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mblais

Registered Member

Posts: 4

Joined: 04-28-24 08:28 PM

Location: Massachusetts

Requested Features for Auctionawy 2005

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First Post Posted on: 06-16-08 09:53 AM

Hi Ahmed,

I appreciate how much work you are putting into this program (not to mention the others you publish... you must be very busy, indeed).

The following features are things that I will end up implementing myself, eventually, if they do not make it into your official product. However, I think these features would be very valuable to a lot of people, so I hope you will consider implementing at least some of them.

I can probably do it myself, but obviously it would take me much longer to do it than it would take you, because I am not familiar with the code, and I've not much experience with CGI or DBI. BTW I really appreciate how clean and consistent you have kept the 6.6 code - quite a nice change from most of the projects I deal with big grin

.

Even though I have a lot of requests here, I sincerely hope you will take the time to understand them -- I have tried hard to make them clear and keep them short. PLEASE ASK ME if anything here is not clear, and I will be more than happy to clarify! Some of these are small jobs, and some are not, but I truly believe there is huge potential in some of the bigger ideas.

• More flexible fees structure (cf. eBay, with final-value breakpoints allowing graduated fees).

• Interfaces to e-gold.com and similar services (example perl scripts are on this page: http://www.e-gold.com/unsecure/sci_home.asp)

• MLM commissions scheme: the system keeps track of who referred you as a member (your "sponsor"); a percentage of all your transaction fees goes to your sponsor as commissions, and a percentage of that goes to his sponsor, etc, etc. Viral marketing! It would also be beneficial to have the system keep track of what commisions come from "free credits" issued by the system, versus what comes out of actual deposits by a user; this way commissions sourced from actual user deposits can be withdrawn by sponsors - a great incentive for him to sign up members - whereas commissions sourced from "free system credits" can only be used to pay a user's fees.

• Option to apportion final-value fees between the buyer and seller, according to a ratio. Also, a ratio for splitting commissions between the buyer's and the seller's sponsors.

• Fee discounts based on a user's monthly fee total (i.e., the more you sell, the bigger your monthly "fee rebate").

• "Fixed-price" items; sort of a combination of Buy It Now and Dutch Auction: allows seller to list an item with multiple quantity for sale at a fixed price per unit; buyers can buy any quantity immediately (just like a regular store, not really an auction at all).

• Restocking: seller can change an item's quantity while it's active.

• Product-specific feedback: seller can choose to display all feedback related to an item on that item's page. This would include feedback received for all *identical* items (i.e., see "Fixed-price items" above). A seller who wants to offer a product continuously thus could display all the accumulated feedback he's received for the product, right on its page (or more realistically, display the most recent 10, with a link to the rest).

• "Friends List"; seller can choose to restrict viewing of an item he's selling to only his "friends," sort of like an invitation-only auction. Alternately, seller can restrict his items to be viewed only by users with a certain feedback level or higher; these items would not show up in guest browses/searches, nor in browses/searches performed by users who do not meet his minimum feedback criteria.

• New filter for searches: only show items from sellers with a certain feedback score (or higher). This could be applied to browsing as well.

Thanks for your time, and all your hard work. I look forward to working with you.

PEACE,
--Matt

Romahawk

Registered Member

Posts: 122

Joined: 02-18-05 08:02 AM

Re: Requested Features for Auctionawy 2005	Edit Delete Quote
Reply #: 1 Posted on: 06-16-08 08:54 PM

Matt no disrespect meant for your ideas but it sounds like you want a program written for you and your ideas and not the general auction site owner.

MLM
MLM is a scheme as you said. MLM benifits only the chosen few who happen to get in at the top of the pyramide and those that come after only feed the big fish at the top. Nice if your a big fish at the top but how many of those can there be. I for one want no part of any MLM scheme on my auction site. MLM in my opinion has destroyed several promising auction site start ups. Check out BidWay or worse yet the blatant MooCow site. NO Thank You On MLM as far as I'm concerned.

FLEXIBLE FEE STRUCTURE
I think a choice between flat fees and a percentage fee might be a good idea.

FVF SPLIT
I don't know about anyone else but as a buyer I pay for the item and the S&H fees, why would I want to supplement the seller by paying half of his FVF. I'll look for another site to do my buying on if that were to happen where I shop.

