these affidavits as a sign of good faith to our memberships as they are received. We are also sponsoring a $500,000 lottery with free daily plays. This program will launch at the same time as the national tv campaign.
In addition, we have already started a google adwords campaign as well as rotation on a large banner network. For evidence of this, please look at our Alexa ratings over the last 30 days. As momentum picks up, we'll expand the google campaign and kick in a similar program in overture and a few other paid inclusion networks.
I realize that the "proof is in the pudding." Fortunately, I am personally responsible for the success of these initiatives and can proceed without some of the restraints that eventually caused my frustration and eventual resignation from Carnaby.
I'll be glad to answer specific questions that don't infringe the non-disclosure or non-compete agreements we have in place.
Regards,
Leo Cunha
Bidchaser.com
webmaster*bidchaser.com
Answer
They've spammed potential new sellers via a "double opt in list", and got placed on a spammer list, despite denials from management.
Bidchaser has never mentioned where this "double opt in list" came from.
http://www.sneakydave.com/content/view/97/2/
They use cheap, and usually hard to understand, Indian developer(s).