Storage Auctions
The Storage Locker => General Storage Auction Talk => Topic started by: Travis on May 14, 2013, 02:00:21 PM
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The following chart displays the top 10 most visited storage auction websites as of 05/14/13. They are in order of their U.S. traffic rank. This is solely based on traffic on not the size or amount of content each site contains. Sites like AuctionZip and Cubesmart were excluded since storage auctions are not their primary business and because it would be impossible to determine how much traffic they actually receive from their storage auction related content.
(http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o701/travis_lane1/Top10StorageAuctionWebsites_zpsfd6c6281.jpg)
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Hmm, was there a server outage for everything outside of Texas?
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Hmm, was there a server outage for everything outside of Texas?
Ha Ha.
What caught my attention was that Virtual Storage Auction has already surpassed Storage Battles in organic traffic. The site is only 3 months old. Plus, Storage Battles has the advantage of having their URL put in 100+ legal notices. If Virtual Storage Auction is ranking this well naturally, I can only image how well it will do once it's URL is listed in 100+ newspapers.
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This is really the only storage auction website I visit these days.
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AWW, SHUKS...you're making me blush.
Rules, every time I look at your signature you have a new website. How many sites are you running right now and is most of your income from ad revenue?
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Ha Ha.
What caught my attention was that Virtual Storage Auction has already surpassed Storage Battles in organic traffic. The site is only 3 months old. Plus, Storage Battles has the advantage of having their URL put in 100+ legal notices. If Virtual Storage Auction is ranking this well naturally, I can only image how well it will do once it's URL is listed in 100+ newspapers.
Haha, Well considering those numbers were manipulated don't you think that the auctions on Storage Battles speak the truth. So, basically you are trying to convince the public that your site virtual storage auction has more visits?? Why would people want to visit YOUR site so often to view 4 fake auctions that don't even exist?? Strange!!
Travis, You can't count the thousands of times you visit YOUR own site as other people actually visiting it.
I don't even live in Texas and have only bought 1 auction from Storage Battles but when I read posts written slamming on a competitor makes me angry. All you are doing is displaying your unethical ways of running a business. Why not put the effort in trying to build a company oppose to gaining popularity with lies?
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unethical - "not conforming to approved standards of social or professional behavior".....
let's see Sarahwhatever comes in,veiled in anonymity, with a hidden agenda ,and starts pointing fingers,proclaiming wrong doing,injustices, and basically throwing a pouty, whiny childlike "I'm angry" fit.
Wasn't there a woman who came on here recently, who obviously worked for the "competition", and then proceeded to write paragraphs about everything storage as if she was the exalted,ultimate, high ruling authority?
Well we're all entitled to our own personal opinion .... so ...my opinion is that..... your opinion,except for the humorous content,has no influence on where and what I choose to research storage "stuff" online
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unethical - "not conforming to approved standards of social or professional behavior".....
Steve….
Some here (including Travis) would disagree that my philosophy is that HONESTY is the best policy, but in keeping with my idea that people should be allowed to make their own decisions about what EVERYONE posts.....
See the link below (reply #12) for a copy of sarah’s original post in that thread. It is a copy of her original post which she may or may not have deleted herself.
http://storageauctionforums.com/online-storage-auctions/storagebattles-com-auctions-off-unit-5-days-before-date-in-legal-notice/
See my next post for more on Sarah.
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See my next post for more on Sarah.
Check this out. This might be her locker which she posted on SB. Can't tell for sure. It sold for $100 after many bids.
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Cached
Apr 18, 2013 – Browse Auctions • Post an Auction • Login to Your Account • Create an Account ... by sarah4tri. Unit Size: 10 x 10. Lock Tag ID: 4395756 ...
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And....
Here is one that is currently running in the same city (as of 5 30 2013 at 7:00 a.m. Pacific time.
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I'm surprised this thread hasn't been deleted yet, but maybe it isn't personal enough. Let the good times roll.
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I'm surprised this thread hasn't been deleted yet, but maybe it isn't personal enough. Let the good times roll.
Give it time. In the meantime, if it bumps the exposure of this (or any other) website, it will have served some purpose in its life ! ;D
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Let the good times roll.
Rolling along....
Here is a link to the SB auction listings within 100 miles of Sacramento, CA which is my area.
