uBid Readies Relaunch of BidVille Auction Site with a Twist

Last Updated on Friday, 28 October 2011 03:20 Written by a2e Friday, 28 October 2011 03:20

After a long and at times ugly restructuring, online auction site uBid is poised to open a new ecommerce property, a relaunch of the auction site BidVille slated to go live around Halloween.

BidVille has already stood up a largely vacant website advertising the forthcoming auction marketplace under the tagline "penny auctions redefined."

Long time readers of EcommerceBytes may remember Bidville, founded in 1999 and one of the early P2P online auction sites to compete with eBay. In 2001, Bidville sued PayPal for breach of contract before eBay had even acquired the online payment service.



http://www.auctionbytes.com/cab/abn/y11/m10/i21/s04
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Why eBay Will Never Be Great Again

Last Updated on Friday, 28 October 2011 03:19 Written by a2e Friday, 28 October 2011 03:19

There was a time when eBay (EBAY) was the cool place to shop.

When Tickle Me Elmo dolls, classic vinyl records, and Beanie Babies ran scarce at area retailers, folks would flock to the auction marketplace to see if they could outlast rival bidders to victoriously nab hot items.

This doesn’t mean eBay isn’t popular these days. eBay’s marketplace helped sellers move $14.7 billion in gross merchandise, excluding cars, in its latest quarter. The company’s PayPal juggernaut is now up to 100.3 million active registered accounts, serving as the middleman for $28.7 billion worth of net payments during the second quarter alone.

Bigger isn’t necessarily better, though.

Shares of eBay are trading essentially where they were five years ago. The world has passed eBay by, and the next five years aren’t likely to be much better.



http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/08/24/why-ebay-will-never-be-great-again/
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African Tribal Art Collection for Auction

Last Updated on Tuesday, 30 March 2010 01:40 Written by a2e Tuesday, 30 March 2010 01:40

Dan Morphy Auctions will offer 3,000 lots of antiques from fresh-to-market collections in a May 13-15, 2010 Spring sale. Morphy’s will enter exciting new territory with its offering of more than 300 lots of authentic African tribal art from a 40-year collection amassed by an Ohio private collector.

Among many other featured categories, the auction will also contain 300 lots of antique advertising and coin-operated machines, 250 examples of fine and decorative art, 70 lots of napkin rings, part III of the Pat and Lowell Wagner steam toy/steam engine collection, and an outstanding collection of rare occupational shaving mugs. Additionally, the toy section will incorporate 70 dolls, 30 mechanical banks and 300 lots of early Mattel Hot Wheels vehicles – one of the largest groupings of its type to reach the auction marketplace.

The extensive collection of African art was cataloged by noted specialist dealer and appraiser Oumar Keinde. Keinde confirmed that all of the art in the sale was carved in Africa and is geared mostly toward entry-level buyers or those who wish to decorate their homes or offices with collectible original tribal art. “These items are mostly from the period between1950 and the late 20th century, and are known as ‘original replacements.’ If they were the early originals, they would cost 30 to 50 times as much and would be in museums. While the items in the auction are primarily meant to be decorative, they are still original African artworks and are very collectible.” Keinde noted that the most important articles in the sale include a pair of Central African Songeye shrine artifacts, $5,000-$6,000; a Central African Luba Shankadi mask from Zaire, $2,800-$3,500; a West African Dogon post depicting a couple, $2,400-$2,800; and a West African Bambara warrior shrine piece, $2,800-$3,500. Keinde estimates that 90 percent of the collection consists of African masks, figurines, shrine statues and other artifacts.

All forms of bidding will be available in Dan Morphy’s May 13-15 Spring Auction, including live via the Internet – see Morphy Web site for details, www.morphyauctions.com. For additional information, call 717-335-3435 or e-mail dan@morphyauctions.com

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Liquidation.com Redesigns Its Online Auction Marketplace

Last Updated on Wednesday, 24 February 2010 12:15 Written by a2e Wednesday, 24 February 2010 12:15

Liquidation.com, the leading online auction marketplace for bulk lots of surplus merchandise from top retailers, warehouse clubs and manufacturers, today announced the relaunch of its website at www.liquidation.com. Featuring a streamlined design and an improved range of new features, the new site provides prospective buyers with faster, easier access to the merchandise most relevant to their inventory needs.

“We are extremely pleased to offer our professional buying customers a significantly enhanced experience on Liquidation.com,” said Rob Caskey, Vice President of Marketing for Liquidation.com. “We’ve made the site easier to use by giving our buyers more – and more relevant – ways to access the products they want. At the same time, we’ve introduced a host of features and enhancements that provide our customers greater transparency and more information to make well-informed buying decisions.”

Some of the most significant changes and improvements to the site include:

An enhanced search algorithm and search refinement tools that allow users to filter results by geography, price, size classification and a range of other criteria;
Personalized product recommendations throughout the site based on buyers’ past browsing and purchase behavior;
The introduction of seller performance reports on auction view pages and in search results, which provide buyers with objective information about a seller’s history on the Liquidation.com platform;
A streamlined bid path, allowing users to place their bids more quickly and easily; and
More images per auction and a utility that offers quick access to significantly larger images;
“The redesign of Liquidation.com was driven by our core values of customer focus and relentless improvement, and embraces the great feedback that we’ve received from our nearly 1.3 million registered users,” said Caskey. “As a result, buyers are able to more deeply engage with Liquidation.com, as evidenced by the fact that we’ve already seen improvement of more than 30% for many of the key buyer participation metrics.”

Liquidation.com works with seven of the top 10 U.S. retailers, two of the top three U.S. online retailers, two of the top three U.S. warehouse clubs, and more than 460 large and middle market retailers, manufacturers and distributors to sell surplus, overstock and consumer returned merchandise. Auction sizes range from truckload, pallet, small package and single units, and product conditions range from new to consumer returned and salvage. Nearly 1.3 million registered buyers source inventory and merchandise from www.liquidation.com.

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