[SandraR]

You've all been wondering - now here's the skinny!

SandraR and hbcouple are pleased to announce the release of their new venture, SSAN Fleamarket. This is a new and exciting venture that has never been tried on the Internet before. People now have the opportunity to turn their trash into treasure by selling it through the SSan Fleamarket.

Sellers rent a booth at the Fleamarket for just $5.00 per month and that is the only amount they pay regardless of how many items they sell or the value of the items.

The SSAN Fleamarket has teamed up with shareasale.com to offer a simple affiliate signup process, you can begin earning commissions from your website immediately.

This is a unique product that will be of interest to every surfer who visits your site. Everyone has something they would like to turn into cash or trade for something better. The SSAN Fleamarket gives them an easy and painless way of doing that

For a product that has universal appeal and will almost sell itself, this amounts to easy money!

CLICK here to join!

[Rhea]

Congratulations! I'm off to sign up!

[KM]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by SandraR:
You've all been wondering - <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yaaawwwwn! to the headline.

But good luck with venture - it might even be a winner judging by the replies before mine.

[elbowcreek]

Hey, great idea, good luck with the site!

[Herb Ô¿Ô¬]

I'm in.

[hbcouples]

Thanks guys - we're pretty excited about it and working with Sandra on this project has been ... interesting

[CrazyGuy]

I'm intrigued as to why you would invest so much time and effort into this while Ebay exists?

BTW - on the plates/buttons ... "Camera's", "Auto's", "Craft's" etc aren't the plural of "Camera", "Auto", "Craft" etc

[SSanf]

How does this work? If you have products in many categories, do you need a booth for each one? Can we place links to our existing sites or links to our merchant in our "booth"?

[Trust]

What CrazyGuyâ„¢ said. I wish you luck but see all kinds of problems.

http://fleamarket.ssan.com

Major one being there is already ebay.
$1 is kinda low payout.
There is 0 available right now, i understand you have to start somewhere, but hard to get a sign up when there are no buyers to the site.
Why should i send traffic to competitor's subdomain?
Why didn't you just get a new domain?
What's with the Google Adwords?
What's with the stripper looking housewife?

[qball0213]

And what's the dare you to make me pay you 100 dollars mean?

[Jorge - JRami]

Congrats Sandra. Site looks great good pricing for the service.

Please don't take it the wrong way, just constructive critique, but I think the Adsense my actually take away from actual customer sales. while it is good revenue for the "The SSAN Fleamarket" if it takes too long for people to sell their items because of the, "leak - click out" and go elsewhere then it might not do you justice as members might not list any other items in the future.

I know you understand all this, you are a pro, just sometimes it's hard to see it from within.

Just seing it from a customer stand point.

[chetf]

On top of TrustNo1's points.

All sales are done through email?

Restrictive image rules when compared to ebay.

No TOS on the registration page, at least not on the first page, so who knows what you are agreeing to.

The site is all out of wack on a large browser for many pages.

You need to fix all the diamond ? - most likely a move to apache2.0

Even a link to rackspace, wow.

I name this assault on ebay #5,232,235,252

Also what about that other site on here now... pricester? How does this compare?

Chet

[hbcouples]

First let me say that the big E is not our competition.

Ebay sells by auction - sellers on the Fleamarket set a price and that's it there may be some haggling or perhaps even swapping but there is no waiting for the auction to end because there isn't one.

At the same time our pricing structure is totally different to Ebay's - there are no commissions on sales - it's just one flat fee.

A stripper on the front of the site? Really? Sight design and graphics are personal things I guess and you either like them or you don't - thanks for your input.

At the moment if you have numerous items to sell then you would be looking at a stall for each category. However, you can sell all items in one category and then add new items in a different category and transfer your stall to that category without any extra charge.

$1.00 commission too low? We don't expect you to launch a massive advertising campaign to promote the Fleamarket. We see this as something that will sell well with just a well placed text link or small banner to a wide range of surfers.

And the dare? We dare you to take up the challenge and advertise the Fleamarket - you might find that if you have a lot of traffic eyeballing the ad then it turns into very easy money for you.

There are a couple of questions there that I can't answer and Sandra should be along shortly to help you out.

Stuart

[chetf]

Stuart, are you familiar with Ebay's buy it now?

[loxly]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chez Noir:
Stuart, are you familiar with Ebay's buy it now? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Buy it now has restrictions before you can use it and once the item is bought the auction is over and you owe ebay more money.

Buying a "booth" or space in a fleamarket is a different concept. Maybe the fleamarket needs traffic to convert, but isn't that what affiliates are for? To drive traffic?

I have been wanting to set up a site like this for 2 years and never had the time or engery. Crafters are going to love it. They may start at the fleamarket, find out their product is popular and then either continue or end up developing a full fledged business.

