Replacement for Audiogon

There's going to be a new sheriff in town to replace Audiogon really soon.
I had a good friend that wanted to do this for a few years, but didn't feel he could compete with audiogon.

Now with them raising the fee to 1.5 % of the item sold price, there's a lot of room for competition.

I told him to charge 8-10 bucks per transaction and most people would beat a path to his door.

What do you think?

If you have any major complaints about Audiogon you wish you could see changed, let me know, I'll be happy to pass em on...

tonepub said:

Now with them raising the fee to 1.5 % of the item sold price, there's a lot of room for competition.

I told him to charge 8-10 bucks per transaction and most people would beat a path to his door.

What do you think?

Click to expand...

I agree, just for the principle of the thing. Audiogon's 1.5% transaction fee is a cash grab. However, I suspect that once your friend (and maybe others) set up similar sites, Audiogon may well drop the fee in order to win back customers.

tonepub said:

If you have any major complaints about Audiogon you wish you could see changed, let me know, I'll be happy to pass em on...

Click to expand...

The current feedback process on Audiogon is a sham as you cannot really leave negative feedback since the person for whom you are leaving feedback has to first approve it.

I just wish we had an Audiogon here in Australia!

The selection of equipment you guys have access to is amazing!

The new "make offer" feature on Agon is disappointing and something I wish would go away. Looks like they put it right smack in the middle of the listing page in an attemp to get offers rolling, but since this feature has been implemented, I have had more half-hearted offers (and just as many non responders after making an offer) than ever before. This has never happened in the past, and I feel it takes some of the seriousness away from the site. Boo Hiss.......

TJ

I've used or perused Audiogon a lot for a few years. It is successful and yet it is really a pathetically designed website. I see four primary reasons why it has been successful.

1. It is simple to use (but archaic)
2. The Audiophile community is very trustworthy to deal with. Yes, there are scammers on Audiogon but for the most part, it is a community with a decent level of integrity. If this level of trust did not exist then people would not buy/sell there.
3. It is (WAS) a flat fee.
3. They had no real competition (it's now a prime opportunity for competition).

Audiogon has really shot themselves in the wallet by going after a percentage of the sale and the community is actively looking elsewhere for an alternative. Audiogon just set themselves up for serious competition and they will probably get it. They just screwed up a good thing. Take a look at the discussion on Audio Asylum and you should have seen the angry posts that the moderated has since deleted including one of mine.

Make you just want to list the item and do the whole transaction outside to save the money. Give me a website with better looks and easy functionality, and it will be used.

Over here we have http://www.adverts.hififorsale.com/home.asp. I am not saying it is great, but I sold an Audio Synthesis DAX-2 on it without trouble. But it is FREE. Mainly, though, I buy/sell on ebay UK.

I agree with Craig - Audiogon seriously need to better that interface. It doesn't seem to have changed in years. They must be making serious monney, and they can't be bothered to invest in it. That sucks badly.

User211 said:

Over here we have http://www.adverts.hififorsale.com/home.asp. I am not saying it is great, but I sold an Audio Synthesis DAX-2 on it without trouble. But it is FREE. Mainly, though, I buy/sell on ebay UK.

I agree with Craig - Audiogon seriously need to better that interface. It doesn't seem to have changed in years. They must be making serious monney, and they can't be bothered to invest in it. That sucks badly.

Click to expand...

What's wrong with the Audiogon interface? That is the BEST thing about it in my opinion! It is simple, easy and above all fast!

The worst thing would be to turn it into a slow, bloated, overly complex interface such as Facebook or any of the online news sources.

Why do people always think more is better?

Did I say more is better? I just didn't like it much when I used it to buy something recently... just a vibe feeling that it wasn't that well thought out.

However, if it suits your thought process, that's fine and makes it a good site!

A pretty subjective thing, after all.

Anyway, you want more, amey01 - more bits per second. Now there's no harm in that!

amey01 said:

What's wrong with the Audiogon interface? That is the BEST thing about it in my opinion! It is simple, easy and above all fast!

The worst thing would be to turn it into a slow, bloated, overly complex interface such as Facebook or any of the online news sources.

Why do people always think more is better?

Click to expand...

Software has come a long way. They can make it better with in improved search function, larger photo file sizes with better resolution without bogging it down. In fact, many improvements for the user can be made AND improve performance. Besides, the improvements were talking about are simple ones and audiogon isn't going to get the number of hits like facebook or a news service.

User211 said:

Anyway, you want more, amey01 - more bits per second. Now there's no harm in that!

Click to expand...

Of course I want more bits per second. Problem is, I live out bush (well, not quite, but it's not exactly inner city living either) and connections are not good!

