Question
I signed up last night and posted one item just to get a feel for the functionality and ease of use.
I had a few problems. One resulted in me being charged a .25 fee - no biggie. I did figure out how to edit my auction, though some parts can't be edited. If I remember correctly, it's a 3-screen item entry - not very cumbersome, relatively straight-forward.
The only feature I really liked was the "instant coupons" - where you can set a discount for additional purchases. The "combined shipping" options were also nice, but seemed to be limited to a "list" of pre-set options instead of something you could just set numerically (so it seemed like poorly designed cludge).
I also like the side-bar, eBay-like, browsing. You don't have to go to the bottom-most category before you start seeing items (like most of these "other" auction programs).
The stores listing is lacking an obvious feature - searching for a store. But I guess that's accomplished thru the items - which are all indexed.
As was mentioned on another thread, not being able to limit searches by just "title" is a major design flaw making most searches useless. And no advanced search at all??? Sorry...that should be a "basic" function of any auction site. The busier the site becomes, the more important searching options become. The built-in "item#" and "user" searches are, well, about the most useless search options I can think of, especially since there's no "title" search (an obvious and useful feature).
Just a personal pet peeve, but a lot of the fonts are very small. Most people are above 800x600 these days. I use (2) 21 inch monitors, and it seemed small.
Why is the main page and browsing pages so limited in page width? On the one hand we got tiny fonts and tiny pics so we can maximize info, but then there's all this wasted white-space. On my wife's 19" widescreen, it looks rediculously "thin". (She took one look at the site and said she found it "unappealing" - I always use her as my "female-gut-response" tester).
No auto cross selling of other items on the auction bottom. A lot of the new auction programs offer this. Not an essential feature, but Ray assured us that Waggle would have MORE features than eBay, Yahoo, Bidville, etc. - so far, the only feature I've seen is that neat "instant coupon" feature. Other than that, it's fairly scant on anything fancy.
What's with the non-searchable, single big text-file "help system"? This is not a professional look and feel. There are no broken down faq or info files anywhere. They have forums, but I shouldn't have to weed thru a forum to find basic answers.
didn't get any notification that I listed an item. I'm assuming that I should of gotten some kind of an email. But maybe not...
Man, that "my auction" link is hard to find. The section seems to work well...if you can find it.
No way to kill an auction early. Why not?
With everyone getting free featured auctions, the front page is just a mess and jumble of random auctions - which is in contrast to the clean (albeit "stark") design of this site. Waggle is like a "Scandanavian" version of an auction site
Site performance - dismal. Eventually, the site just stopped working. This morning it's not much better, but it is useable. As a seller, this alone may prevent me from posting more items there - what good is it if buyers can't use the system? I see a serious momentum loss as a result of the site's poor performance.
BIG BIG mistake using an MS server platform. Ray did an impressive job on building hype - he should of spent more time building a functional site. RWAuctionPro is ASP based and just chock full of bells and whistles - but not at all efficiently scalable. (I thought Ray was a computer geek?), Like a lot of geeks, they're "know-it-alls" technologically - and always think that what they know is best. Ray must be a Windows guy. A Unix based PHP system probably would of been a lot faster and more scalable.
There is really nothing special here - nothinig, nada. I'm not even sure there's been any significant code mods to the base Rainworx system (http://www.rainworx.com).
Summary:
Functionality: Below Average (missing a few vital options)
Appearance: Below Average (stark and uninviting)
Features: Average (the coupons are the best feature)
Ease of Use: Below Average (help system is severely lacking, "my auctions" section is hard to discover)
Performance: Poor
Scalability: Very Poor (slow with poor searching)
Cost: Moderately High (most of these site are free listing, stores are quite pricey, however, at $7.95/month you could host your own webstore with no fees)
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Very interesting and well-thought out.
Thanks for the breakdown TG.
The worst thing as a seller I've seen is no way to end or cancel either an auction, or bids.
Thats severe.
....
...Doofy are you following me again?
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I enjoyed your review.
The only thing I would say in WP defense is its early days.
I think its a very bad mistake to be beta testing without telling people your beta testing.
The site isn't even supposed to be open, but anyone can get in.
I don't know why he didn't have a closed beta testing session, like everyone else does.
Why let everyone see your mistakes and get frustrated by them.
Maybe things will be very different by Feb 18 when the site is to be officially opened.
