New Photography Equipment Auction Site

Hi everyone, I'm trying to spread the word that I've opened a new auction site dedicated to photographers. Our goal is to get photographers everywhere to come together in a single marketplace, and hopefully move away from the impersonality of eBay. The site is http://www.photocityau​ctions.com/ and it is brand new, so any feedback and comments are welcome. Feel free to join the site if you like it and get started selling, buying, and saving! Thanks very much for your time,

PhotoCity Auctions

I think it is hard for you to compete with Ebay though..... Personally, like most people here, I tend to look here or on the FM message board to buy use gear. Ebay is only the last resort. No, I hate waiting for the auction to end and not knowing I can or can't win the bidding... I am not a fan of auction unless I can't get the item from anywhere else...

Thanks for your reply! I'm not really trying to compete with eBay, but rather give an alternative. I, too, would rather go through a forum to get my equipment, but sometimes I find it just too inconvenient to search multiple sites for something that may or may not be there. Everyone prefers something different though! Hopefully someday my site will have something you can't find anywhere else! Haha

Thanks for taking the time to check it out though!

With a single listing in the Camera->Body->DSLR section of just a 40D, I can't imagine
how this endeavor will ever get off the ground. Is that your own 40D camera body
being offered right now? I've already got one, so there's nothing on-site to interest me.

You're trying to compete with well-established and trusted sources already: Here, FM, eBay,
CraigsList, Ooodle, etc... not to mention established venues in other parts of the world.
That's not to say that these other venues don't have their share of scam attempts already,
but what puts your setup anywhere above the rest? How can we trust it? What makes your
setup any different or more trouble-free from the rest? Why should I go there instead of eBay or
any other already-long-established place for the very same item with higher traffic and far more
offerings?

I really hope you can reinvent the 'perfect' marketplace trading system, although I just can't
see how it can be done at this point.

Good luck with the site. I would prefer a mix of auctions and just straight For Sale listings - maybe that options exists and I just did not look very closely. It seemed a little slow and clunky to respond when I tried to click through various categories. I'd also prefer a more basic fee schedule. Low flat rate to list + % of final sale maybe? I get annoyed with nickel and dime aspect of paying for pics, bold, etc.

Regarding competing with established sites like ebay and craigslist, I don't know, it seems like so many people really despise those places, and only shop there for smaller $ items because of low levels of trust. If you can create an atmosphere where people feel safe in what they are buying or selling you'd be offering something more than the norm. Not sure how you do that short of being an escrow service and arbitrator rolled in to one, but I think it would be a definite selling point for you.

I wish you good luck as well. I think you will have more success if there is more than one item for sale before you hit the boards looking for members.
Of course, I'll take that 40D for $1 so I'll check back in a week and see how it's doing!

Hmmm...so you creating another site for us, thanks

PhotoCity Auctions wrote in post #12087581
Thanks for your reply! I'm not really trying to compete with eBay, but rather give an alternative. I, too, would rather go through a forum to get my equipment, but sometimes I find it just too inconvenient to search multiple sites for something that may or may not be there. Everyone prefers something different though! Hopefully someday my site will have something you can't find anywhere else! Haha

Thanks for taking the time to check it out though!

SkedAddled wrote in post #12088398
You're trying to compete with well-established and trusted sources already: Here, FM, eBay,
CraigsList, Ooodle, etc... not to mention established venues in other parts of the world.

Did you really call Craigslist a trusted Source? j/k found that funny and I know this quote is taken out of context but I could not resist the urge to poke fun.

Good luck with the site!

Thanks for all the replies and feedback everyone!

I realize it's going to be quite a task to get this off the ground. The 40D is actually not mine, one user has been adventurous enough to post their own 40D on the site to help it take off! I was hoping that more people would try it out but it looks like I need to give them more of an incentive! Unfortunately I don't have the funds to buy equipment so I can put it up, so I have to keep trying to get people to put their own stuff on for now. Like you said, getting it off the ground is the hardest part and all I can do is keep trying! Thanks for the input!

