Monday, December 19, 2011

Suggestions for improving Quality of Flippa which is a Websites Selling/Buying Market place



I am using "Flippa.Com" for selling our Websites. I found Flippa very useful for selling few of our websites (christmas site, job site, free online timesheet site, great quotes site, html5 tutorial site, etc) at appropriate prices. Anyway, the listing price and Success fee are bit high. But it seems this high listing price is required to filter out junk websites so that the potential buyers can easily choose only the best websites.

But Flippa is having some downsides also. For example, few of our websites didn't get appropriate bids even when I listed them multiple times. The thing is those listings are NOT getting enough views. i-e The potential Buyers are not seeing the listing.

Flippa is allowing us to relist the site for half of the listing price if the particular site didn't sell. But still there is some possibility for the second listing also not getting appropriate bids.

I had some analysis about why some Flippa listings are getting good views while some other listings are NOT getting enough views.

Based on my analysis, I came to know that websites which are appearing in first page of Google for the keywords are getting more views. It seems Flippa is using SEMRush data to list the Auction websites based on position of the websites in Google. And, it looks like most of the Buyers are browsing the sites thro' this list than going thro' the new listings.

So my suggestion is, we should list the site in Flippa only after the site starts appearing in first page of Google for certain keywords, otherwise it will end with less views and therefore less bids, in other words it will end as "unsold".

Flippa is allowing certain "upgrades" to increase the visibility of the Auction listing to the potential buyers. i-e The Sellers can push their Auction listing to the front page or they can choose to tweet about their Listing to the followers of the @Flippa twitter Account. But this upgrade price looks high.

I am NOT sure whether these upgrade prices are worth paying as I haven't used them much. First time I used for this Auction Listing today as my previous listing didn't meet the reserve. Let us see how it is giving results. As of now, the listing views are increasing; but it didn't get appropriate bids yet.

Right now, I am NOT an expert in using the Flippa. But I have observed some space for improvement in the Flippa Site.

For example,

1. Whenever re-listing an Auction, the previous listing is NOT getting updated with link to the latest Listing. (Anyway, it is giving link to the old listing from the relising) For example, I submitted our initial Flippa Auction listing URL in our Social Media Friends/Followers/Circles. But that URL becomes outdated as I re-listed it. I had to relist it as the previous listing didn't meet the reserve. But the visitors of that initial listing URL is not getting any link to the new listing. Even they won't get a chance to know about the existence of the re-listing.
I think Google knol is handling this situation in very nice way. i-e If you visit an outdated article (knol) from old bookmark, it will show link to the latest page.

2. We need to upload all the attachments (Earning proofs such as AdSense Screenshot) again manually while relisting the Auction even if we relist the Auction immediately once the first listing ends unsuccessful. i-e The relisting screen is not preserving the attachments.

3. The first listing is still showing a link for negotiating with the highest bidder even after starting the re-listed auction. But I am not sure whether it will allow to proceed the negotiation.

4. I used to see "Last loggedin" data under user's profile as "4 days ago" while the user sends message few seconds before.

5. While giving feedback to the Buyer from the Seller's Screen, Flippa is incorrectly showing as "Details, to be displayed on the seller's profile:*" . i-e It is showing as "Seller's profile" instead of "Buyer's profile".

I am NOT sure whether these things need to be fixed or there are any valid reason behind such behaviour. You can share your thoughts thro' the comments.

Apart from selling our Sites Thro' Flippa Auctions, I have decided to sell few of our sites without using Auctions. i-e Interested persons can buy few of our sites at the specified price. You can see the price list here. Note that this opportunity will be available for few days only as I planned to sell most of our sites thro' Flippa Auctions soon.


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