What functionality & features would make the best Buyer centric website marketplace?

[LukeMoulton]

In a perfect world, what features would you like to see in a buyer focused website marketplace?

Given there's been some discussion going on in other threads about what people don't want to see, let's see some positive discussion around what you do want in a website trading marketplace.

[Eric]

Hi Luke,
The number 1 thing I'd like to see in a website marketplace is increased honesty from sellers. Now, I understand that sellers are always going to want to highlight certain things about their sites and downplay their sites weaknesses. But, there's a lot of outright lying or misleading traffic and revenue statistics being reported. For example, I alerted Flippa recently about a site that was claiming some traffic, $800 gross revenue and $450 in net revenue, yet the site was only a week old and had no traffic and no revenue (confirmed from talking to the seller). Instead the seller was offering a moneyback "guarantee" that if you followed the *exact* instructions laid out in his instruction manual and failed to make back the purchase prices, he would refund you. This is not an excuse for the fraudulent traffic and revenue listing IMO. Yet, Flippa did nothing and the site eventually sold for $850. Very disappointing IMO.

petertdavis suggested:

One thing I think Flippa could do to lessen the deception is to have 12 fields to enter monthly revenue, and those 12 being the revenue for the past 12 full months. That way, they could show an average of the past 12 months revenue and let you click in to see the details to know where it's trending.

And I thought this was a great idea.

[Clinton]

Thanks, Eric. If I recall, Luke did like that idea.

What else I'd like to see is a quick recognition when there's obviously fraudulent behaviour by a seller. And serious action. Dock him some reputation points, give him infractions or just ban his ass depending on the severity.

[petertdavis]

Thanks, Eric. If I recall, Luke did like that idea.

What else I'd like to see is a quick recognition when there's obviously fraudulent behaviour by a seller. And serious action. Dock him some reputation points, give him infractions or just ban his ass depending on the severity.

I'd say that slow response is the biggest complaint I have about the Flippa support team. There have been times when I've reported listings and waited days for a response. And, to put icing on that cake sometimes the response has been "the listing already finished so we're doing nothing about it" or something of the sort. Very rarely do they reply to my reports on the same day. Most often it's 24 hours to get any response at all from them. They usually do remove the listings I report, but IMO it's a big black eye to have those sites (mostly terrible porn type stuff) sitting there for such a long time. I don't report every violation I see, but I do report the most outrageous ones. I just don't see why support can't be more timely in their responses.

[LukeMoulton]

Thanks Peter. We were just talking about support load this morning. It's something we're aware of and hope to be able to address this asap.

[Clinton]

Sellers consistenly talk up what they're selling. And that's only to be expected. But there is a significant number who persistently create false expectations among buyers. Would it be too strict to require them to not make any claim unless they can prove it? That way you'll get rid of all that "fantastic potential, you can make $xxxx with this site" talk.

My point: Require them to stick to facts and not give opinions. It's entirely possible. Here's one example. It's an extensive listing from someone who regularly sells templates. He sticks to talking about what he's selling - not the millions of dollars the buyer will certainly make in the very near future.

[daveslutzkin]

Sellers consistenly talk up what they're selling. And that's only to be expected. But there is a significant number who persistently create false expectations among buyers. Would it be too strict to require them to not make any claim unless they can prove it? That way you'll get rid of all that "fantastic potential, you can make $xxxx with this site" talk.

My point: Require them to stick to facts and not give opinions. It's entirely possible. Here's one example. It's an extensive listing from someone who regularly sells templates. He sticks to talking about what he's selling - not the millions of dollars the buyer will certainly make in the very near future.

Hm, I like this idea. Truth in advertising.

Most attractive is that it allows our Customer Support a relatively simple guiding principle, as opposed to the ongoing arms race of learning about new dubious techniques only to have the state-of-the-art in dishonesty move past that.

We'll discuss this, but it sounds good on the face of it.

[LukeMoulton]

Kind of like how Ezinearticles has a submission guideline and manual review process - if you don't adhere to it you article submission gets rejected until you fix the offending copy. I can't make any promises on this one as it involves manual vetting - but I won't rule it out either.

[3Six]

Brilliant!

[Clinton]

Luke, I'd also like to see a separation between templates and established sites. And changing the length of time needs to be around before it can be called established. Otherwise sellers just sit on templates for a few weeks for the template to qualify as "established site".

I know people can now sort listing on PR, Alexa, Revenue, Prices etc. But metrics like Alexa are next to worthless. Ones like Revenue and Price are not much better as they are seller controlled. I'd suggest splitting the stats you show based on seller controlled metrics like "claimed" revenue and verifiable metrics such as PR and age of domain.