posted 08-11-2010 06:10 PM               

We would like to gauge the interest in a site like this so our question would be are there consignors out there? How much of a nominal flat fee would you think we should charge to make it attractive to consignors? It will certainly be less than eBay.

Please let us know. If we get a positive response we will consider getting it set-up.

posted 08-11-2010 11:34 PM               

However, I think the listing fee should be a little lower...or there could be a scaled approach (such as $0.50 for items starting under $50, $1.00 for items between $50-$100, $2.00 for items between $100-$200, etc.) to listing fees. Perhaps add $2.00 to any listing fee with a reserve.

posted 08-12-2010 12:09 AM               

I would avoid any listing fees but concentrate on selling fees like Amazon is doing. Certainly this attracts also not so attractive (too expensive) offers on the other hand but I still believe to be long term successful vs. eBay you need to alter their fee model (which turns out to be more and more outrageous in fees).

Also I probably don't need to tell you (and I don't know the legal situation in the US) as you ran auctions before, but keep the legal situation of online auctions in mind. I spoke to a lawyer here several years ago about this and it's a no-go in Germany. Too many traps with online auctions. Sad but true.

posted 08-12-2010 02:21 AM               

If sales are too low and there are listing fees of any kind then soon enough sellers will stop listing and the site dies.

Of course the downside of free listings is that a site can soon fill up with ever-relisting items that no-one is interested in or listed at prices that no-one is currently willing to pay.

Not easy to find the right approach.

I think it could defintely work though. A steady flow of sought-after items of the kind Donnis currently lists on eBay every couple of weeks would help.

Donnis might also be able to avoid the sky-high costs of running his live auctions by selling those training-used items in a steady trickle through the new auction site.

That gain alone may be enough to make it financially viable for Donnis.

posted 08-12-2010 02:57 AM               

However AA was not alone, consider all the other auction sites running against eBay, they all closed down ultimately or focused on other things finally.

Without moving too far away from Donnis question ultimately "time" is the simple answer. Most collectors just don't have the time to scan multiple auction sites, stay 24/7/365 online on Facebook, participate in the forums etc etc etc. - that's why they focus on one big player - eBay (in addition to the many bidders not exclusively collecting space who jump into the bidding here and then). It's not the fees, authenticity, offers etc., it's simply "time" for most of us.

So I would suggest to Donnis not to focus too much on fees, but rather ask the questions:

• is the auction software easy for Donnis to handle, how much time does he want to spend each day maintaining it?
  
• What can be done to attract bidders and sellers other than zero or no fees?
  (how about a reverse auction module?)
  
• what other things could make such an auction interesting for people to come back and back again and prefer over eBay?

posted 08-12-2010 12:12 PM               

No listing fees encourages people to re-list items endlessly. That dilutes the auction in several ways.

• It forces bidders to wade through the same stuff over and over again to seek out "new" stuff.
• It makes the unique and interesting items harder to find.
• It doesn't establish any incentive for sellers to set reasonable prices in order to ensure that items sell within the first round or two.

Even if a listing fee reduces seller traffic a little, it will ultimately keep the auction more "fresh" for everyone involved. New listings won't be stuck in a sea of "stagnant" items.

posted 08-12-2010 04:20 PM            

Kim even had rare items from the astronauts collections listed on his Astro Auction. Again not enough to help his doomed auction site.

posted 08-12-2010 04:35 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Playalinda:
Not enough traffic on his astro auction. Also I believe the starting prices were quite high...

---

I often saw quite a few people "watching" certain auctions, but I think the high starting bids tended to create a disincentive for people to bid. It did seem essentially like a place for sellers to "take a flyer" on selling items at their top prices (or above, in many cases).

Items listed by Kim himself, including the garage sale items, signed items, and artwork, usually started out at reasonable prices, which I thought was nice.

However, many starting bids for some other sellers' items were already above the price I would pay for that item -- and usually, those things just got re-listed over... and over... and over again.

All that having been said, I would certainly be interested in participating in a new Lunar Legacies auction format. I would definitely recommend steering it away from being a place for sellers to simply try to sell stuff at max starting bids (not sure how to do that)...

How about this idea: Have the fee start at $XX (whatever the right amount is), and then have the fee drop for every 3 bids placed on an item down to the minimum sale charge of $YY. That way, sellers are rewarded for placing reasonable starting bids on items.

Only thing is, you would have to stipulate that if a reserve is used then it must be clearly stated exactly how much the reserve is in the auction description -- otherwise, sellers will put up an Armstrong WSS at a $0.01 starting price with a $7500 reserve just to get lots of bids -- thereby wasting everyone's time in the process.

posted 08-13-2010 02:45 AM               

Listing fees:

• Any item starting at $1: FREE
  
• Any item starting from $1-$200: $1.00
  
• Any item starting over $200: $2.00
  
• Adding a reserve to your auction: $3.00

posted 08-13-2010 07:03 AM               

I think the sliding scale is worth considering.

AA was a good site but the reserves were too high in many cases. A auction site tied into your website/auction listings may be a good combination.

posted 08-13-2010 09:57 AM               

On the other hand the frequently-raised issue of items on AA being listed with too high starting prices of reserves has to be looked at in context.

On eBay you have many people listing items that (a) they don't know the true value of and (b) that they themselves paid little or nothing for.

