FaunaAuction.com??

well i can say this if your going to charge a monthly fee for use on the auction then i would have to say im not to interested ...
because of the fact that www.reptileauction.com charges you a 1 time $10.00 membership fee to sellers, and then they also charge the sellers a final selling value fee ... ( no charge for listing an auction ) ... but they also dont charge you the final value fee if you get a deadbeat bidder ( but u need to show that you have a deadbeat bidder ) ... so if your planning on charging a monthly membership fee then i will have to say its not worth it cause (u get charged that for kingsnake usage) unless your selling every animal at every auction u post its costing the seller more money then its worth .. and yes i would say charge the same membership fee to the bidders the same exact as what u charge the sellers cause that would make people think twice about being a deadbeat bidder when they see after so many times of screwing people around (for whatever reason) they would loose their membership and their membership fee ... losing money makes people think before they act ...

just my opinion

The fee would be minimal. On the order of $10 per year. That would be enough to weed out most of the fly-by-nights. I could set the bar even higher by requiring that the $10 be paid via credit card, since it is a payment medium that would pretty much require a valid billing address as identification.

Charging to place an auction would be something on the order of $1 each. Insignificant, but enough to keep someone from just posting senseless and frivolous auctions at will.

Charging a fee for people to bid on auctions is problematical. It would certainly help weed out the riff-raff, but as a seller, would you want to have the potential bidders weeded out this way?

This isn't some scheme that I think I will get rich over. It is something that I think might be helpful and interesting, but I need to avoid the pitfalls that have plagued other auctions. Otherwise I am just wasting my time.

And again, this is just in the "what if" stages.

Charging a fee for people to bid on auctions is problematical. It would certainly help weed out the riff-raff, but as a seller, would you want to have the potential bidders weeded out this way?

From what I understood what was proposed was not to charge for each bid, but just the winning bid. If there is an animal that someone is truly interested in buying, I don't see how a $5 fee for example will deter no one from bidding on it. But it will certainly make dead-beat bidders think twice before placing a bid.

This isn't some scheme that I think I will get rich over. It is something that I think might be helpful and interesting, but I need to avoid the pitfalls that have plagued other auctions. Otherwise I am just wasting my time.

Probably one of the main pitfalls was that sellers got tired of was being charged for sales that never occurred because the bidder backed out. If I'm not mistaken that is the concept Shawn was trying to convey. Even if the money for placing the item in the auction was returned, the seller had to demonstrate the sale did not take place. Time and money.

Regards.

alvaro pretty much got it on the nose but also what im saying is instead of just letting everyone bid (even with a fee added ) why make the hassle of adding extra money to the bid just to be able to place the bid charge everyone a flat membership rate (i.e. $10-20 a year ) this fee allows you to sell and place bids
and keeps people just off the street from becoming a bidder and causing problems ...
and yes i dont want to see another ebay thats the main reason why i dont sell something there unless i have to cause im tired of paying fees and not selling my item ... i mean if i post 10 snakes @ $1.00 listing fee per thats $10 bucks right off the top and if nuthing should sell and i repost .. that adds up to alot and im not prepared to throw money away if you understand my point .... i dont want to see another ebay .. thats why i like www.reptileauction.com they charge a membership fee and a final value selling fee .. and thats it if it dont sell it costs me nuthing extra .....

Probably one of the main pitfalls was that sellers got tired of was being charged for sales that never occurred because the bidder backed out. If I'm not mistaken that is the concept Shawn was trying to convey. Even if the money for placing the item in the auction was returned, the seller had to demonstrate the sale did not take place. Time and money.

I have been to auction boards on other types of businesses and the primary problem I have seen that was their downfall was that unscrupulous SELLERS would cheat the system by claiming that the sale did not go through and they were cancelling the auction, whereas it did, in fact, complete. I have also talked to webmasters running these auctions and another big headache is that many times a potential seller will contact the seller via email, bypassing the auction to attempt to buy it outright. The seller, being able to avoid the fee that way, would many times accept the offer. That's why a lot of auction will hide direct contact details of both the bidders and the sellers.

Certainly the logical thing to do would be to make everything free in order to get the traffic into the auction. But how do you do that without inviting the pitfalls that plague the other auction boards? Registration is useless without some sort of valid identification. And SOMEONE has to do all the work behind the scenes to make this work. To be honest, I'm not willing to do yet another project entirely for free, and the expenses of time, effort and money coming directly out of my pocket.

If a seller cannot afford to spend $10 per year for access to the auction and $1 each on auctioning off their merchandise, then they certainly can go elsewhere. If a bidder does not want to spend $10 on the chance of finding something interesting to bid on, maybe finding a bargain to boot, then they can go elsewhere as well. I think the bar HAS to be high right off the bat in order for this to work the way we all would want it to.

I am looking for a way to avoid the majority of the headaches that have already been noted, have it pay for itself, and be useful to the people using it with a minimum of headaches on either side of the bidding process. It certainly is not possible to please everyone, so I will try to pick the compromises that will piss off the lesser number of people, with ME being highest on the priority list.

Bear in mind, that I am not about to buy into one of these $3,000 high end auction systems for this project. If I see the money coming in justifying an upgrade, then perhaps that will happen, but there is a better than even chance that I might just be throwing away time, effort, and money on this. So version number one will be rather plain vanilla and bare minimum to get the job done.

So far I have not found any auction system software that I like that meets all of my criteria. So there are likely to be compromises every step of the way.

Well Shawn, if you like Reptile Auction so much, why even concern yourself with another auction here? I thought people were not happy with the other offerings, and I was asked to look into this possibility. They used to advertise here on this site and I have two other auction boards running banner ads right at this moment. So quite frankly, I don't care either way.

I REALLY don't need something else to do.......

well its not the fact that i like is so much but so far its the best 1 running and it does have a good traffic , but i like variety so knowing there will be more then 1 good auction site is always a plus and i can actually see with them they dont have very many problems and if there is a problem its handled fast and effectively .. and thats what im looking for ... and if you can offer the same as them ( protection and problem handling along with reasonable pricing ) i would have no problem spending my money on your auction site but im not out to waste money ..... so its not a concern what i like better verses is there going to be better ????????

If I had the money and time I would start one myself. I personally believe you should base most of the rules off of the way eBay runs their site. After all, look how successful they have become. Most buyers on there feel secure buying and know the risks associated based on the feedback rating of buyers and sellers. They know what recourse they can take if a buyer doesn't pay and if a seller doesn't ship. Follow their example and you are bound to create a very workable auction site. The one real question that still stands is will it be worth your time, trouble, and expense? In other words is there a demand for it. I personally think there is but at the same time I realise even after it is up and running that it will take some time before people start using it on a regular basis and it balances out to a point where people feel secure buying from there. It is a big project and you definitely shouldn't doubt that. But it can be done.

well the reason ebay is so sucessful is the fact they handle everything so in fact u really cant compare ebay to much with a reptile auction cause we will be dealing with 1 specific item herps , not 1 mill different items like my old gramas stockings cause they were made back in the civil war .... lmao the fact they handled everything and anything is the reason they became so sucessful not the fact of their rules cause if they were limited to 3 items that could be listed and still charged the prices they do forget it they wouldnt have lasted

Am I missing something on reptileauction.com or is there only like 5 things listed on the whole site? Is there a link or something I'm not seeing? -Chris