Problem is, I'd like more bits per second to = more speed, not simply support some over-clever website programmer's stupid eye candy. Form should follow function! I'd be happy if every website was green text on black - just like the good ol' days.

tonepub said:

There's going to be a new sheriff in town to replace Audiogon really soon.
I had a good friend that wanted to do this for a few years, but didn't feel he could compete with audiogon.

Now with them raising the fee to 1.5 % of the item sold price, there's a lot of room for competition.

I told him to charge 8-10 bucks per transaction and most people would beat a path to his door.

What do you think?

If you have any major complaints about Audiogon you wish you could see changed, let me know, I'll be happy to pass em on...

Click to expand...

Jeff,

It could definitely work but it will be a challenge. I agree with all of the posts about the crappy user interface and pathetic search functionality. However, the site has made it through despite these shortcomins and is in position to raise prices!

The reason it is successful is the same as the reason why the phone company is successful and why ebay is successful. It's due to network economics. The more people who are part of the network, the more valuable the site for everyone. 2 guys who can talk to each other on the phone is not the same as connecting 200,000 people using the phone network. It's the similar for ebay - just about everyone uses them for general auctions. Amazon.com tried, and they got crushed.

If your friend attempts it, he will need to advertise the hell out of it and charge low fees so A LOT of people join his network and participate.

He may be able to chip away the higher end - where fees would accumulate very quickly and be passed on to buyers and sellers.

It may be worth a try. Best of Luck!

tonepub said:

There's going to be a new sheriff in town to replace Audiogon really soon.
I had a good friend that wanted to do this for a few years, but didn't feel he could compete with audiogon.

Now with them raising the fee to 1.5 % of the item sold price, there's a lot of room for competition.

Click to expand...

Although Audiogon is currently the most popular, there is immense room for improvement - it just takes time and money to design a better web site.

BTW, The 1.5% can be easily circumvented in a number of ways: 1) Put a token price in the header, like $1 or $EMAIL, and then the real price in the body; ask buyer to put actual sale price really low when leaving feedback; 2) Refuse to disclose that the item sold, although you are also giving up on feedback in that case. I intend to use #1.

Before there was Audiogon, there was audioweb - perhaps we will flock back to it?

I've seen people use a token price of $99999.99. That token price could be costly at sale time.

Was it really a good idea for them to implement a new pricing scheme they don't have the means to enforce?

Good comments!

I'll pass them on. Personally I found the idea of doing a giant ecommerce site daunting, we'll see what my buddy is up to.

If he gets it off the ground, I'll certainly let you guys know.

The timing is really good since there are a lot disgruntled Audiogon customers looking elsewhere for a place to buy/sell equipment. Apparently, dealers are looking too.

You really only need basic functionality to start out with and can build upon it later. The key would be to get the word out about the site and you'd have an advantage by using some ad space and a link from Tone Audio.

There are some good ideas and plenty of discussion on this topic within the
"General" section of Audio Asylum.

amey01 said:

Problem is, I'd like more bits per second to = more speed, not simply support some over-clever website programmer's stupid eye candy. Form should follow function! I'd be happy if every website was green text on black - just like the good ol' days.

Click to expand...

Point 1) - I actually meant more bps in terms of digital replay, as you were on about it a while ago.

Point 2) Green on black? All websites? Fibs.

Point 3) I have been thinking of implementing a basic hi-fi auction site using C#/ASP.NET. Very basic to start off with, but C# and ASP.NET are so powerful, it would eventually destroy Audiogon. I started on a football website a while ago - the idea was for footballers to provide feedback to clubs, vote for "man of the match", do a bit of gambling, get a sponsor such as a newspaper sports section etc.

I still have the code - didn't get far but I DID get somewhere... simple voting system with an MS Access database on the server. Then I gave up due to lack of work from other supposed partners.

With 22 years of s/w development experience, I ought to be able to get somewhere

Craig said:

The timing is really good since there are a lot disgruntled Audiogon customers looking elsewhere for a place to buy/sell equipment. Apparently, dealers are looking too.

You really only need basic functionality to start out with and can build upon it later. The key would be to get the word out about the site and you'd have an advantage by using some ad space and a link from Tone Audio.

There are some good ideas and plenty of discussion on this topic within the
"General" section of Audio Asylum.

Click to expand...

Well, we'll see how it goes. I told him I'm not selling him any ad space until this thing is working 100%!

User211 said:

Point 3) I have been thinking of implementing a basic hi-fi auction site using C#/ASP.NET. Very basic to start off with, but C# and ASP.NET are so powerful, it would eventually destroy Audiogon.

Click to expand...

Please, don't use those proprietory technologies. Use something standard, like PHP instead.

Don't worry, RichTeer, whilst I am sure I could do something, anything really good is beyond the scope of one man and a few weeks work.

Then there's no guarantee anyone will use it, of course... most think biggest is best and to a certain extent there is no denying it - you want to reach the biggest audience, even if it means paying a few bob.