www.videogameauctions.com

[museumsteve]

I had a chat with CheapyD and he okay'd me to start a thread here about a new venture www.videogameauctions.com (http://www.videogameauctions.com/) .

I bought the site from defender recently and have hooked it up with our project www.videogameauctions.co.uk (http://www.videogameauctions.co.uk/). I must thank to defender for being so helpful with the domain purchase. I found out a lot of things I didn't know and more things that I thought I did know, I actually didn't know. Anyway, thanks defender :) ( I'm sure I was a real pain)

VGA started as a UK based operation but it was pretty obvious we needed to show that we were not exclusive to the UK so the purchase of the .com followed.
After only a week we have members from the US, Japan, Australia, Sweden, Holland, Spain and the UK. There are already International auctions on VGA and these will increase as time goes on.
We know there are lots of auction sites out there but as we are 100% dedicated gamers, we hope we have something extra to offer the games community.

The main reason I am writing this here and now is that I would welcome and appreciate any comments about VGA and the online auction business in general. What do you guys feel is important and what do you feel is over emphasised these days. We'd value your opinions, after reading through many CAG threads this week it is obvious that you are a pretty clued up community and you all know what you want when purchasing games and games related items. VGA is ready to listen to gamers, we are in a position to make changes on the spot that gamers feel would benefit the community. We're not a blinkered corp. and VGA is ready to be as flexible as the marketplace requires.

One of the first areas I feel we have a distinct advantage over Ebay is their lack of lower reserve price facility nowadays. I do not know about in the US but in the UK Ebay wont allow a reserve price under £50 UKP. This sucks for most gamers looking to sell items as an average game would be priced under £50. This means if someone has a game they feel they could sell for £25 UKP then in order to not risk losing lots of money the seller would have to start the auction at a pretty high price in the first place, all this does is increase the listing fee to Ebay.

Another area we will be better than Ebay is customer service. We will always be on hand to assist with disputes. We are also in the process of signing an agreement with ELSPA ( www.elspa.com (http://www.elspa.com/) ) to keep the threat of piracy to a bare minimum from VGA, this in turn helps the industry as a whole.

While VGA is in the early days of getting to it's feet, there are no selling fees whatsoever, we expect to carry this on for at least the next 3 to 4 weeks. Once fees are introduced, they will be significantly lower than Ebay, there will be a no reserve minimum and that will not change. We do have a Wanted Section as well as a Swap feature and we are generally nice guys that love games.
So, what do you think? We'd welcome any comments and would entertain any suggestions. We know we have to get the numbers up to encourage people to start listing more but like anything it has to start somewhere.

As a thankyou to CAG for their time and CheapyD for allowing me to post here, I'd like to offer a reward to a CAG forum member to be selected at random over the next week or so, the reward will be a free game (current US format) with a max RRP of $49.99. The game would be sent direct from a supplier in the US and would be absolutely free, it's the least I can do and is my way of showing my appreciation.

Thanks for your time, enjoy the rest of your day (cos I am just about to go into the garden, put my feet up and have a beer cos it is 80 degrees here today, if there are any typos please accept my apologies, I am melting here)

www.videogameauctions.com (http://www.videogameauctions.com/)

[maxflight]

good luck with your vga venture :)

[defender]

It's 107 today in Las Vegas. :-)

good luck with the site it looks great...I never put into it the long term committment I should have. I started the site before I had the knowledge required. And now I am just too busy to deal with it.

My best suggestion would be that you offer multi currency if possible with the software you run. It's a pain looking at all the prices in pounds.

[wubb]

How are you going to pick the CAG winner? Randomly from people that post in this thread, randomly from the entire user base, or something else?

[urzishra14]

good luck.. i too would like to know the "random picking".. either way cool i'll check it out when i have some time.

[cheezhead430]

nice site, good luck

[museumsteve]

Thanks for the replies so far :) The winner will be selected at random from CAG members that reply on this thread.

[jalu6]

It's 107 today in Las Vegas. :-)


yeah, but its a dry heat. (thats what everyone says, right?)

[ryanbph]

nice site, I will be looking at that for the list of games on my want list...

I second the notion to have it listed in muliple currencies

[FrankTheFrowner]

Looks good but I agree with defender about the multi-currency software.

