Idea of a place to buy and sell anything computer related

[jgilliam]

Hey everyone,

I have this idea to create a marketplace for people all over the world to buy and sell computer related items. It would be an auction website like eBay except just for computer items. New or used computers, laptops, components, accessories, printers, scanners, EVERYTHING computer related. Have it to where people could open their own stores with all their items listed in it. Have everything ebay does just PC related.

I have worked on computers all my life and I love it! I actually have a bunch of stuff I need to sell and started looking for a place and couldn’t find a place specific to just computers that I could list my own items on. So I had this thought. I have actually already got the majority of the site built.

What I am wondering from you guys is if this website was free with no fee to list your items no fee to open a store no end of auction fee or final value fee. I think the only fee I would charge is if you wanted to list your item on the main page. Do you think it would catch on? Also have you heard of any other place like this?

Thanks in advanced for any thoughts you may be willing to share.

Justin

 

[OldSchoolPC]

There are such sites in existence. Do some market research, and see if you can find a niche. Marketing such a website, would be difficult. Since you won't hardly be charging fees, and you would have no start up capitol to market it. I am not convinced of the usefulness of such a site either. Craigslist is free, and of course there is ebay. Then there are wholesale distributors. Also, places like liquidation.com.. But yeah, do some serious market research.

"If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything." - Doc Brown

 

[codegreen]

Also have you heard of any other place like this?

I have. It's called eBay.

You have to ask yourself: what advantages would this site have to convince people to use it instead of eBay? eBay has all the traffic. If you just want computer stuff, you search in the computer category.

Competing with eBay is not something you do on a whim, especially in 2012.

 

[jgilliam]

Thanks for the replies

I do agree that there is eBay which has the traffic flow and craigslist which is free and has traffic flow. I do not expect at first for my site to match their traffic by no means. But eBay charges fees... they can since they have the traffic people are willing to pay to get their items out the door quick. Craigslist is free but with the spam and everyone re-wording their listing to make it back to the top of the list again I and a lot of other people think that sucks.

All in all you guys are right there is no way a small site just starting could compete with big companies right from the start. But they all started small just as an idea and Rome wasn’t built in a day.

As far as advantages of this site over eBay/craigslist:

Now days where do people turn to find products they are looking to buy? Google and if you were to Search a computer part or item the main sites that come up are computer specific sites such as Newegg, Tigerdirect those type websites you don’t see eBay because it is not computer specific.

EVENTUALLY if the site catches on and with some SEO my site would be ranked higher for buying computer related items. And eBay / Craigslist would not.

 

[jgilliam]

If you guys want to see how it looks so far it is BitBidder.com Just know that I am still working on it.

 

[jgilliam]

I think I have decided to pull the idea. I also saw this article which is a really good read.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/05/ff_endofauction/all/1

I love the idea of having my own site but I really cant afford to advertise it like some of the other sites can and with this article and the lack of funds I am afraid it may be dead before it even gets started....

 

[FoolishTech]

eBay aside... (and who wants to compete there...)

I remember a while back I had this great idea for a universal wedding / birthday / xmas registry online, that pulled products across different vendors websites or allowed you just to register for cash. You could also register your friends/family's email addresses for sending them solicitations on stuff you wanted.

Then I realized, someone has already done that. I had to google it to prove it to my wife though. Sure enough, it had already been done and even they had even officially partnered with / integrated it with major vendors such as target, bed bath and beyond, williams sonoma, best buy, etc. despite many of these companies already having their own individual registries.

Point being, there really isn't an original idea anymore it seems...