Storage Battles Raising Buyer's Premium To 15%

Hello All:

I have been reading all of your postings on our new program and the combining of our 2 sites, StorageBattles and StorageTreasures.  I truly respect all of your thoughts and comments.  I think that there might be some misunderstandings on the benefits of the new program.  Hopefully, Travis will allow me to explain the costs and additional benefits that we are trying to offer.  The last thing we want is to alienate our buyers, who are very important to us and make us successful.  We are now performing over 5000 auctions a month, and want to keep our buyers happy.

The combination of both sites will allow buyers to utilize online auctions as well as our onsite auctions listings.  To facilitate this very labor intensive exercise, we have hired 4 people to review onsite listings across the country and Canada and consolidate them into one list for the Treasure Hunter, hopefully saving them time and money.  The Basic plan will still be free to see a limited amount of onsite auctions and unlimited online auctions, but the premium for online auctions will unfortunatly increase to 15%.  We are not trying to gorge our clients, and hence have offered a Pro Plan which has many new and exciting benefits that will out weigh the costs of the program.

For a better savings and many more benefits there is the Pro plan for only $10/month, or about the cost of a cup of coffee.  Some of the benefits are:
1.  Reduced buyers premium of 10%.  (If you buy $200 worth of online auctions per month this savings pays for your membership)
2.  Unlimited views of onsite auctions anywhere in the United States and Canada
3.  Unlimited views of online auctions anywhere in the United States and Canada
4.  Unlimited postings in our new Treasure Chest option, your own online store!  This will allow you to trade, buy, sell, and appraise items that you have won in a storage unit or have from other purchase avenues to our over 800,000 registered buyers.  (I think this is what Auctionguy was talking about in his post)
5.  20 free pictures per posting for your Treasure Chest online store in order to help you dispose of or purchase items
6.  A 50% to 100% discount on our Storage Wars Pro Training Video and EBook series (up to a $297 savings)
7.  Free auctions and sales emails and alerts to all of our Members

As you can see, there are many benefits to becoming part of our Membership community for only $10/month.  What we are trying to do is create a social media community that will allow everybody to be even more productive and profitable.

I wish everybody the best in their auctions purchases and welcome you to at least try the new services for only $1.00.  When you register, just type in Promo code ONEDOLLAR and see if it's worth it.  I'd love to hear your feedback as we are always striving to make our site better.

Respectfully,

Jim Grant

online auctions are a godsend for me. because of the crapp pictures i just got 2 units for $400 total. the washer and dryer in the $120 unit will pay for the whole thing and tons of other great stuff. (could see the washer dryer from the door but not in the pictures).

Storagetreasures was a bad investment, you bought complete trash. Just shut that site down lay off all those idiots and focus on your real business storagebattles. Also fix the ****ty interface on it.

1) it really sucks that you cant click on an auction and have it pop up in a new tab.
2) stop displaying auctions in a random order, its annoying.
3) get rid of the buyers premium and just charge the facility 10% of the sales price, instead of the member.
4) storing credit card information is just stupid to begin with. Major companies get hacked, what makes you think you are safe you have a fraction of the resources.

Hopefully, travis will be kind to leave this measage up too, he normally deletes all my cranky replies.

Hopefully, travis will be kind to leave this measage up too, he normally deletes all my cranky replies.

My delete button isn't working today.   

Constructive Criticism - I dislike Storage Battles site - mostly.. I find Storage Treasures at best distracting..   I'm looking for online auctions mostly..

o Keep up with the email alerts you send out about the auctions ending this week I like that..   

o Give me some way of searching for unit by when they end, where they are located, Maybe even set watches for certain facilities.

o When an Auction is canceled maybe, just maybe have a way I can see which one it was. Would avoid me haveing to keep notes.

o Use some sort of ranking system for facilities, users, I'm not even sure how this will work, I'd like to see some way of knowing if the facility has had a lot of SET UP or BAD units, and if they buyer is actually paying for their units or just driving bids up and not paying for units he wins.

o Maybe since you are an auction site to begin with, I wind up with a lot of small items, could something be hosted to do auctions like ebay, where buyers could pick up locally.  something like maxanet.com offers..
 
o Maybe a mobile app, It is hard to be around when auctions close and using the website via the phone can be hard.

Thanks for taking the time to consider a few changes.
George

Storagetreasures was a bad investment, you bought complete trash. Just shut that site down lay off all those idiots and focus on your real business storagebattles. Also fix the ****ty interface on it.

Stop holding back and tell us what you really think. 

I don't like the idea of dumping the Storage Battles name in favor of Storage Treasures. I have only bought once from Storage Battles but was considering it for future. I most likely will not buy now that it is going to be Storage Treasures. I never did like their site, their membership and pro training series just seemed like any other program, ie "how to make it big in real estate" or any other number of get rich quick schemes where the only person making money is the one selling the program. The forum on Storage Treasures is not very active at all and the site just seemed like it was trying to ride the coat-tails of the show's popularity instead of providing a real useful service. I am guessing as well that most everything in the pro training series can be learned by just going out and buying units. Buy with logic and what you can see and leave emotion out of it and chances are you will do fine. After buying and selling a few units and coming to free forums like this one, you already have or can get all the information you need for free. Just my 2 cents.

