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Show HN: Sell your stuff for more money with less hassle
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- bunkat 14y agoHi, we created BidKat to make selling things locally a little bit easier. Works alongside existing sites and services instead of being a replacement to take advantage of existing network effects. Would love to get any feedback on the site and am happy to answer any questions.
- binarysolo 14y agoWait, so I know people on Craigslist aren't linking an eBay Buy-It-Now w/ offer listings to sell their stuff -- I'm assuming CL gets unhappy about that. What's the differentiator between BidKat and that option?
- bunkat 14y agoFirst of all, we work with any service (Twitter, Facebook, even bulletin boards) so it isn't just CL - though admittedly it works well there. BidKat just provides additional information about an auction like many people already add to the CL listings. We don't do payment processing between parties and people don't pay us to create an auction. We also are not a competing listing service, we offer no ability to search our auctions - they have to be advertised separately. Hopefully these things differentiate us enough.
- joshlegs 14y ago>so it isn't just CL, though admittedly it works well there. Just out of curiosity, have you tested this or is this just supposition? It was the first thought that came to mind when I read about bidkat (posting it on CL, that is). I would just wonder whether people viewing the posts on CL actually click to go to another site?
- username3 14y agohttps://www.bidkat.com/i/9uDYAKBS https://www.bidkat.com/i/9uDYAKBS
- briandear 14y agoSo it's kind of like ebay with a way more awesome UI?
- bunkat 14y agoAnd free :) Main difference is that we are not a primary listing service, we're complementary to existing listing services. Advertise your item where ever you normally do, just include a link to your BidKat auction and we'll handle offer negotiations and tracking for you automatically.
- briandear 14y agoSeriously cool. Nice work. I'm working on a Twitter/Craigslist/StackOverflow-like service for moms and I will certainly see how we could use your service.
- kefs 14y agoHow are you dealing with the new CL exclusive license when posting there? Clicking "Continue" confirms that craigslist is the exclusive licensee of this content, with the exclusive right to enforce copyrights against anyone copying, republishing, distributing or preparing derivative works without its consent.
- bunkat 14y agoPeople create their auction with us first then advertise their auctions where they want to. We also never obtain any CL listing in any way, shape, or form. If they want to go after their users for copying auction descriptions, they are more than welcome to.
- rprasad 14y agoThat's not how copyright law works. The user owns the copyright, and merely grants Craiglist a license to it. Note that a legal argument could have been made that based on the new (but since abandoned) Craiglist TOS, by posting to Craiglist a user was revoking all prior grants of license to other sites, i.e., including any licenses granted to BidKat (by virtue of using BidKat). In such case, you would have been the one in CL's crosshairs, not the user.
- JoshTriplett 14y ago> How are you dealing with the new CL exclusive license when posting there? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/good-news-craigslist-drops-exclusive-license-your-posts https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/08/good-news-craigslist-d...
- Axsuul 14y agoCool nice design. This is sorta like Gumroad except you're competing against other people! Can I ask what font you used for your logo?
- bunkat 14y agoThanks! The logo is in HTGelateria.
- thisAintNoGame 14y agoOut of curiosity, how much thought have you put into the auction format? Is there an underlying theoretical model in use? Allowing me to buy information on the auction is an interesting choice but I'm not convinced it will actually lead to better revenue for the seller.
- bunkat 14y agoWe're definitely testing out some new things. We never want to show any ads on our sites (we hate ads) so we're looking for alternatives. Based on some user research, paying a little bit for the potential of saving a lot by making better offers was at least interesting to buyers.
- thisAintNoGame 14y agoHmmm... I have no proof for what I'm about to say but here it is anyway. The only information that bidders will practically care about is the current top bid. So the information that you are charging people for is the same thing that most auctions already display (that is, the current top bid). As the seller, I want people to see this top bid because it will raise my revenue. Charging people to see the top bid will result in less people seeing the top bid and lower revenue overall. It makes money for the site but less money for the seller. Then I might want to go to another site and make more money for my item. You might want to look into using a 2nd price auction (like eBay) does. There's a nice book called Auction Theory by Vijay Krishna that might be of interest to you guys.
- bunkat 14y agoI appreciate the feedback and can give you some of our thinking. Our target audience of buyers generally has no access at all to this type of information today for local transactions. You just send an email into the void and cross your fingers. Providing this information at all is an improvement to this audience. For the seller, showing the top bid means that people will bid no more than they have to. Witholding the top bid (except to those who are interested) means buyers offer what they think the item is worth - which could be a lot more than top bid + 1$. It's definitely a different approach and may fail miserably. At which point we'll pivot and come up with a better one :)
- creativename 14y agoI'll agree with everyone on the design - it's beautiful, and I really love the mascot. I just wanted to add that the video really helped clear things up for me on how it integrates with other services. It might just be me, but I didn't immediately grasp from the content on the landing page that I should be using other services like craigslist, et al. to share it. Even without sound, the video cleared that confusion up very quickly.
- bunkat 14y agoThanks for the feedback. We'll figure out how to clean up the copy a little bit. Glad that the video cleared things up!
- latortuga 14y agoCool site I re-listed a CL item I have up at the moment, we'll see how it works! The video was super great and to the point and made it clear that it is intended to synergize with other services.
