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BUYIT.CO.UK
by
Dave Beasley
Opened
for business on 29/11/2003 and featuring 9 different ‘styles’
of Auction; Many of which have never been seen on the UK auction
floor, Buyit comes with just under 1800 categories. Buyit.co.uk
has been 6 long months in development and design. The site
was receiving so many hits, even on the first day of opening;
that the site kept going offline and the hosting server had
to be reconfigured to cope with the load.
The
interest in the site has been global. People from around the
world have commented on how graphically pleasing to the eye
it is, especially for the main categories.
Auction
Types:
1)
Standard – Or English Auction. The winner of an English
Auction is the person with the highest bid at the end of the
Auction. This is the style most widely recognised & used
on Internet auctions.
2) Multiple – A Multiple, also known as a
Dutch auction, is where the Auctioneer has two or more items
that are exactly the same and is willing to break them up
to sell to individual Bidders. It saves having to list the
same item, many times, you just put them all on together but
bidders can bid on them singularly or on as many as the lot
contains.
3) Reverse – A Reverse Auction; also known
as an Upside Down Auction, is an Auction where people can
list what they Want and Need and have other people submit
offers to them. When someone posts a Reverse Auction, He/She
is not intending to sell something, but rather to buy something.
That something can be a product or a service. As a Reverse
Auction Progresses, the Price Drops.
Effectively
it is a Wanted ad
4)
Barter Trade – A Barter Auction is an Auction where
the Auctioneer is willing to accept Barter Offers from Bidders.
A Barter Offer can consist of anything the Bidder can describe.
This could be an offering of some other Item/Service in exchange
for the Auction Item/Service. Or it could be an Item/Service
plus some additional cash offering in exchange for the auction
Item/Service. The Auctioneer is able to choose whichever offer
he wants to accept. Barter is a term regularly used to describe
the system of trading between parties who perhaps have talents
each other party requires. LETS Scheme is another term, used
to describe this type of mutually agreed trading.
5)
Turbo – A Turbo Auction is just like a Standard Auction
with a few limitations. The Turbo Auction is meant to encourage
bidding activity by interested Bidders, since it is forced
to a low starting bid (£1), and does not allow a Reserve
price.
6)
Fixed Price – A Fixed Price Auction is not really
an auction at all, but rather an item For Sale. The Fixed
Price Auction differs, in that the first Bidder to place a
bid will win the item and the auction closes immediately.
Basically it’s a Classified Ad.
7)
Blind – A Blind Auction may also be known as a 'Silent'
or 'Hidden Bid' Auction. This works very similar to a Standard
Auction where the Highest Bidder wins the Auction. However,
in a Blind Auction, the Bidding process is not interactive
and the Bidders will only receive information on their Bid
Ranking when the Auction Closes. A Blind Auction also differs
from a Standard Auction in that it does NOT offer a Reserve
price and does NOT utilise any Proxy Bidding.
8)
RFQ – An RFQ Auction is designed for publishing a
Request for Quotations,
(Put out to Tender).
A Request for Quotation would typically be issued by an individual
or organisation looking for a product or service that they
will describe in the RFQ's detail information. Then any people
or organisations interested in providing the product or service
to the Auctioneer, can submit their bid for the products or
services outlined in the RFQ. Their bid may typically include
additional descriptions or features of their products and
services in regards to the RFQ, as well as any other limiting
terms of their Bid Submission.
Presently, to initiate an RFQ auction, you will need to be
wanting to be supplied 25 or more of the same item/service.
An RFQ Auction works a little bit differently from the Standard
Auction types in a couple ways. First, the Auction Bid amount
is not driven up or down as with a Standard or Reverse auction.
The Auctioneer (the person/organisation interested in receiving
bids/quotes), will decide who the winning bid submission is.
The Winning Bid submission is NOT automatically determined
by price, since the Auctioneer may select one bid over another
depending on other factors, such as:
· Reputation of Bidder
· Additional Details of Products/Services Offered
· Limitations of Competing Bids Offered
9)
Linked – A Linked Auction is a special type of auction
item that links to another site for you to bid or purchase.
It allows you to enter a URL that the Bidder will be taken
to when they attempt to place a bid on the item. The whole
deal is then concluded at this linked site. It is particularly
useful if you have your own Shopping Cart installed. Due to
the way in which this transaction is effectively diverted
away from BuyIt.co.uk, there cannot be any feedback left at
the end of the deal by either party. This is the only type
of transaction where the selling/buying of items 'off site'
is allowed by Buyit.co.uk, and as such a higher Listing fee
than normal is applicable, although no closing fee is applicable.
10)
Private – (still under development) – All Bidders
identities are hidden, and stay hidden at the auction end.
11)
Group – (still under development) - Users have to
be assigned specific bidding rights to be able to bid in specialist
auctions. *Bidding by invitation, or application only*. An
example of which would be if a specialist company wanted to
dispose of its own sales inventory, and needed an auction
environment to do it. They would have their own customer base
or a list of interested parties, who they would invite to
join the site, and bid on the lots
History:
Originally
to be named www.ubid.co.uk the name was changed to prevent
any trademark infringement, and although a licensing agreement
was offered it was well out of my budget.
