Hi everyone
I am new to here. I like this forum so far. I have an auction online. people list and sale for free. I am not sure how to market the site. I donot have a huge budget for ads too. Any though can be helpful.

I don't mean to deflate you, but frankly I wouldn't start an online auction generally. The only way you can possibly compete with the likes of Ebay is if you get into a niche that is either being under served, or not served at all, by Ebay. For example, when Ebay banned guns, it created an opportunity for others to create a marketplace. Craigslist isn't an auction,but is another example of a service growing in niches that are under served by Ebay.

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Peter T Davis
Frixer, Inc.
Helping people make profitible businesses on the web.

I agree with Peter. Only way you could ever possibly compete with Ebay is to offer everything free of charge

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Thx for your visit and reply. You are all talking about the fact. Now, it maybe not the right time to operating a brand new auction site now. But, my site already there from 2002. I will keep working on it. However, good marketing is what the site require now. Any thogu would be thankful.
My site is down for transfer to a new server. it will be up soon. i will post my url here when it done.

hi everyone,
Just finish moving our site to new server. I would like to invite everyone to take a look.

Any though.

http://www.bidmonkey.com

I am thinking post my ads on local news paper and local university news paper. in the market place or category. Did anyone use this to ads their online business? does this ways is good?

thanks
http://www.bidmonkey.com

It would be very difficult to make this business a profitable enterprise. It's impossible to compete with the likes of Ebay. However, one way to make it work would be to become a highly specialized auction service. Focus on specific collectibles, art, or the like. In which case I would find marketing sources that focus on your specialty.

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Keith Haig
Haig Consulting
http://www.haigconsulting.com

I agree, you can't compete with Ebay but you can certainly use them. Promote a local service that will inventory items and then create auctions for them on Ebay. You can then setup your own site that would provide Ebay affiliate links to your customers and other listigs in the area.

I may not be the smartest monkey in the zoo, but I believe it IS possible to take on E-Bay. Just don't try to do it on a global scale. Think locally. Look in the Sunday paper. How many people have classified ads posted there? Give them an alternative. Play up local delivery. "Many of our customers will deliver right to your door." "Don't pay E-Bay for insurance. Go get your auction items right down the street." Just brainstorming here. Are you going to topple E-Bay? Probably not, but do you really want to work with millions of dollars of venture capitol and wait years for a profit? Get local stores to put items up for auction at a discount. Put items up yourself. I hate it when people say you can't take on a big company. I'm typing this on a computer running Linux. Talk about taking on the big guys!

I wish you the best of luck.

Jason
http://databuilders.net

P.S. Mind if I ask what software you are using to run your site? I'd like to review auction software on my site. Thanks.

Just wanted to clarify my position here.

Focusing locally is not "Taking on" anything, it's just focusing locally. Think of a corner store market and a chain of supermarkets. The corner store is not even in a class to compete or take on the chain and even though it is focused locally the chain still dominates the local market. Does this mean the corner store should close up shop? Only if it is operating at a loss. Since its expenses are considerably lower, the corner store can still operate on the customers it does get because the cost of doing business is lower.

I think classified ads are a good place to start only because you can focus your marketing. For instance, asking people why they took out the ad as opposed to Ebay would yield tremenedous benefit in focusing your services and discovering your niche. The good thing about the classified ads is the contact information is already printed. Get a book on putting together suveys and either mail or call people to find out why they didn't use Ebay. You could even post an ad in the classifieds section asking for poeple that posted the ads to call you and receive a dollar for completing your survey, because after paying to have an ad you can be sure that they are going to look at it. Who doesn't?