- mamatta 14y agoi love the service, but when someone made me an offer and chose his contact details to be just his First_Name, I have no way of responding to him. You should change it so email is required on a bid
- bunkat 14y agoSorry about that! We didn't require email because a lot of people use name and phone number instead. We'll fix the label on the input box.
- huhtenberg 14y agoWoah... If I were CL, I would be busy copying this right now. It is such a natural extension to what they already have. Offer this as an option at $1 a pop and they will be making money off the majority of their users.
- lewisflude 14y agoMade a listing. It looks great: https://www.bidkat.com/i/UJXTjUfd https://www.bidkat.com/i/UJXTjUfd
- ahmadss 14y agoI used your listing as a "test case" to enter in various dollar amounts to see how the interaction design and app works. The $1,500 bid that was inputted/accepted was mine after I started bidding at $1,000. The first price counter price I received was $1,880, then $1,6XX, then it finally accepted my $1,500. Did you have any control on how readily/quickly/aggressively you discount your price when creating a new auction listing?
- bunkat 14y agoWe do have a sample auction to test these things out instead of using peoples real auctions :) Currently BidKat is tweaked to be fair to the buyer while attempting to optimize the results for the seller. Our algorithm is configurable though and we may provide settings to sellers in the future.
- lewisflude 14y agoI got all excited when I got a bid! Nope, I selected a range. In this case $1200 - $2000. Also, I should note that I'm from London, England. Changing the $ to a £ would be a pretty nice feature. Interesting regarding the counter prices, also nice touch that BidKat suggest you give a "donation" when you get a bid offer. I think if I had a real bid offer, I'd be inclined to donate $5 or so!
- bunkat 14y agoWe have the ability to select different monetary units for auctions and will be implementing that feature shortly. What do you mean that you didn't really get a bid?
- rexreed 14y agoGreat idea! Sorry if I'm dense or missed this, but how does Bidkat make money? I was assuming a transaction fee on top of the closed bid, but it seems that it's totally free to the buyer and seller? Maybe I missed the FAQ?
- rexreed 14y agoThe Terms (https://www.bidkat.com/terms https://www.bidkat.com/terms) seem to imply that "upgrades" will be sold at some point, but it's not clear what upgrades. "By selecting an Upgrade you agree to pay BunKat LLC the fees indicated for that service. Payments will be charged on a pre-pay basis at the time of purchase for an Upgrade and will cover the use of that service as indicated. Upgrade fees are not refundable." Also, I'm confused -- where does the payment transaction happen? Does it happen inside Bidkat or is that part left up to the transacting parties?
- bunkat 14y agoCurrently the only upgrade is bid activity when making offers on an auction. Payment between parties is left up to the parties. Since we're focused on local sales, this is generally face to face when the item exchanges hands.
- rexreed 14y agoCan sellers specify "methods of payment accepted"? I can definitely see myself selling some things to local people (couches, for example), but other things I would place on forums where there are aficionados for those products (baseball cards, for example), and where I'd rather receive payment via some online method (Paypal, etc.) and not be constrained by locality. Not sure if that's your vision or not, but I would totally use Bidkat for collectibles as well as local sales. Of course, in your value proposition you state your purpose is to make local sales a lot easier, so I guess that's not the current vision.
- bunkat 14y agoWe definitely want to see BidKat used in these scenarios. Currently payment is completely between the seller and buyer. Feel free to add information to your description on what payment options are available.
- zheng 14y agoSounds like what I would have done if I was trying to overthrow CL (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4324452 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4324452). Great idea, I look forward to using Bidkat in the future.
- ahmadss 14y agoThis is a great concept. Here's a use case for you that you might want to figure out -- how do you deal with people who are just "bid trolling"? Any way to make a bid binding?
- aeturnum 14y agoIn your example, I tried bidding $20,000 (I really love the couch) and you asked me to come down to $1500. Is there a reason you're steering buyers towards a minimum price?
- bunkat 14y agoPrevents people from making ridiculous offers, especially by mistake. We want buyers to come away from BidKat feeling just as good as the seller.
- lewisflude 14y agoIs there any chance you can add in a way to remove obviously fake bids? If too many users abuse the system it could ruin the functionality of the virtual cat that haggles with potential buyers. For instance, someone might do a real bid of $500 (let's call them bidder A), but if there's a fake bid of $2000, would the virtual cat try and make bidder A bid higher than $2000?
- bunkat 14y agoNo, BidKat doesn't work like that. He works with each buyer individually to come up with the price that they find fair and that meets the sellers price requirements.
- lewisflude 14y agoThat's great. Works fine for me. Once again, congrats.
- aeturnum 14y agoI think that's a good impulse, but completely refusing the bid seems misguided. The current system seems like it favors predatory buyers over fair ones. If the seller undervalues their item, trying to start at a fair price will get rejected. I don't know how you selected the [500 1500] envelope on price, but it seems pretty narrow. Couldn't you just warn the bidder that their bid is way above the seller's expectations (or current maximum offer) and then confirm they want to pay that much?
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- savories 14y agoCool. My immediate thought when filling out a new listing... You should auto complete. For anything and everything (that you can.) I type in Xbox.. a list drops down with xbox 360, complete with Photo, MSRP, estimated value (based on other data points ie craigslist or ebay) and a pre filled out description. Well, sort of like what ebay does I guess. I hate filling out forms. Everyone else does too.
- bunkat 14y agov2? :)