FEE DISCOUNTS
Again it sounds like you want a program written to benifit those few who are high volume sellers. Why don't you just lower your fees for everyone, wouldn't that be achiving the same affect?

RESTRICTED SEARCH
If I am a new seller what in the world would make me join a site where as a new seller my items would not show up in a search. What possible advantage could that be to an auction site owner or a new user?

mblais

Registered Member

Posts: 4

Joined: 04-28-24 08:28 PM

Location: Massachusetts

Re: Requested Features for Auctionawy 2005

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Reply #: 2 Posted on: 06-16-08 09:44 PM

Matt no disrespect meant for your ideas but it sounds like you want a program written for you and your ideas and not the general auction site owner.

No disrespect taken - I appreciate your opinions and your feedback. I already acknowleged that I have some specific needs, and I will probably end up implementing many of these features myself. However, I do believe some of them may be of value to others as well.

MLM is a scheme as you said. MLM benifits only the chosen few who happen to get in at the top of the pyramide and those that come after only feed the big fish at the top.

What I described is not MLM, but it there is a resemblance. The scheme I described allows you to define the commission split "up the chain" of sponsors. You could, for example, give 75% of commissions to the user's immediate sponsor, and only 25% would be directed up to their sponsor, where it would split 75/25 again. This has the opposite effect from what you claim: this benefits the immediate sponsor much more than the "big fish at the top". Every sponsor (not just those who "get in at the top") can receive a big commission from all of his referrals' transactions, and only a relatively small fraction trickles up to his sponsors. You can do it any way you like with an admin-defined split - you could even give 100% to the immediate sponsor, and nothing at all to the higher-ups. So I don't think your MLM objection applies here.

But try for a moment to understand the value of this feature: If you will personally get a cut of all sales involving any users you sign up, then you have a real incentive to refer your friends to the site. That harnesses the power of viral marketing to build the user base. That makes this potentially a very useful feature for [i:3d62c01f25]any [/i:3d62c01f25]auction site owner!

I don't know about anyone else but as a buyer I pay for the item and the S&H fees, why would I want to supplement the seller by paying half of his FVF. I'll look for another site to do my buying on if that were to happen where I shop.

I have my own reasons to want this option (and doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to implement), and while I understand and respect your opinion, no one would be forcing you or any other site admin to enable this feature. So what's your problem with having it available as an option? Unless you are getting overwhelmed by config options you don't want, I don't understand why you would want to prevent others from having more options.

FEE DISCOUNTS
Again it sounds like you want a program written to benifit those few who are high volume sellers. Why don't you just lower your fees for everyone, wouldn't that be achiving the same affect?

(See my previous response)

RESTRICTED SEARCH
If I am a new seller what in the world would make me join a site where as a new seller my items would not show up in a search. What possible advantage could that be to an auction site owner or a new user?

Personally, I would LOVE to be able to sort/filter my eBay search results on the sellers' feedback score, instead of having to open every #$*&! item to find out! This feature gives buyers and sellers more control over their risk. Depending on the market, this could be a very important feature for some users. Again, not too difficult to implement, and I know it will be valuable to me; whether others would want to use it, I don't know (except that clearly you don't want it, so we have one for and one against).

PEACE
--Matt

Romahawk

Registered Member

Posts: 122

Joined: 02-18-05 08:02 AM

Re: Requested Features for Auctionawy 2005	Edit Delete Quote
Reply #: 3 Posted on: 06-16-08 10:02 PM

Not a Problem Matt, different strokes as they say. :P

I personally like to stick to the KISS theory but that's me. Everyone has an opinion and everyone has a right to their opinion. I don't envy Ahmeds job of taking all the varied opinions and trying to channel them down into a program that fits all.

Hopefully the more ideas and opinions he gets the better the program will become for it.

PS: For me just the mention of MLM makes me see red based on a personal experience....

mblais

Registered Member

Posts: 4

Joined: 04-28-24 08:28 PM

Location: Massachusetts

Re: Requested Features for Auctionawy 2005

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Reply #: 4 Posted on: 06-16-08 10:09 PM

For me just the mention of MLM makes me see red based on a personal experience....

Personally, I have never been involved with any MLM type things, so I used the name without thinking much about it. I suppose my idea is an abstraction of the typical MLM structure.

PEACE,
--Matt