And I think a lot of people would love an easy way to sell their crap without signing for eBay. Hey, I'll take a dollar from SandraR over a reversed ebay nickel (or dime) anyday.

I was the first affiliate to sign up, links are going up on several sites this evening. If I hadn't been remodeling and moving, I would have had links up already.

Craft or family traffic should have no problem convincing people to sign up.

[Trust]

"Hey, I'll take a dollar from SandraR over a reversed ebay nickel (or dime) anyday."

Actually Ebay pays $20 when someone opens up a store or $10 when someone registers and becomes active by bidding or selling something.

"A stripper on the front of the site? Really? Sight design and graphics are personal things I guess and you either like them or you don't - thanks for your input."

I have nothing against housewives looking like strippers, i actually encourage it, but not on a business/sales site. It's not a porn site or Hooter's site, it's a flea market site. Can you picture ebay having that on their home page? Don't think so for obvious reasons. Maybe Sandra can come and go through the other points brought up, point by point.

[hbcouples]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Chez Noir:
Stuart, are you familiar with Ebay's buy it now? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Of course I am Chez but as Loxley pointed out - the Fleamarket is not like Ebay . To compare it to Ebay or to think in terms of auctions is to miss the point entirely.

As Loxley said - there are people out there who will find this model ideal for their situation.

And it's those people we want to attract.

[loxly]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by TrustNo1:
Actually Ebay pays $20 when someone opens up a store or $10 when someone registers and becomes active by bidding or selling something.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
And they charge a whole lot more than 5 bucks a month for space. I never got $10 from ebay. And I signed up plenty of people that became active.

But again, that is neither here nor there, this is going after a different market. The people on this board of all people should know there is more than one way to sell items online, and this is a new alternative. Offer it to your visitors or don't, it's up to you. I'll take all the commissions if no one else wants to jump on board.

And a stripper?? It's a sexy lady that is having fun. I am a female in business and I like the design. And again, if I wasn't in the middle of moving, I'd have a couple of booths up. I hope to be able to set a couple up in the near future.... There was some sports stuff left behind by the previous home owners.

[Woz]

As well as the speeling erorrs, you might want to have a look at your encoding. I am seeing some Chinese characters intermingled with the English which I am sure was not the intention.

Woz

[Trust]

"And they charge a whole lot more than 5 bucks a month for space."

That's because ebay has millions and millions of buyers so it's very easy to sell stuff and people trust them. Also selling via the auction route you usually can get more than what the stuff is worth with all the people trying to outbid each other. And if a seller wants a fixed price, they have a Buy It Now option. Also what about buying traffic? With other programs i get paid for referring sellers and buyers, here just sellers. Or are we supposed to send free buying traffic?

And if you guys are serious about it giving it a go, buy a domain for it. Don't just hook it up as a subdomain on an affiliate's shopping site.

[SamyT]

I sell knick knacks on ebay and it cost me over $600 in september for that lovely 'buy it now' option.

Final value fees are excessive.

I can see where the fleamarket would be a good idea for small sellers (craft etc like loxly said), it just needs a chance to get off the ground.

[Jane]

Seems to me the way to go would be to give everyone a 3 month free trial. Doesn't cost them anything to see if they can sell there and you can fill the place up quicker which is what you need to get traffic.

[chetf]

And how about branding? All that is being branded is ssan.com - which will do nothing for affiliates. Are shoppers really going to remember and type in fleamarket.ssan.com?? I doubt it. This isn't a leak, this is a hurricane.

I am mystified that you would roll out a program on the sub-domain of your main affiliate site, as if you, yourself don't have faith in the idea.

Chet

[SandraR]

Hello Everyone,

It appears most questions have been answered, but there are a few still which you may want answers to.

Adsense is nixed: Adsense was placed as a tracker for future advertising options.

TrustM1:
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>$1 is kinda low payout. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Trust I would love to give you every dollar I obtain from business but I really and truly like to eat!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Why should I send traffic to competitor's subdomain? Why didn't you just get a new domain? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Because this is a service provided through SSan.com, this was a business decision that involves some interesting search engine optimization techniques.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>What's with the stripper looking housewife? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you think she's a stripper you need to get out more often!



jane

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>Seems to me the way to go would be to give everyone a 3 month free trial. Doesn't cost them anything to see if they can sell there and you can fill the place up quicker which is what you need to get traffic. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

HOW about this jane, ABW members can obtain free placements for 3 months. This is how it will work.

When you place your item you must add the words ABW Member in the description area. Your $5.00 will then be refunded back to your Paypal account.


----------------------------------------------

Thank you for all the posts and the critiques, it will make the FleaMarket a better place to earn revenue.

.

[Gordon]

I think it is a pretty good idea SandraR, I personaly would have been tempted to give it a real domain name though but that is only my personal opinion.

Let me take this oportunity to wish you all the very best of luck and tons of success with your venture.