Storage Auctions
Online Storage Auctions => Online Storage Auctions => Topic started by: truedaystar on November 03, 2014, 08:22:42 AM
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I logged in this morning and got notice about ending times being extended... Sure I have lost auctions because of this last minute snipping... but It's all fair that way.. I don't really like the extended times.. All I can see that doing is driving up my costs...
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I know huh, it's good if you're selling, but bad if you're buying. They're like the anti-eBay site, where eBay caters to the buyers these type of sites cater to the seller.
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All it takes for an auctioneer to say "going once, twice, sold" is less then 10 seconds..
So their pretend excuse is flawed, buy advancing the timer 3 minutes.
In a real auction settings, the auctioneer, just wants to move through the lockers as fast as possible, fill out the paperwork, and go home.
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I have to agree here, I am very worried about SB switching to this soft close junk. And like someone else said, it only benefits the sellers. Will be interesting to see how much this affects the prices. I have gotten some great online units for cheap.
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I for one will be OUT... I'm not into this soft close thing at all.. They have lost my buyers fees...
I like things to be over when they are over... It also takes the fun and skill out it..
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Does SB have live, in-page updates if you're viewing the auction and someone else bids? How do you know the soft-close has kicked in, unless you refresh the page?
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@ebids
Yeah, the countdown timer was always counting down on the page. But I never bid on an auction yet in the new system to see how it reacts.
And besides, I buy units online and since I buy units online, I make Facilities and SB monies.
I refuse to sign up to your site, until you allow guest to view active auctions on your site. I'm also guessing you conceal that information, because you most likely don't have very many active actions.
When you change your site, you'll have one more active bidder. But you'll have to PM - Because I won't even look to see.
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FYI - not sure if you got it was SB... Oh well time to get off my ... and get to live auctions now.. The whole point of a Proxy bid is so you don't get out bid a the end... Now people could just run you up to be running you up..
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I refuse to sign up to your site, until you allow guest to view active auctions on your site. I'm also guessing you conceal that information, because you most likely don't have very many active actions.
We're not trying to conceal anything, we're just using a different strategy to present only auctions that are relevant to each user. We're requiring users to login so we can show them auctions close to them, and only those auctions. We think it makes for a faster, cleaner, and easier user experience instead of showing auctions in Colorado on the homepage to a user in Miami. We're just localizing, that's all.
But we appreciate your feedback and respect your opinion.
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I think iBid4Storage uses a soft close as well. There is no doubt that soft closes benefit the seller.
Different auctions require different sales styles and techniques, which is why we allow buy it now, make offer, reserve bids, etc. We actually included an optional soft close into our code, but we haven't enabled it yet. Ultimately, I think the seller should have the right to choose which auction style is best for them.
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We're not trying to conceal anything, we're just using a different strategy to present only auctions that are relevant to each user. We're requiring users to login so we can show them auctions close to them, and only those auctions. We think it makes for a faster, cleaner, and easier user experience instead of showing auctions in Colorado on the homepage to a user in Miami. We're just localizing, that's all.
But we appreciate your feedback and respect your opinion.
You can localize off IP and if they sign up and willing to give you additional information like a zip code that's fine then localize off the zip.
By preventing people from accessing your site, you have the be the most uneducated site owner in the world. You are also prevent search engines from crawling additional content pages, which also prevents you from getting organic traffic. This prevents you from acquiring new customers at a faster rate..
It's just retarded in my opinion..
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By preventing people from accessing your site, you have the be the most uneducated site owner in the world.
Confucius says: Use proper grammar when insulting someone's intelligence.
Not really, I just made that up. ;D
You are also prevent search engines from crawling additional content pages, which also prevents you from getting organic traffic. This prevents you from acquiring new customers at a faster rate..
His site is relatively new and it's safe to assume that there aren't a lot of auctions listed at this time. There's nothing wrong with that though. Heck, we're the largest storage auction website in the world and it's been difficult for us to attract storage clients. That being said, having a few auction pages crawled (which will likely never be indexed anyway due to their thin content) pales in comparison to the higher than average conversion rate I'm sure he has.
Requiring registration upfront is actually a smart move on his part. This way, he captures the contact information of almost every visitor. If I would have implemented the same strategy on OSA a year ago, we'd probably have a 100K more registered users today.
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my issue as a seller is that its an indefinite 3 minute extension. If I am posting multiple auctions and they all end within 10 minutes of each other I'm losing bidders to my second auction because they will be too busy hitting refresh to see if the extension has been activated.
My issue as a bidder is that a 3 minute extension is ridiculous. If an auctioneer waited 3 minutes after the last bid to close it no one would show up to their auctions any more.
They will learn the lesson and switch back soon enough.
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These are good points. The auctions on eBID Storage Auctions have live data in the page, no refresh needed. Maybe a 15 second "Going Once..." period if a bid is placed within the last 15 seconds would by a good compromise. I'm not sure how much very-last-second bidding takes place. Obviously SB has data that shows it happens enough to try and capitalize on that action for their sellers.
Who knows if the long extension time would cause an auction close to bleed into the next one. My guess is this would be rare.
It will be really interesting to see if eBID's upcoming mobile app creates more last-minute bidding.
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my issue as a seller is that its an indefinite 3 minute extension. If I am posting multiple auctions and they all end within 10 minutes of each other I'm losing bidders to my second auction because they will be too busy hitting refresh to see if the extension has been activated.
My issue as a bidder is that a 3 minute extension is ridiculous. If an auctioneer waited 3 minutes after the last bid to close it no one would show up to their auctions any more.
They will learn the lesson and switch back soon enough.
I agree, very good points. I hadn't considered the impact soft closes would have on other auctions.
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Heck, we're the largest storage auction website in the world and it's been difficult for us to attract storage clients.