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Movie Man..you're right,my post here towards her was way too personal... Sarahwhatever please accept an apology.. sometimes I like to rant
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Movie Man..you're right,my post here towards her was way too personal... Sarahwhatever please accept an apology.. sometimes I like to rant
Well, I wouldn't pass judgement on what you said. You don't have a personal agenda, I know that. Neither do I. I just like seeing the facts come out on both sides and letting people make up their own minds about what is "right".
Travis is representing his efforts. Sarah is expressing her thoughts about that and Travis is expressing his thoughts about SB. Sarah may or may not have a real attachment to SB or not, I don't know. If there is transparency toward all concerned that is a start toward understanding by those who have no attachment to either side.
My presence here started before Travis was ever involved (by a month or so) and continued through a time when he took significant time out before he bought this site and made new efforts here and in other areas. My interest is in the buying/selling and reading about what others are doing with auctions, picking, selling, flea markets, eBay, Craigslist.
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maybe it isn't personal enough.
Careful what you wish for! :D
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Sarahwhatever
Sarahtri4.....
Looks like a 4 time triathalon participant to me ! ;D
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So, James, now you come back on the forum pretending to be a woman? The forum tracks IP addresses so hiding under an alias does you no good.
Haha, Well considering those numbers were manipulated don't you think that the auctions on Storage Battles speak the truth.
First of all, those numbers came from Alexa and are easily verifiable. If you want to talk about manipulated numbers, your last few press releases indicated that you have 3,500 storage facilities using your website. I have been tracking the facilities on your site for the last 4 months and I have only seen 150. I bet you gave SmartStop Self Storage the same false numbers while you were convincing them that they weren't breaking the law by holding online storage auctions in half the states they operate in.
So, basically you are trying to convince the public that your site virtual storage auction has more visits?? Why would people want to visit YOUR site so often to view 4 fake auctions that don't even exist?? Strange!!
Sure, we only have a couple of auctions listed...our site is brand new. People are visiting our site because we have quality articles and because there seems to be a lot of people who are interested in what VirtualStorageAuction.com can do for them.
Travis, You can't count the thousands of times you visit YOUR own site as other people actually visiting it.
You're hilarious. In your press releases, you claim to have 250K registered bidders. Too bad 98% of them are Chinese spam accounts. I could have 250K members on my site too by turning off my spam filters. Your site doesn't even use a spam filter. You proudly display your 6,000 Facebook likes but your stats only indicate that 12 people are talking about you...that really doesn't add up. My site could have 6,000 likes too, but I feel that buying likes is deceitful. I would rather earn mine slowly and naturally.
I don't even live in Texas and have only bought 1 auction from Storage Battles but when I read posts written slamming on a competitor makes me angry. All you are doing is displaying your unethical ways of running a business. Why not put the effort in trying to build a company oppose to gaining popularity with lies?
Everything I have written has been a fact and verifiable at that. Don't come on my site and pretend to be some random person who is angered by what they've read. The only person who would be upset by the facts I wrote is you...no one else cares.
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After I posted my response above, I sent a private message to sarah4tri with a link to this page. Shortly after, a new member joined the forum. Coincidence? ::)
(http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o701/travis_lane1/SB_zpsa5b2c1fc.png)
I couldn't find any reference to a N. Brewster anywhere except an old Manta page that lists a Nathan Brewster as a co-owner of Storage Battles.
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wait , wait ... let me get this straight ..
the highly amusing poster states " I wanted to officially identify myself " then never once actually says his/her name..
then.... " I would like to come out "... um ,ok you've come out of the locker,congratulations..... then... "hope I do not offend anyone "..you're hopes are "dashed", you offend me and I'm just a member here,with zero agenda.... then... " Acting in a devious way but rather cover up with a positive to hopefully void out the bad intentions"... dude,you're doing EXACTLY what you accuse someone else of doing... then .. you ask several specific questions and 1 paragraph later say "Im still waiting for my questions to be answered." ... poor baby needs immediate attention,right?... and finally " numerous discussions with facilities less than even an 1/8 of a mile away "... um just how many facilities are located within 660 feet area of where you're at?.... looking forward to your future posts,they have such comedic value,thanks
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I consider myself a very ethical, moral and God loving man who strives each day to be a better person.
Well for that I commend you. I also appreciate your approach on the forum. If you colleagues would have engaged our members in the same way we wouldn't have had any issues. Instead, they have come on this forum and called me a liar and a manipulator when I'm only reporting the facts.