The
brainchild of an ex ebay’er, The idea behind this project
was to create an online auction environment that encompassed
many different styles of auction, and provide it as a predominantly
FREE site, paid for via the sale of available advertising
space.
As
a member of eBay since 1998, I had become dissolutioned by
eBay’s ever increasing fees, and ever decreasing customer
service. They have become too big for their own boots. The
amount of complaints you see about their total lack of personal
touch, and their fees is staggering; but without a viable
fresh alternative, people appeared rooted there, especially
because of the traffic it receives.
Buyit
has been initiated to provide that alternative, and to show
that you can trade without the massive fees. The site has
been the dedicated, (almost obsessive work) of Dave Beasley,
a fulltime (7am-6pm) working man from Shrewsbury, who has
effectively worked on it every spare minute of the day &
night for the last 6 months, slowly chipping away...
I
wanted my site to be different, not like the usual run of
the mill (out of the box) sites that appear to springing up
every week at the moment, all appearing to be made by the
same software company – ‘Auction script’; even emerging players
like ebid.co.uk have a site using the same colours as eBay…..,
no ‘one’ site, seemed to have a unique feel about it, until
Buyit came along.
Cyberbid,
xxxbay, etc. you’ve been to one... you’ve been to them all!
All the same, just different colours even ebid.co.uk is using
the same colours as ebay.
Future
Developments:
Apart
from projects under development mentioned earlier, Buyit is
AuctionTamer compatible, has a BidFinder Megalist and Auctionhawk
compatibility already built in, and waiting for release.
The
site is also about to be receive several upgrades, including
the ability to block specific suspected or known deadbeat
bidders from placing bids on your items, with many more planned
and under consideration. The feedback responses have been
exceptionally good, and it truly is seen as the breath of
fresh air the UK auction scene needed. ‘Awesome’; ‘Blown Away’;
being just a couple of the superlatives used.
Registration:
All
new registrants will get a £10 credit to their account, once
they have signed up and entered their billing information.
Just
Some of the Many New Features:
Price
Drop Floor – You set a price under which you wouldn’t
accept a sale, and then set an opening bid higher, then; over
the course of either hourly/daily or weekly the price will
drop incrementally downwards until the Price drop floor is
reached, and then stays there.
Auto
Relist - Up to 5 times
Auction
End time - You can set the time the auction ends,
convenient if it ends whilst you’d still be at work
Part No.
Serial No.
Product Code
Reference No. – All These extra listing features
have been added to ensure full descriptions and help track
items by year made etc. Used as well for ISBN book numbers.
Watched Items – Keep a list of terms/phrases
or keywords monitored, so that if lots are listed which include
these triggers, you can be notified.
Public
Watches – Make the keywords/items that you looking
for, publicly browsable so that others can see what the needs
of other auction users are, and then list those items, knowing
that there is already a demand for them.
Marketplaces
- Your very own corner of the site where you can promote your
listings and yourself.
Profiles
– basically, an AboutMe page
Memorise
Auction – Add this auction to a list of auctions
you wish to monitor.
User Verification Scheme – Supply additional
details about yourself to get the Verified ‘V’
against your name.
All coupled with image uploading through your own browser,
so no need for webspace to host your own pictures, Buyit hosts
the pictures for you.
Loads
and Loads of options available for sellers when listing items
for sale, ship vias/ p&p / payment options / listing your
items locally-regionally. (you need to register and check
this out yourself really to see what I mean)
Large
help section.
Bold
/ Highlight / Featured / Gallery / Premiere / FlashBuy / Special
icons
all go to help promote your listing
Advertising:
The
site itself is Fully ‘Zoned’; in that every single auction
category has its own top banner space that can be used to
either promote the lots of an individual seller, linking the
small banner directly to an item or all their lots for sale.
It can also link to any place in the site, whether it is a
seller’s marketplace or feedback record.
All
main site pages have space for banner advertising at the top
and bottom, although the bottom one has not yet been used.
Rates are low and traffic is high, so getting in now whilst
the prices are low is a good option.
We
can also cater for campaign advertising that is specifically
bound by time constraint, i.e. (from one date to another future
date), click through rate, (counted by how many clicks you
get through the banners, and not just by how many times it
gets displayed), by Impressions (a set number of times it
gets displayed throughout the sites pages), Banner Weighting,
you may have purchased 5000 impressions, but have 3 different
banners (a, b, c) you want showing, so we weight the banners
proportionately to show a) + b) 2000 times each and c) 1000
times, or any combination, in any zone, (subject to negotiation).
Membership:
Buyit
caters for several different account types, ranging from the
basic FREE account, all the way upto a major selling account
for Sponsors, where all fees are waived and heavy discounts
applied to advertising on the site.
Follow
this link to find out more
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Are you looking for information
products to sell on eBay and other online auctions?
A good selection of CDs with resale rights are available
at www.eclipsepublishing.com
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