The premise of something being new can be very alluring and this true when it comes to auction sites. The established auction sites have developed their customer base and are able to offer a wide range of products to bid on. This means that the new penny auctions have to offer something a little bit different to grab attention.
There are many different ways for an auction site to promote itself.
Quite often, new penny auctions will offer free bids as a way to entice people to sign up with them. Having the opportunity to examine the site in close detail and bid for free is a huge inventive for many people. With no cost involved, many people are willing to try a new auction site. If the site is well presented and professional, a reasonable proportion of these users will come back to the site. This is one way new penny auctions can increase the amount of users they have.
New penny auctions are also likely to try and provide some twist to the bidding process in order to stand out. These differences are largely cosmetic but they can make their site seem fresh and interesting. With so many existing sites to consider, new penny auctions have to offer something interesting to stand out from the crowd. Altering the count-down method or the increments the bid increases or decreases by may seem inconsequential alterations but they can grab attention.
One really interesting way to promote an auction site is to provide auctions on niche products. Rather than offering all manner of products to bid on, some sites are only providing one type of product to place bids for. This will stop a lot of people from having an interest in the site but will ensure great interest in certain users. One example would be the Penny purses site where every auction is for a stylish, brand-name purse.
Due to the popularity of penny auction sites, the number of sites providing auctions will only keep increasing. Whether these new penny auctions are able to compete on a long term basis will depend on the quality of the service they provide.
I found your article very interesting. As a brand new site we are in the process of trying to figure out the most cost effective way to attract interest to our site. We are a very straightforward site without the bells and whistles because we chose to focus on our customer service and we wanted to keep things very simple, which we believe helps people understand what penny auctions are, how much fun they can be, but also the real cost of a penny auction. We don’t advertise 99% off retail or anything like that because we feel that is just not the truth…rarely is that the case when you consider the auction price, bid cost, and any shipping charges(if applicable). We do use Google ad words but found that when we used an account advisor he wrote ads that did state the above mentioned types of advertising. I believe his intentions were good because that is how many other sites advertise.So now we write our own ads that promote the fun side of penny auctions, what we have on auction and the times of our auctions. We also have a banner on pennyburners.
Honestly though we just ran a deal on pennyauctioncoupon and had more people sign up in those 24 hours than we have with any other advertising method. The funny thing is that not many bought the deal…
So every day our team thinks and talks about how to market a simple, honest, fun penny auction site. We do have plans to expand into some other adventures relating to a different kind of vision, but we want to have a strong basic platform and foundation before we take another step.
Personally, I have seen the sites with the different angles and I truly admire their creativity, but I definitely felt confused by many of them when I was new to this industry just looking around and researching the different ways these sites offered essentially the same product…penny auctions.
We are so excited to be a part of this industry because it can be such a simple pleasure! Watching an item count down and trying to guess who will out strategize all of the other bidders ultimately can be just as much fun as being involved in the competition ( and that part is totally free entertainment!).
And the whole point of this post was to say that we are always looking for new ways to attract new people to our site so we appreciate the information and insight you provided in your article, so thanks!
I have bidding on BidonStuff for about 3 months. This is one of the nicest Auction sites around. Right now their are only open on Fridays between 8pm and about 11pm. Their trying to get going, and have really nice things up for auction. But the most Important thing about this Auction, is the Customer Service. They always ship your Wins out right away, and you get them in a few days (ALWAYS). If you have any concerns, or questions, they always respond immediately. This one is Fairly New. So give it a try….YOU WON’T BE SORRY. I am a loyal player Every Week.
Judylou
If you have an area on your site that lists new penny auction sites, I would like for ePBids.com to be listed.
New site and one of (if not the) first sites letting end users Sell items!