I do apologize in advance if I am all over the place and hard to follow.
Don't worry, it happens to all of us. ;)
I would like to come out and say that saratri4 is not an employee or has any kind of relation with SB. Why would an employee hide behind a username on a Texas blog site?
I don't know where this Texas blog site is coming from. Perhaps you're confusing this site with AuctionsTX.com. StorageAuctionForums.com has an international readership.
My employees have so much passion for SB that they would all be glad to identify themselves.
Some have. Some haven't. Storage Battles employees have created several accounts over the past year or so. Our forum tracks IP addresses which can be compared to IP addresses of other accounts.
This being said, My partner Jim (James) would never hide behind a username. I do find it upsetting that you assume and accuse Jim for writing what was said.
Perhaps he didn't make the most recent post but someone from SB did. IP addresses don't lie.
Travis, I would like to say before anything else is said....Good Luck! Starting a new business that requests the clients to practice something new is always challenging. I do wish you the best of luck and success.
I do appreciate that. And I wish you much success in your next endeavor.
I understand that you believe the only way you can succeed is to recruit the facilities we have already put so much hard work into. But, I ask you why?? I have no problem and understand completely that you will go after our current customers. (you would be a fool if you didn’t)
We're going after all storage facilities, your current clients included. All we're doing is presenting the facts and letting them decide which service is right for them. This is business. It's not personal. You seem like a really nice guy which is why I'm suggesting that you sell your shares in SB while you still can.
I believe that there will be roughly 6 other competitors that pop up during the next year. SB has planned for this in every way.
That may have been the case a year ago but anyone who is considering entering this niche will analyze the competition and realize that it's impossible to compete with a site that offers it's services for free and controls the 2 of the top 3 media outlets for this industry.
But, I do want to express my thoughts on this topic. This going back and forth cutting SB down in order to bring a light to your site is obnoxious and immature. (this might be why you do not have any auctions on your site).
Wow. For a God fearing man, that comment sure is hypocritical. The problem is, you see comments on your company's shortcomings as cut downs when people are only discussing the facts. The reason there are only a few auctions on my site is because it's brand new. You of all people should know that it takes time to recruit corporations. Besides, we didn't have the luxury of buying our clientele from a competitor.
The reason we grew so fast besides the hard work, dedication and passion for the industry is due to honesty.
If that's the case, then let's be honest. The reason you grew so fast is because you bought out your competitor. Kevin Gorzny got the momentum going in the online storage auction niche and Sealed Online Bids would have been unstoppable since they had a 2 year head start on you. You realized that the only way to succeed in this niche was to eliminate your competition. Which is exactly why you bought him out. Kevin was smart though. He cashed out right before VirtualStorageAuction.com was released.
I would only hope you would eventually see that you are bringing so much negativity to the online auction process and only deterring facilities to give the concept a try. Why not discuss the benefits of online auctions?
We do promote the positive aspects of online storage auctions. We also expose the flaws in this niche. What you see as negativity is what I see as giving an unbiased account of the pros and cons of online storage auctions.
I know you are not in the storage industry or have any type of experience other than a blog and trying to make a “quick buck” with your new auction site but I am in the industry and have been for the last 10+ years. This is why I take great offense to all these acquisitions.
I think you meant accusations. Acquisitions are Storage Battle's forte. You have obviously spent no time to researching Virtual Storage Auction otherwise you would know that it's a free service. We don't charge buyers premiums or seller fees. We're not trying to make a quick buck. We've invested thousands of dollars and hours building a free site for our industry and we expect nothing in return. If you understood storage auction buyers you would know that they dislike buyers premiums. If you truly understood the storage industry, you would know that over half of all storage facilities in the United States don't use an auctioneer because they don't want to pay a commission to sell their storage units.
You and James have both accused me of having no experience in this industry. Well, I have news for you. Online storage auctions are a new frontier and we're entering into it at the same time. You have no more experience than I do in this niche. You keep referring to me as a blogger as if it's a bad thing. Yes, I have two blogs. One of which is the most widely read blog in the storage auction industry. Do I have experience running a storage facility? No. Do I have experience with storage auctions? Plenty. I still buy storage units to this day. Do you? Probably not. I also manage 3 of the 5 most visited websites about storage auctions including this forum which has more content than any other storage auction website in the world. Need I say more?