You have a different definition of largest then I do. SB is the largest, everyone else has no auctions.
You have the largest Storage Auction Forum Website, where 80% of the new topics were started by yourself in the last year.
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You have a different definition of largest then I do. SB is the largest, everyone else has no auctions.
You have the largest Storage Auction Forum Website, where 80% of the new topics were started by yourself in the last year.
The auctions are just a small part of this site. SB has a few dozen permanent pages, the other several hundred pages are auctions which appear one day and are deleted a week later. We have over 75K pages of permanent content and we're adding over a quarter million more pages this month when our auction schedule goes live. So yeah, I guess my definition of largest is different than yours.
And yes, I do come up most of the new topics, which is probably why our forum isn't stagnant like the others in our niche.
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The auctions are just a small part of this site. SB has a few dozen permanent pages, the other several hundred pages are auctions which appear one day and are deleted a week later. We have over 75K pages of permanent content and we're adding over a quarter million more pages this month when our auction schedule goes live. So yeah, I guess my definition of largest is different than yours.
And yes, I do come up most of the new topics, which is probably why our forum isn't stagnant like the others in our niche.
# of pages of content is not the measurement that business people use to equate value. Market Cap of a company is what determines value, which is driven by financial statements.
I'm sure the site with the most revenue in this ONLINE Storage auction business, and therefore the most largest is SB.
Also, since you pretty much single handily keep this forum going and you are the most active poster and topic starter (but you're going to run out of material too) - This forum I do consider stagnant - It's not dead, but it's not growing. Comparing your stats, their's less and less activity on these forums on the year over year basis. So it's shrinking, it's in the declining phase.
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# of pages of content is not the measurement that business people use to equate value. Market Cap of a company is what determines value, which is driven by financial statements.
Don't try to spin this. We're talking about which site is larger, not which one makes more money. We're a free site/service, of course they make more money.
I'm sure the site with the most revenue in this ONLINE Storage auction business, and therefore the most largest is SB.
That has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. That's like saying a bottle of Evian contains more water than an ocean simply because it sells for more. A site's size has nothing to do with it's revenue.
This forum I do consider stagnant - It's not dead, but it's not growing. Comparing your stats, their's less and less activity on these forums on the year over year basis. So it's shrinking, it's in the declining phase.
You're way off again. Interest in storage auctions has been on the decline for years; However, OSA is actually growing in a declining market. As a matter of fact, traffic increased by 25,000 visitors last month alone and when the auction schedule goes live this month, our traffic should double, even triple. I assure you, we're not shrinking. Between new articles, forum posts and blog comments, we're growing at a rate equivalent to a hundred articles a month.
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I guess if people Don't like the Soft Close, the buyers will go elsewhere... Stop buying online and then where does that leave them??? Don't confuse this topic with a MINE is bigger than your game.. This is a real issue that will cost all of us time and money in the long run!
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Don't confuse this topic with a MINE is bigger than your game..
Thanks for keeping us in check... ;)
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You're way off again. Interest in storage auctions has been on the decline for years; However, OSA is actually growing in a declining market. As a matter of fact, traffic increased by 25,000 visitors last month alone and when the auction schedule goes live this month, our traffic should double, even triple. I assure you, we're not shrinking. Between new articles, forum posts and blog comments, we're growing at a rate equivalent to a hundred articles a month.
It's your forum stats..
http://onlinestorageauctions.com/forum/stats/
2013 - 33,471,656 (Page views)
2014 - 7,425,131 (page Views)
2013 - 10,015 (Posts)
2014 - 5355 (Posts)
2013 - 630 New Members
2014 - 280 New Member
Granted you got 2 months left.. But lets not kid ourselves - It's in the decline - even you can't contest you own stats, oh wait, yeah you again. Because you'll spin this... Saying well we got a blog or another portion of the site making up for the declining traffic on the forum.
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Luke, there are a lot of factors that influence those metrics and it's not fair to make an assumption like that without considering them all.
There is no arguing that the forum's activity has declined, but it's not just our forum, it's the industry as a whole. In November 2010, this industry underwent a boom which was brought on by the storage auction reality shows. Nowadays, interest in storage auctions is near what it was before storage auctions were thrust into the limelight. You didn't think the "gold rush" would last forever did you?
Now, some of the stats you see in the info center are accurate, while others are way off. Luke, you know that, you own a SMF forum as well. New topics and posts are accurate. New member stats are influenced by a number of factors, one of which being how aggressive the admin/mods are against spam registrations. Most online and page views are completely inaccurate since there isn't a way for us to tell real users from bots and spiders.
Now, take a look at the monthly page views and see if you can tell when they plummeted. February & March 2014 right? Know what other event corresponds with that date? The forum, which was StorageAuctionForums.com, was moved to OnlineStorageAuctions.com. Even though we did a site wide 301 redirect, a lot of the old content wasn't re-indexed by the search engines. It was an unfortunate but necessary side effect. I knew it would take time to completely recover, but moving the forum to OSA was crucial to the site's growth. But don't let those numbers fool you, our visitors and page views are at an all time high.
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:72:
Got the email that they disabled the soft close feature... Hope it stays that way.. So much easier to bid from my computer....
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:72:
Got the email that they disabled the soft close feature... Hope it stays that way.. So much easier to bid from my computer....
Imagine that. We should start a thread about their logo and see if they change that too. :043:
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Imagine that. We should start a thread about their logo and see if they change that too. :043:
I like their Logo....
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I like their Logo....
I was just using that as an example. Their logo is okay. I don't see where the antique style padlock with the keyhole in the side fits in, but to each his own. At least it isn't a copy of the logo which seems to be prevalent in the industry. Oh wait, it's about to be!
I wonder who ripped who off - Store It All Self Storage or Storage Treasures?