I am guessing as well that most everything in the pro training series can be learned by just going out and buying units. Buy with logic and what you can see and leave emotion out of it and chances are you will do fine. After buying and selling a few units and coming to free forums like this one, you already have or can get all the information you need for free. Just my 2 cents.

It think you hit the nail on the head. This isn't a difficult business to learn as long as you have common sense. Plus, I think the storage auction reality shows have taught the public the basics. Notice how rare it is that someone asks a question in the Newbie Center these days.

I don't like the idea of dumping the Storage Battles name in favor of Storage Treasures.

Especially since it was "Storage Battles" that was used on the Simpson's Episode.

I don't like the idea of dumping the Storage Battles name in favor of Storage Treasures.

Jim, if you recall, I expressed my concerns about this. (1) You're losing your brand recognition. (2) There will be integration issues, lost customers, etc. I think Storage Treasures is going to turn a lot of people off because it's getting overly complicated. People (especially storage unit buyers) want this: 

Especially since it was "Storage Battles" that was used on the Simpson's Episode.

Pretty sure they just picked a name which was synonymous with Storage Wars. Had they of known that the name was associated with 2 businesses, they probably would have avoided using it. There's a game which uses the name Storage Battles as well. 

I totally love simple... Attention deficit Disorder kicks in and I get lost when I log in..  Except for on here I have never heard of ST..

I think Storage Treasures is going to turn a lot of people off because it's getting overly complicated.

It looks like Storage Treasures' users agree. I just came across the following comments on their own site:

"well my first thought is this sucks to navigate. Doesnt show where the unit facility is for online bidding so who knows where it is. Trying to find todays auctions and i cant so im done. It used to be easy to find auctions on this site but not any more."

"Ya, I agree with Harvey Pj, the site is now extremely difficult to use. I use to be able to click on the province of my choice and it would display all of the auctions. Now, what I find is, I end up at the online auction portion of the website and can't find the auction listings for my area. Is this just an online auction site now? Surely we have auctions up in Canada, but if so, how the heck do I find them now?"

"i have not been on here for a while now im limited to how many auctions i can view... are you serious?"

"I'm in TX and I don't see any for me here- guess wasted my time & money on this one. Hopefully maybe the Treasure Chest will pay off is noting else. Guess I'll get some stuff listed this week. Navigating this site is not a easy task... Ughhhh"

"I am brand new and cant figure it out at all"

"how do i cancel monthly payments for the PRO bidding?"

"I agree with others, you're trying to tell me all the auctions, all over the world has ended, not buying it. See ya later"

"Site is very difficult to use. Doesn't have name or location of storage units. Need to fix this site"


Jim, your user base is sending you a message. That's the price a business pays for putting quantity before quality. 

Travis:

I agree the new site is more difficult than the old one, but we are moving from a Yuga to a BMW.  Many more options and benefits.  It's like getting a new cel phone, it will take a few weeks to get the hang of using it.  But when you do, you will wonder how you ever lived without it and never want to go back.

As for the posts, most of them were very old, before we took over the StorageTreasure's site, and tried to simplify it.  I think in time, people will like it.  Hopefully, but what do I know.  Feedback from sites like this tell me more.

As for George's suggestions last week, most were in development currently, but one was not which we have added to our development list.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Travis:

I agree the new site is more difficult than the old one, but we are moving from a Yuga to a BMW.  Many more options and benefits.  It's like getting a new cel phone, it will take a few weeks to get the hang of using it.  But when you do, you will wonder how you ever lived without it and never want to go back.

As for the posts, most of them were very old, before we took over the StorageTreasure's site, and tried to simplify it.  I think in time, people will like it.  Hopefully, but what do I know.  Feedback from sites like this tell me more.

As for George's suggestions last week, most were in development currently, but one was not which we have added to our development list.  Thanks for the suggestion.

Are you sure you're the person that owns Storagebattles? Cause you sound like a complete idiot.  I just find it hard to believe a person that built a decent company, is so out of touch. Who's feeding you that information, it's not the customer and why are you listening to them.

1) Does Amazon, Ebay, or any other marketplace charge the "BUYER" a "FEE" to "BUY"?  They all charge the "SELLER", there is a reason for that, do you think you're smarter then those companies?

2) You overpaid for StorageTreasures, people already know the current goto place for auctions is "StorageBattles.com" You already built up brand recognition.  Don't be silly and change that - All the facilities already know what to put in the Public Notices. 

3) Retire the StorageTreasures site and gimmicks - Cut your losses, it didn't work for them, that's why they were eager to sell.

4) Just make some minor enhancements to "Storage Battles" - Stop using Javascript to re-redirect the post back and allow users to right click on a link and select "Open in new tab" (Should take any coder, like 10 mins)

5) Stop randomizing the order of the auctions - It makes me lose track of what auctions I seen and didn't see. This way I don't miss something I didn't see. (Should take any coder, like 10 mins)

6) That's it, that's all you need to do, 20 minutes of work, everything else is simple and easy. Then all you need to do is get more facilities signed up and grow that business and get 10% from the facilities. All you do is invoice them once a month and collect a check.

7) You then only need a website admin, a billing person, a developer, and a sales team. Everything else just get rid of.