Once again, sara does not have any involvement with the company.
"Sara's" IP address was linked to another account that was created by someone using a Storage Battles email address. The user had to verify this email address before they could post on the forum. Sara may not be the person's real name but the post was made by someone affiliated with your company.
I do not know you other than what you post and all the conversations we have had together on the phone. I will say that you come across as a very honest man on the phone. (in all fairness)
The only person I have spoke with on the phone is James. Who is this again?
I would love to discuss the accusation you have above beginning this post. I will say that 1 auction ended on the 10th. You are 100% inaccurate in what you state. This is my concern. WHY?? Why expose something that is not true? Can you tell me what you benefit from it?
I wouldn't publish something like that if it weren't true. Libel could get me sued. I have plenty of documentation which backs up my statements and proves that two units were auctioned off illegally and if you press the issue any further I'll post copies on this forum for the public to view.
Specific questions for Travis.
1. You state you are free to facilities. Which is great! Every company enjoys saving money. I understand that you hold live auctions after the online auction ticker ends. So how does this benefit the facility? They will still have to pay for the live auctioneer. In this case I would only hope you are free.
Perhaps you're confused. Virtual Storage Auction allows storage facilities to have online only storage auctions in the same way that Storage Battles does. We also give them the option have an online sale which runs concurrent with their live sale, if they're located in a state where online storage auctions do not comply their lien laws. Whether they use an auctioneer is up to them.
2. Please explain. A facility has to take pics and list their auction online, then once it ends they hold a live auction. Correct?
See above
a. What specific time would you place on your lien letters?
Once again, it is the storage facility's choice whether they have an online only sale or whether the online sale is run concurrently with the live sale. If the storage facility chooses the second option, they would need to list the time & date the online auction begins, the time & date the online auction ends and the time & date the sale at the facility begins.
b. Why would a buyer spend time bidding on an auction to win it online and find out they lost it to a live buyer?
The online bidders can enter their highest bid and the system will bid for them automatically. If there is a higher bid at the live sale, then it would exceed the online bidder's cap and wouldn't make a difference anyway.
c. Why would a buyer go to a live auction knowing that they could show up and not even have enough money in their pockets to surpass the online bids.
This is a ridiculous question. Whether they have enough money is irrelevant.
How will an online buyer confirm that someone actually placed a higher bid?
The storage facility can press a button notifying the highest online bidder that they were outbid at the live sale.
d. What is your major selling point to facilities other than being free.
Well, let's see. Where do I start.
Storage Battles & Virtual Storage Auction do basically the same thing - provide a resource where people can buy or sell a storage unit online; however, our site has some major advantages over Storage Battles. Here are some examples:
1. Virtual Storage Auction is completely free for the buyer and the seller. All of our competitors charge a fee for their service. Storage Battles charges the seller 10% and the buyer 10%. We don't think this is fair.
2. We built a site that includes everyone: storage facilities, private sellers, buyers and auctioneers. Auctioneers are excluded from using Storage Battles because they don't want to share their commission with the auctioneers. Also, auctioneers in some states don't believe that Storage Battles is operating within the law.
3. We offer storage facilities a legal alternative to online only lien sales if they are located in states where the legality of online storage auctions is questionable. Storage Battles doesn't offer this option and is knowingly allowing storage facilities in these states to put themselves at risk.
4. We have a community forum where users can ask and answer questions about the site or storage auctions in general. We are also backed by our sister website, StorageAuctionForums.com, which is the world's largest storage auction community.
5. On Virtual Storage Auction, buyers and sellers can communicate with each other through an onsite private message system. This feature is not available on Storage Battles. Not only that, their site excludes the seller's address which makes it very difficult for a bidder to locate an auction, especially when there are multiple auctions being held by storage facilities with the same name.
6. We are professionals at internet marketing. We have the contacts in this industry and know how to drive more traffic to the auctions. Our site is brand new and we're already getting the same amount of traffic that our competitor is...can you only imagine how much traffic Virtual Storage Auction will receive in the years to come?
7. Virtual Storage Auction gives sellers the option to set a reserve price which insures the unit will not sell for less than the seller wants.
8. Our site is set up where users can notify their friends about the auctions through hundreds of popular social media sites. Or competitor only uses two.