It is that context that allows sellers to list at low starting prices with no reserve, and which provides buyers with frequent chances to get bargains.

Astro-Auction, and any replacement, is a very different environment. The sellers are either dealers or collectors and therefore know how valuable the items they're offering are. In most cases they will have paid a significant sum for the item - for collectors this will sometimes be more than current the 'going rate', for dealers generally less, but in any case rarely nothing.

You can't really expect a collector who has paid $1000 for an item a few years ago to sell it at auction 99c with no reserve. The risk is just too great.

posted 08-13-2010 12:22 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by yeknom-ecaps:
Would suggest a re-listing fee to prevent "forever" auctions because of too high a price/reserve. Don't charge the re-listing fee if it sells (replace with sale fee)

---

posted 08-13-2010 12:31 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by spaced out:
You can't really expect a collector who has paid $1000 for an item a few years ago to sell it at auction 99c with no reserve. The risk is just too great.

---

I definitely see your point and agree with what you're saying, but I think a $2.00 listing fee for an item with an expensive starting price isn't too much to ask. For a $1000 item, that's only 0.2% of the item's value. It's much cheaper than mailing the item to a major auction house and paying their fees.

Perhaps one free re-listing per item would be a good idea...which would encourage a lower asking price for the second attempt. Any further listings are subject to listing fees.

posted 08-13-2010 12:50 PM               

But, I believe where you could differentiate yourself Donnis is by having a way to avoid sniping.

My biggest issue with eBay is that if I put up a valuable item, it might not get any bids until the last 30 seconds. And, by that time, there is no time to raise the bids.

If you can develop software that extends an auction by just even one minute, or two minutes each time a bid is placed at the end of the auction, then I think you will have a competitive advantage over eBay.

Sniping is such a problem. How many times have you lost out on an item on eBay by a dollar when someone comes in at the last two seconds? If you had a way to extend the timer, the auctions would be more fair to the buyers and consignors.

posted 08-13-2010 01:18 PM               

A bargain on eBay may mean a guy who paid a postage stamp for an Armstrong signature in 1976 gets $500 for it today. A similar 'bargain' on AA means a fellow collector or dealer has probably lost a serious amount of money.

posted 08-13-2010 03:03 PM               

Another potential problem to consider is people completing their transactions outside of the auction...as a way to circumvent any of the after-sale fees. That probably wasn't a huge concern with Astro Auction, since there were no fees. But it could be a concern at this type of an auction (especially in a setting where most people already know each other and can freely communicate outside of the auction). There may be two possible ways to prevent this type of behavior:

• Charge an early termination fee to a seller who ends an auction before the original posted ending time.
• Only allow the auction moderator to terminate an auction early...and only after the seller provides a legitimate reason for doing so.

posted 08-13-2010 03:38 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by spaced out:
I was pointing out that sellers on AA know more-or-less what their items are worth, so enormous bargains are not be expected.

---

posted 08-13-2010 05:38 PM               

So having said all that, it may take me another couple of months or so to get all the kinks out of the new eBay type auction site. I will try to address most of the points brought up in the discussion so far.

My goal is to make the new auction site as simple as possible, but still effective and efficient. I agree that some sort of nominal listing fee is necessary, and I especially like the suggestion of the graduated fee schedule to discourage over-pricing and endless re-listing for personal advertisement. I don’t know all the capabilities of the software, but I figure I can eventually hit all the right buttons to set it up to do that. A reasonable listing fee together with a reasonable final value fee will be fine, as long as the final total to the seller is considerably more attractive than eBay's current fees. Can the software do calculations to make the combined listing fee and final value fee come out to some predetermined percentage? Do I even want to have that happen? I don’t know yet.

Additional fees: I have to think about other possible fees such as bold print, highlighted auctions, 3, 10 or 20 day auctions, gobs of pictures, etc. The vast majority of the auctions will be standard and the same, but maybe having an option for enhancement will be useful. What should I charge for that stuff if anything? A remote server will be storing the auction pics and info, but will they charge me extra for the enhancements? I don’t know yet.

Reserves: As many of you already know, I don’t have reserves in my main auctions, but replace them with minimum bids - bidders know where they stand immediately. Reserves are a waste of time too. However, I suppose reserves will have to come into play in the new site in some way. I gotta think about that. Maybe I should just consider any reserve as the starting price for the listing fee calculation.

Sniping: I think a one minute extension will be plenty of time.

Disputes: I really, really don’t want to be an arbiter of every little dispute, especially since I have very little time, but realize that I may have to do so in some way, because eventually one or two will come up. I can guess that I will have the ability to head off some potential disputes by deleting auctions with forged signatures or banning sellers with a history of bad behavior and things such as that. Like eBay, there will certainly be a feedback system that will help. Can sellers end an auction early for free, maybe because they sold the item through a private email exchange? Yes they can, but is there a small fee associated? I don’t know yet. I hate little fees and will try to avoid that if possible.

Categories: Two main categories I suppose: Space and Everything Else. Under the Space category, how about subcategories by program such as Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, etc. Or maybe by the type of item, Patches, Manuals, Autographs, etc. The Everything Else category will be of course anything not space-related. Maybe an Aviation section as well? More to think about and I welcome suggestions.

posted 08-31-2010 10:00 PM               

The seller could choose which way to pay, a big sum up front and list as much as they want or fees per each item.

posted 09-14-2010 12:27 PM               

I hope you can do something similar.