You betcha LT,I luv to watch you shake that thing.
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Given that WagglePop was prematurely "found", and that it does not officially open until the 18th, is there any chance that a "proper" search mechanism may be put in place this week?
How does the search compare to other "out of the box" auction applications? Is this typical of this program?
It sounds like search is seriously flawed, but I am prepared to give the benefit of the doubt, if something more appropriate is in place by the official opening date (18th Feb).
Thanks for the review.
Cheers, Kevin
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I gotta figure that any major system modifications are included in this "beta" (otherwise, what's the point). The searching ability on Waggle is the same as the base software, which you can see here on their demo system:
http://www.rainworx.com/rwAuction37/
The coupons are the most obvious "mod" I can see - that and perhaps the combined shipping option. Two good mods, like I said earlier.
Most other higher end auction programs I've seen do offer advanced searching, such as (demo systems listed):
Rscript (Unix, Perl, Mysql)
http://www.rscript.com/demo/Auction
PHPprobid (Unix, PHP, Mysql) - click on the "search" word for advanced - but title/descrip are combined though
http://www.phpprobid.com/auction-software-demo/
Auction XL (Unix, PHPO, Mysql)
http://auctionxl.com/xldemo/
Softbiz Auctions (Unix, PHP, Mysql)
http://www.softbizscripts.com/scripts/auctions/
GeoAuctions (Unix, PHP, Mysql) (choose Search off top menu)
http://www.geodesicsolutions.com/pro...rise/index.php
Beyond Solutions Visual Auction http://www.beyondsolutions.com (this is the software used by Bidville and Playersauctions - two very large sites). (Unix, PHP, Mysql)
www.bidville.com offers title or descrip search
On the performance problems...
Ray is going to be limited by the platform he chose. He can pay more and move to a dedicated server, which will cost more too - assuming he hasn't already done that (and in that case, he's really sunk).
I would say there's a very good chance we are looking at a 99% finished product. He'll probably fix the limited help system (like on the demo system), but the core features are almost certainly in place. He can also fix some of the interface issues - font and column size, better menus. But I'd seriously doubt he's going to start brand new complex code mods (like an advanced search). Ending auctions seems like a possibility - even if it's an offer to do it manually (I'm sure it's an admin option).
Anyway...time will tell if anything changes. At this point, I'm somewhat disappointed. While I never believed Waggle had much of a chance, I did want to see myself proved wrong. I actually don't see much longterm potential for the site, which is the really disappointing part.
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This "review" sounds awful familiar.
There will be no major code revisions before the 18th. If there were to be any major fixes or revisions it should have been done before even the preview. As I stated elsewhere there is NO modifications. It apparently took Ray this long just to get the basic script installed and do some clipart modifications.
With ASP if there are major revisions, the site would be "taken down" for a bit and then updated. Sometimes if a "major" revision happens the database would also have to be cleared. Not a good idea on a live site.
The front page looks jumbled because of poor layout. Ray might be an IT guy, but that doesn't make him a Web Designer. A lot of layout issues are easily resolved including the different sized thumbnails on the front page and the category column being more aligned. The small fonts, again easily fixed.
This shows that this site was built with the minimum amount of money for it's range. Many other sites have done this all before, and yet nobody is gaga over them. I was giving credit to Ray for hiring Rainworx to do SOMETHING to the code. It's apparent he has done nothing.
Take a look at MonkeyBid.com. Nice looking and functioning site. Take a look at DealandSave.com. There are different venues out there.
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Perhaps Ray could spend another three years working on this project and open a much better site in June!
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Did you mean bidmonkey.com or monkeybid.com?
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I did write it before reading any other reviews, but since you mentioned it, it went into the mega-thread and read a few screens (starting at the last). I stopped reading that thread awhile ago...heh.
Good analysis of the ASP issues. I've been researching auction software for a vertical market auction site I've considered starting (I've actually been approached by some people in the "business" about it, which might really help on the promo end). Anyway, I read a lot of mixed reviews of using ASP, and some specific mentions of Rainx functionality. I've been very please with PHP so far - very stable, and very scalable. I run an OsCommerce site and I've also liked the relatively easy modification process (which can be done "live" too).
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I can never keep the monkeys straight. It was BENTmonkey for awhile. Now I guess its BidMonkey.com. Never figured out where they got BENTmonkey from.
I still like the site design, and the monkey graphics are cute and well done.