9. Virtual Storage Auction has a blog that is constantly being updated with new articles that are designed to educate users about our site and storage auctions in general.
We know this is irrelevant due to the fact they will still have to pay a live auctioneer.
Once again, you have obviously done no research on your competition. On our site, storage facilities & private sellers can choose they way they would like to hold their auctions. We offer the following options:
Online only - just like Storage Battles
Online & live sale - without an auctioneer
Online & live sale - with an auctioneer
This is how I can assume you are riding a niche market to make a “quick buck”. You do not understand the storage industry from the inside.
Once again, VirtualStorageAuction.com is completely free. Storage facilities, buyers, private sellers and auctioneers are welcome to use the site at no charge. You say I don't understand the storage industry from the inside. I have a pretty clear understanding of the storage industry. I also have a clear understanding of economics & business. This is why I know that Storage Battles will not survive in the long run. It may take a year or so, but eventually all of your customers will defect to Virtual Storage Auctions since it's a free service. When companies like SmartStop Self Storage do the math, they'll realize that that could save millions of dollars a year by switching to our service. Enjoy the commissions while you can...but I wouldn't advise you to buy that big house or fancy car just yet. ;)
I am going to end on a few notes.
Okay, then why did you leave without adding any? ;D
Travis, I do wish you best of luck. I am not concerned with your site but rather excited only because it brings credibility to the concept.
I'm glad you're not concerned. Keep underestimating us.
Btw, you personally sent me an email stating why I should switch over to you. You forgot that SB is made up of storage professionals didn’t you? Im still waiting for my questions to be answered.
Oh, you are a facility owner. I'm glad to see our marketing people are reaching everyone...even the little guys.
Travis,
Please call me directly if you have concerns or questions.
That won't be necessary. I have no concerns. It's you that should be concerned.
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I would be happy to reply to #22 above if I had been able to wade through it all, but I wasn't so I won't . ;D
Let the battle of the "titans" commence.
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Nathan,Nathan,Nathan,what am I gonna do with you? :D :D .. I get offended by self appointed ,"important" know it all professionals.. so yes you did prove your point... if your questions were private ,why expect answers in public ? going to friendly competitor facilities and asking " how's it going ?" should not be made to sound like a Board of Director's meeting of a Secret Selling Society.... the industry I successfully retired from is larger than yours ( hahahaha :P ) and tighter and with more tips to share.... if you want to know the secrets to "closing a sale", (even though semi-retired,that's my real job).. For $4,000.00 ( plus travel expenses) I'll give you one week of ( to quote my presentation intro letter) "The MAIN thing is to increase your company value.Consultative Selling emphasizing client needs and meeting those needs with solutions combining products and/or services."...Listening,understanding, and providing,with the goal of excellent ROI, happy customers, engaged employees and simple procedures" and lastly there is absolutely zero being accomplished by your posting here ( and my childish replies ) so let's not continue in this style..if it ain't positive , don't say it,,,agreed?
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I specifically made it a point to hide a negative with a positive.
It obviously didn't work. Perhaps you haven't realized it yet, but this is my playground. I have allowed you and several other CEOs to publicly embarrass themselves here. The more you talk, the bigger the fool you look like. But I'll keep putting the cheese on the trap...and I'm sure you guys will keep coming to nibble.
To clarify, when I state that I am still waiting for answers...this would only be understood by Travis himself. He knows exactly what I am referring to.
I did respond respond to your rude email. Not what I would expect from a man of God. However, you never identified yourself as being affiliated with SB.
Because everyone on this post gets very upset very quickly I feel as if I need to explain myself. Travis sent me a few spam emails requesting my site to use VSA not knowing I own SB. I ignored most of them but then responded with a few questions. He replied with basically a canned response but did not answer my specifics. "Still waiting".
I never received your response. If you still have questions after all of this, feel free to resend the email.
So, no I was not referring to the questions in my last post. Lastly, yes I do have 2 other facilities with an 1/8 of a mile. Why even question this when you do not know the truth? The storage industry is a huge industry but rather a tight industry as far as the professionals that are involved. We share wisdom and tips throughout the industry only making it stronger. My reason for frustration. Why post blog after blog attacking one another. Travis is giving a bad vibe to the online auction process.
I'm the one that feels attacked and the only time I get a bad vibe is when I read your posts. I state the facts and you and your employees come here and insult me and call me a liar. While you get irritated and embarrass yourself publicly, I will maintain my professionalism.
