Has anyone seen Porschebay.com??
 

Has anyone else seen this new auction site :

PorscheBAY ?

Just got the email. Nice site but do not see a lot different from the Pelican or Rennlist classified boards if someone has parts to sell, and paying $6 a auction for parts when you can do it for free may not go over very well.

Joe

Are they serious? That's going to last a few days at best.

"Porsche" in the web address? Don't they know that Porsche AG has no patience for trademark infringement and aggressively persues violators?

Plus they're ripping of eBay's name, trademark's etc.

That site will be down before you know it!

I'm surprised it's still up!

-Wayne

Still up and there apears to be 13 auctions going on.

The question is after the staff gets done selling their stuff to their friends, who's going to auction on it? The engine parts all appear to be pieces of a single '76S motor. From a marketing perspective, I'm also unsure about their revenue stream given that they're charging $6 to the buyer for each complete auction. As a marketer I have two problems with that scheme:

1) From a customer service perspective, you are just tacking one more add-on charge to the buyer. It's just like when people on Ebay try to pass on the credit-card or Pay Pal charges as an extra charge to the buyer. It infuriates the buyers who feel like they are being "nickle and dimed", in the case of the credit card charges it apparently violates the credit card companies rules. Either way, the buyers start to stay away because there are too many "hidden costs" and add-on charges. Without buyers, the market is a bust.

2) We all know how many Ebay auctions fail to complete either because of high reserves or shady buyers cutting side deals. In those cases Ebay already has their money. Porschebay would end up holding the bag since they would have provided the listing but never made the revenue.

The last problem with PorscheBay is that they are in an awfully poor competative situation. Ebay's secret is that they were the first with a working cyber-auction and so absolutely everyone goes there. Other companies have tried to replicate the process (Yahoo for one) but they can't get the mass of activity up to make it worthwhile for buyers and sellers to go there. Keep in mind that Yahoo is already a significant internet presence. These PorscheBay folks are nobodies on the web. I doubt that they'll last.

In all honesty; Wayne and the Pelican team are in a far better position to start a Porsche-only auction then the Porschebay folks. There is already a significant body of Porsche people here for one. It potentially could be a better site then Ebay because the users here would have access to more information then Ebay - for example the online auction listing critiques. Nothing makes a market work like widespread and low-cost access to information and low transactional costs. There's a thought for you Wayne! SmileWavy