[nogard]

A chance for free game when reply? I'm in!!
Is there any seller/buyer protection?

[judyjudyjudy]

The site looks really nice. I do have some feedback for it (and apologies if it's redundant or already addressed)...

As everyone said, multiple currencies would be helpful. Like if there was a setting in your profile to always display things in dollars and such.

Since your site is game oriented, I think it'd be nice to be able to put the condition, whether or not there is a box or manual, etc. under additional information so that you could search by that... like kind of how gametz.com has it. You already have an option for the spine card, so it seems to make sense to put case & manual there. And maybe if you could add an option to state the region of the game... I think that would be nice too.

[craven_fiend]

Nice work on the site. Good luck with it.

[alongx]

may i make a recommendation: when you're browsing through auctions, it only shows the game, the number of bids, and the end date. Perhaps you should try to alter it so that it also displays the current price? And, as defender stated, I'd like to be able to see prices in US dollars as well as British pounds. It might be good to put in the euro or the Canadian dollar as well.

[WhipSmartBanky]

Glad to see this concept didn't get abandoned!

[Genocidal]

Nice looking site, but just a suggestion: When checking the subcategories, it'd be convenient if you were able to list all items. For example, say I want to look at all the PS2 items, or all the TG-16 items.

[tdphillips]

Good luck man.

Ooh, pick me, pick me!

[roguejedi5]

So far so good on the site. Just wanted to know how does those want-ads work? Can you post anything there?

[gmzone]

Very interesting to say the least.

[rjarmstrong100]

Really like the site...I would buy stuff off there...but i'm broke, and have no credit card...anyway...i can't really see any way to improve it as of right now...but i may come up with something in the next couple hours....

[Sporadic]

Cool site although you may want to make it where you can search for US auctions or UK auctions only. It really does me no good to look at UK auctions (since they dont work on my Xbox and shipping would kill any deal)

[Negative]

Nice site! Here's hoping it tears Ebay a new hole. All the luck in the future.

[scuba]

wow the site looks really nice

:thumbsup:

[ajh2298]

Please pick me!

[coolbrys]

I have to say that I like the page layout, looks very professional in my eyes. I will not have a problem shopping there, definately a favorites place!

[Friedle]

Cool, I'll have to keep my eye on this site.

[Gurn13]

Looks good, and as was mentioned, it would be nice to have a US or UK region only sort.

[markholladay]

I like the site. It seems quite simple to navigate which is a big plus. I dont know if this is possible or a problem for people. But possibly can you seperate the games from US and the games from the UK. I am talking about searching paramaters, where you could search for only games that are being shippied from the US. I think some people might be turned off if all they see is that most of the games are coming from the UK. I know it is a stupid psychological thing, but I think that it might make a difference. I think it would help someone feel more comfortable being on the site.

And also some sort of forum might be nice. I did not notice one. If you could get a thriving forum you would have more customers on your site. And then if a good deal pops up on your site they would already be there.

Ok, those are my two cents. Good luck with this. I really hope it works out. I think it is a good idea.

[markholladay]

Wow, I am an idiot. Disreagard the first part of my post above. I noticed that a couple people already mentioned this above me. Sorry about that.

[gopro]

wow hope it survives. Because www.sellgamesnow.com has died. It is very hard to comepete. O well have fun. It looks nice.

[indomitable]

Very nice. I added it to my favorites. Definitely need U.S. $.

[museumsteve]

Thanks everyone so far.
Couple of points, the currency issue is definately on the list to do. There is a forum (just isn't live yet). Additional selection boxes are being added for finer details like manual etc.
This really is the reason I came here, no messing around, you guys know what you want to see and seem more than happy to say so :)
Thankyou.

[the_deej]

I would love a free game!

[KingNES]

Cool site indeed! Best of luck.

[electrictroy]

Thanks for the replies so far :) The winner will be selected at random from CAG members that reply on this thread.Now we'll have a bunch of random replies, from people wanting to win.

Like this one. ;-)

My thoughts: Ebay has the advantage of millions of people visiting which leads to serious competition amongst bidders to win the auction. That helps boost the sale price. I list Paper Mario for 0.01 cent, and it eventually rises to ~$40, because of high demand amongst many bidders.