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I am surprised that people who claim to be able to run a business doesn't know better. If your competition (or anyone really) says something bad about you, its generally not a good idea to respond unless its to resolve a situation. It rarely ends to your benefit. If you disagreed with the numbers the correct response AT MOST is to post different numbers from a different source, and use that to generate conversation. If someone throws mud, ignore it, let it dry and flick it off later. You try to wipe it now and it just smears everywhere.
Don't bring your personal beliefs into things, claiming to be god fearing doesn't immediately lend you any credence. Quite the opposite actually.
There are so many other things I could go on. Creating multiple accounts from your home or office is a horrible plan, IP numbers usually don't lie.
As Travis points out-this is his place. If you don't like what he says...too bad. He can delete comments at will, etc. There is no right to speak here. The only reason he has to let you post is if it makes you look bad, or if he has a sense of fairness. Or both. I'm kinda surprised he even bothered responding.
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greywar, you are absolutely correct. This is the exact reason I did not come on this site and post any replies in the last year other than the other day.
When someone shares information that is completely untrue post after post a response sometimes is necessary. SB does not start conversations spreading inaccurate facts about VSA. I do wish Travis the best of luck and all this is very unnecessary. He could be spending more time selling his model oppose to creating "lies". I hate to use that word but there is no other way of wording it.
Travis, Hopefully we can all get together in the future and laugh about all this. I would like to grab a drink and discuss this during the Texas trade show. Would you be willing to sit down and discuss?
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Travis, Hopefully we can all get together in the future and laugh about all this. I would like to grab a drink and discuss this during the Texas trade show. Would you be willing to sit down and discuss?
Hard to turn down that invitation. I'd love to be at the table as an observer. ;D
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When someone shares information that is completely untrue post after post a response sometimes is necessary.
He could be spending more time selling his model oppose to creating "lies".
No none has been spreading lies or making anything up about your company. Your company has issues and people here have been discussing them. You just need to be honest with yourself. You can't fix the problems if you continue thinking that were just attacking you for no reason.
Travis, Hopefully we can all get together in the future and laugh about all this. I would like to grab a drink and discuss this during the Texas trade show. Would you be willing to sit down and discuss?
I won't be there. Not this year at least. And by this time next year, you won't want to have a drink with me.
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.... an administrator,a movie mogul, & several others walk into their favorite hangout.... " Hey, Who'se that newbie that's painted himself into the corner,standing on a little soapbox,spouting and rambling about whoknowswhat?" ...." don't know ,let's get a drink and laugh about it in the future"..... "naw, I wanna laugh about him NOW!"
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I was wondering, what is the source you are using for this data? Maybe a URL...
Thx
Looks to me like info might have been gathered from multiple sources and then COMBINED into a spreadsheet and published as a whole. But, as we all say....I could be wrong ! ;D
Edit:
One can use Alexa or similar places to get the rankings. Note that in the spreadsheet shown in this thread they all have virtually the same page ranking; something like eBay would have a page ranking of 7 based on the search terms used to find its ranking. (ebay.com)
Link below is for searching the ranking based on the name of THIS website. Do that one at a time and you could get the info on all the sites in the spreadsheet shown here, and as I said there are many sources you can use to gather that info. The link below is the "lite" version of this data.
ranklite.me/www/storageauctionforums.com
Here's the one for ebay:
ranklite.me/www/ebay.com
Here's the one for google; which gets a page ranking of 9
ranklite.me/www/example%20google.com
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I'd love to be at the table as an observer.
Better yet, drop the ob and you could just be the server! :P
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I was wondering, what is the source you are using for this data? Maybe a URL...
Thx
I'm using Quirk SearchStatus 1.46. It's an SEO tool that displays Alexa rank, PageRank, mozRank, Compete Rank along with keyword density, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, canonical links, WHOIS, etc.
Update: after this topic was started, Storage Battles made all of their ranking and traffic information private. :D
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The following chart displays the top 10 most visited storage auction websites as of 05/14/13. They are in order of their U.S. traffic rank. This is solely based on traffic on not the size or amount of content each site contains. Sites like AuctionZip and Cubesmart were excluded since storage auctions are not their primary business and because it would be impossible to determine how much traffic they actually receive from their storage auction related content.