I thought it might be better to not have a listing fee, as this would be a turnoff for casual and new users. I've set the number of free pictures you can upload to 8, which I hope is enough for most people. I've had to charge for bold, home page listing, highlighting etc because if I didn't everyone would do it for free, and it would defeat the purpose! I will look into changing it though - Thanks for the feedback!

I know this is on everyone's mind, and to be honest all I can say is that it's a smaller run, market specific site. I think that this makes it less likely to be plagued with scammers, as most of them will spend their time on the larger sites like eBay. I was hoping to make this site for photographers and camera equipment dealers only. I've set the end of auction fees much lower so that eBay stores might be enticed to join, and they may be able to lower their prices as their profit margin would be increased. However, this is contingent on them coming here, and most of them won't join until the site has an established user base. And an established user base won't come until there are more items for sale. It's kind of a catch-22, and I hope that more users will sign up and take a leap of faith and post their items!

Thanks everyone, I'll keep working on it and try to make it feel like a safer atmosphere, as I think that's the main problem (other than nothing being for sale!)

PhotoCity Auctions

If only negative energy could be harnessed and turned into something useful . . .

Good luck with your new site.

i think it looks promising, good luck!

First, best of luck, I'd love to see this take off. As you can see, very few new ideas are met with open arms on here...

I think people are missing the biggest advantage of your site, not so much for the buyer, but for the sellers. If you've ever sold on ebay you know how much it sucks fees, scams and junk have taken over.

I've bought a lot of stuff on here that has turned out to be less than it was described, and there's nothing you can do, you can't even leave negative feedback. The guy that sold me a lens with missing screws had positive feedback and I even spoke to him on the phone, after I got the lens he wouldn't respond and my posts about it were just deleted. I don't buy from here anymore...

I like the idea of another option for listing items for sale, I'll check it out when I'm looking for something.

Good luck!

The pages seem too crowded, so many unnecessary tables, feels like all I'm looking at is squares. Having been involved with web design, it appears that you're just using one of those portal/cms templates. Honestly, I like the idea, but you need to invest some money in it for it to work. People say you can't throw money at problems, well in this case you can. Offer some sort of incentive, where you lose money. Eventually you might start seeing returns, you'll get paid for the traffic, maybe ads, special listings and what not.
I'd invest in a real web page design as well, something much more appealing to the eyes. It looks like a forum, one that I wouldnt enjoy staring at... and it's supposed to be an auction site!
Auction sites are businesses, not a "service" that you're offering 'cause youre a nice guy. You need to make some investments to see some returns.
Like I said, I like the idea, but to get a head start on the web nowadays, you need to invest.

PhotoCity Auctions wrote in post #12087399
Hi everyone, I'm trying to spread the word that I've opened a new auction site dedicated to photographers. Our goal is to get photographers everywhere to come together in a single marketplace, and hopefully move away from the impersonality of eBay. The site is http://www.photocityau​ctions.com/ and it is brand new, so any feedback and comments are welcome. Feel free to join the site if you like it and get started selling, buying, and saving! Thanks very much for your time,

PhotoCity Auctions

I'm sure the creators of Starbucks heard, "What? You are going to try selling cups of coffee for $5 when I can buy it from any resturant for $1?" more than once.

My main concern would be this -- what happens when the guy that sells his 40D mails out a box, tracked, with a brick in it? He defends his paypal claim by providing the tracking number, and the buyer is out whatever it is that the person paid for it.

With eBay, you have an established site that can go to bat for you, that has an entire division of its large, diverse company setup to help resolve disputes, etc. The prices for listings and such are much nicer where you're at since you dont have the overhead of eBay, etc, but at this point, it effectively seems to be a place where people can pay you very small amounts of money to sell their stuff and bump it up in importance (which, if anyone paid for at this point, would be kind of silly since there's currently two auctions).

Hope you take this as observations and not attacks -- it would be nice if there was a place similar to eBay specifically for photogs that provided good customer service, etc.