But with your site, at only a few thousand visitors, I'd probably end up with lots of 0.01 cent auctions with only one bid. That doesn't work for me.

troy

[jbroush99]

Now we'll have a bunch of random replies, from people wanting to win.


You're right!

[mcwilliams132]

Looks great! I just registered, so I hope to shop there in the future as you get going.

Best of luck!

[Alfonso_Gomez]

I noticed alot of people wanted an option to search for UK/USA/Other located auctions, Its actually there if you click on "Advanced Search" and then choose location.

[SpookyD]

I think the biggest hurdle is to increase the number of viewers so the price will go up on auctions for sellers.

[shmurgle]

great alternative to ebay, hopefully traffic will pick up quickly.

[thatstoobad]

i'm all for an alternative to ebay, so hopefully the site will work out well.

some people have mentioned a search option for which country the seller is from, and that would be nice, but i would like to see an option for auctions from US sellers OR auctions that WILL ship to the US. there are many auctions up on the site right now that are for the US versions of games, yet the seller states they do not ship to the US, defeating the purpose.

[Nyquil]

Good site. Hopefully there will be a larger selections of newer games on your site.

[Psydrogen]

Great potential. I'll keep my eye on it. Make sure to get it noticed. Send word out to websites, forums, magazines, etc. Any publicity would benefit.

[smalien1]

Yeah, really nice, just add dollars and Il use it!

[nintendospy]

Nice site, good luck with it.

[jimbo12457]

looks good, Ill check it out:D

[nwaugh]

Excellent site, I'll definitely support it.

[museumsteve]

Quick update :)
Options are now being added to include extra information, including region, manual, boxed etc. Others will be added. Anyone that laready has auctions running can simply eidt them to include the new options if they wish.
Advanced Search already allows to search for country of seller, this is also something we're looking to expand on :)
A software update in the coming week should include the desperately needed dual currency option.
A forum is being prepared as we speak and is due to launch in the next few days, we wont be looking to steal members from other forums, this is purely for VGA chat of course.
Finally (at the moment) I would love to get past the country of seller issue as soon as possible. There are already auctions from US and of course the idea is to grow the US seller base, which in turn means these things wont be an issue. The UK sellers are starting to list product that are available to ship internationally.
The feedback here has been fantastic and it's nice to see that no one (that I've read) has said anything negative, just constructive..thanks for that.

[museumsteve]

Just to let you know I haven't forgotten our deal. I'll be messaging CheapyD this week to work out how we can choose a winner :)

Site updates are always on-going. The dual currency option is on course for 7-10 days along with some other nice features like bulk auction uploads etc.
Thanks again for the suggestions and comments :)

[Sailorneorune]

Niiiiice. Paypal would be a great addition to this site, but that's all I've really got to say.

[encendido5]

Good luck on your project! One thing I noticed though is that the logo looks a bit too much like eBay's. Otherwise, everything looks great.

[museumsteve]

Niiiiice. Paypal would be a great addition to this site, but that's all I've really got to say.

Paypal is up and running on the site. You can enter your paypal address in your auction setup :) Also fees (once introduced) can be paid by an automated Paypal system.


We're not that worried about the logo and Ebay. We're comfortable that it is our design and all for good reasons. The Red, Green and Blue were simply used because of the RGB side of gaming and TV signals :)

[Stevesbored]

Just make sure you advertise a lot for this site...It's looking good though.

[museumsteve]

We're working on it. Hopefully there will be a lot of web coverage over the coming weeks. It would be great to get some like minded gamers like you guys around the web, people that dont just write things off in the early days :) afterall, everything has to start somewhere

[DragoonKnight]

Very nice looking site. I registered an account, and I was wondering if it's possible to show all games for a certain system rather than having to wade through multiple categories.

[Kyo]

Cool. I like the simplicity and site loads fast compared to ebay (which probably won't matter anymore since I'm getting DSL this monday). I like the swap option though.

There seem to be a lot of UK sellers. I was planning to sell on Ebay but this seems more fun as it feels more community-oriented.

Plus having Paypal brings me a sense of comfort when I'm bidding ... The whole Paypal Protection still applies here too right?

... Yup I should be bidding soon.