(http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o701/travis_lane1/Top10StorageAuctionWebsites_zpsfd6c6281.jpg)
I like that report. :-*
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The numbers on this report are still fairly accurate; however, Virtual Storage Auction has seen some improvement. It has now taken the 2nd spot (bumping this forum to third) coming in at 44,831 for it's U.S. traffic rank. It's global rank is now 343,202.
Not too shabby for a 6 month old start-up. ;)
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Given time, VSA will grow and it will be a true player in the online storage auction environment. I have no doubt about that fact!
I don't know about all the SEO stuff as I have no need too as I am not trying to grow a business on the internet, but I do feel that having multiple "test" auctions is excessive....one yes, more, no. Again just an opinion.
If it's going to grow, it will grow and one has to try things, but in the long run it is the buying public (us) who will determine if any of these virtual auctions will succeed. Personally I don't think they will succeed...I have real doubts about that. Hey Steve Jobs had failures too...very few people on this forum will even know about his "Next" computer or the "Lisa" but they preceeded any iPad, iPhone, etc.
On the other side of the coin....Thomas Edison is famously quoted (and perhaps misquoted) as saying when asked about 2,000 failures until finally inventing the light bulb...."I didn't fail. I found 2,000 ways NOT to invent the light bulb."
Edison, Jobs, ....... ?
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The Test Auctions on VSA are needed for two reasons. 1. Because the image slider at the top of the home page needs them to operate properly. 2. For demonstration purposes.
The traffic has very little to do with the test auctions or the auctions in general. The articles on the blog are bringing most of the traffic.
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So, what I understand you’re sayin’ is, “VSA is a great content site like the other storage auctions sites you are running however, it fails to provide the auction services that is was designed for”.
That can’t be correct, right?
Because, if that is correct, being listed so high on the SEO chart is actually a misnomer because it is being listed there because of reasons that it was not designed to be listed there for.
No, somehow that doesn’t sound right.
Please advise…
Well, that shows how little you understand SEO and the way Google ranks websites. Google wants to deliver great sites in their search results. Google encourages webmasters to develop great content. Not only that, great content attracts natural links.
Now, as to your comment "it fails to provide the auction services that is was designed for."
VSA is only 6 months old. Storage Battles has a 2 year head start and they bought out their competitor and assumed a majority of their clients. That competitor (Sealed Online Bids) had a 18 month head start on them. Truth is, Storage Battles has less than 50 storage companies that use their site on a regular basis. Not only that, a majority of their auctions come from 3 companies (One of which is about to switch to Virtual Storage Auction after we make some custom changes to our site for them.)
Sure, we only have a few storage facilities that are currently using the service but I don't see how "it fails to provide the auction services that is was designed for." It takes time to attract storage facilities to online storage auctions. It took Sealed Online Bids several months to attract a following, why would it be any different for us?
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One measure I would be interested in seeing is the percentage of storage facilites that currently use ANY online auction sale technique as opposed to the ten's of thousands who somehow see the "old" (read "tried and true") technique of having a live body talk to other live bodies about buying a unit.
The following figures are hypothetical but may give an idea of the "impact" online storage auctions currently make on the rest of us who go to auctions....whether frequently or infrequently.
(http://webs.lanset.com/rjsmovie/images/auctionstats.jpg)
Remember, the figures used in the spreadsheet above are hypothetical; they use the appx # of storage facilities in the USA (according to the SSA), an easily identifiable number like 1,000 or 100 (or 4) for a number of auction listings on any of the current online auction sources and a simple math equation to show what the percentage of those auctions are as a relationship to the number of facilities available to have auctions one way or the other.
The spreadsheet above does NOT represent the fact that not all facilities even have auctions, etc. It does not have anything to do with "SEO" (search engine optimization) etc. It is simply my assesment of the potential of the business...or possibly the LACK of potential based on what I reasonably believe is the current state of the industry.
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This is really the only storage auction website I visit these days.
The storage battles website for my state seems only to be selling private storage units for those that cant seem to sell there stuff, which is great! Keep the live auctions live and just sell the private lockers.
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Here are the current Alexa ranks for the top 10 storage auction websites. Looks like there has been some movement with several of the sites. Another few months and I think AuctionsTX.com & this forum will surpass Storage Treasures.
(http://i1339.photobucket.com/albums/o701/travis_lane1/Alexa09-10_zpsee710414.png)