[worx]

any alternative to Ebay is a good one - nice work ;)

[mkg12]

nice, just needs more traffic now

[museumsteve]

We will always be looking for more traffic (isn't everyone?). It was always a tough job as you need to have members that buy as well as sell. Members will only buy if there is stuff to buy. We reckon we've kicked it off right, our plans to increase membership over the coming months includes regular prize draws for registered members which will include everything from Magazines to PSPs to Xbox360s and more.
The number of US members isn't that far behind the number of UK members right now, just a case of getting people to start listing..it's totally free so no risk ;)

[Ledhed]

I was wondering if this was the same one defender once owned. Hope everything goes well with it.

[DT778]

Very nice looking site. I registered an account, and I was wondering if it's possible to show all games for a certain system rather than having to wade through multiple categories.
I was wondering that too.

[chunk]

Thanks for the replies so far :) The winner will be selected at random from CAG members that reply on this thread.

:applause:

[museumsteve]

I was wondering if this was the same one defender once owned. Hope everything goes well with it.

It was :) and thankyou

[museumsteve]

I was wondering that too.

We're working on that for next site update which should be next week :)

[integralsmatic]

good to see defender made some bills of it. I bid you good luck with the site. i might put some of my hard earned cash for game....

[electrictroy]

Just to let you know I haven't forgotten our deal. I'll be messaging CheapyD this week to work out how we can choose a winner :)

- Take a blank piece of paper and a pen.
- Write the names of every poster.
- Cut the names into squares.
- Dump into a hat.
- Shake hat.
- Pull name.
- Mail prize.

Simple.

troy :-)

[laserdogg]

:applause:

Indeed

[browneyedgal68]

Since I haven't listed on here, I don't know if you do this, but a nice feature on ebay for sellers is the stock info. While most gamers KNOW their game without it, people buying for gamers as gifts like to see a bit of description. And it is nice not having to recreate the wheel when listing items.

[museumsteve]

Not sure I understand what you mean. Do you mean description of the actual items being sold?

[Graystone]

I may have missed it in the OP but is there going to be final value fees took from the auction after it ends.

[museumsteve]

No seller fees whatsoever for at least one month :) so no risk to try it out.

[museumsteve]

Picked out of a hat (literally)

JudyJudyJudy

Drop me a PM and we'll sort out a game for you :)

Many thanks to everyone for their feedback and special thanks to CheapyD for allowing this thread.

[judyjudyjudy]

Picked out of a hat (literally)

JudyJudyJudy

Drop me a PM and we'll sort out a game for you :)

Many thanks to everyone for their feedback and special thanks to CheapyD for allowing this thread.
Oh wow, that's awesome, thanks!

[MeGaWC27]

wow cant believe Ive never seen this thread b4
Good luck on the site museumsteve and gratz on ur win judyjudyjudy

[Psydrogen]

Congratulations judyjudyjudy.

[chunlirocks]

Excellent venture

good luck and prosper!

[crazyboxer12]

ah, it ended??? But anyways, nice site, needs more games though

[museumsteve]

more games come from more members. Things will settle down once we get more US members posting their products..and it's still completely free of charge for at least a month from now.
:)

[doraemonkerpal]

wow, i just saw this thread today! i just registered with your site and i'll give it a shot in the future :)

[ryosnk]

Good luck on your venture.

[j-fever]

I have got to try this out. Cool

[museumsteve]

We will be running regular prize draws on the site, with the first draw on 1st July. As the membership grows, so will the prizes.
We have updates this coming weekend to include features like listing all items in specific categories being shown rather than having to trawl through each sub category and the much wanted dual currency feature..and more..

[evilmax17]

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/press_release.php?aid=9511

[museumsteve]

We're very pleased as Press Releases made it to GoogleNews, Gamespress, Gamesindustry.net, Spong and more :)

[museumsteve]

New Press Release (http://www.gamesindustry.net/press_release.php?aid=9732)

We're just about to hit 400 members, we've passed 17,000 visits and 470,000 page views. We are very happy.
Once again thanks to everyone for their support and input on here and keep your eyes peeled as our US specific PR starts next week :)

[Kain Vincent]

Good luck with the site.

[dark-star]

Good luck, may you become the next ebay (with lower fees, of course!)

[cag1000]

sounds good you guys just need to stick with it and customers will come by word that your site is the place to be.