| Posted By: Steve - Admin |
| UK Based Tazbar Auctions announces a management team buyout:"After much negotiation it has been agreed that from 1st February 2008 the development team at Tazbar will take over the ownership and running of the site. James Stuart (programming) Adrian Boyle (Graphics) and myself will take Tazbar forward in 2008 as the new major share holders. " says new Managing Director Lee Markham."It is only too apparent that Tazbar now has an attractive and reasonably efficient bespoke platform. There is always room for improvement, there will always be bugs to fix and there will always be maintenance to carry out. However the site basically works well. We could continue to develop the website forever, but this is all in vain if the world is not aware of its existence. This will change in 2008." [ Read Full Announcement ] |
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| Posted By: Enthusiast |
| It makes a lot of sense in that Lee Markham always seemed to be the one with the drive. It's also interesting that no promises are being made about more TV advertising. That must have cost a small fortune and it's not clear if it actually brought in a commensurate increase in business.
I think one of the problems with the site was that for a long time there was free listing and as a result large sellers & people using dropshipping listed huge numbers of duplicate items. These totally swamped small sellers with just a few items to sell, e.g. the DVD section was full of people listing the same dropshipped titles and often several times. This made browsing something only the most patient of people would bother to do. I got off to a reasonable start there but once the huge duplicate listings arrived it proved to be a complete waste of time, particularly as I could do better elsewhere. I know there have been recent changes which may discourage duplicate listings to some degree but it is still a bit of a pain for the small seller as autolist is not allowed unless you pay a fee. And who wants to do that if items don't sell?
The site does have a lot of good features and if you do know what you want then often it's a good place to buy. But whether Lee Markham & his colleagues can both increase its visibility and the amount of business done on there is a great unknown. After all, the site has tried before, so what new ideas do they have? |
| Posted By: Steve - Admin |
- Enthusiast wrote:
The site does have a lot of good features and if you do know what you want then often it's a good place to buy. But whether Lee Markham & his colleagues can both increase its visibility and the amount of business done on there is a great unknown. After all, the site has tried before, so what new ideas do they have?
I have had a few email conversations with Lee and he has been one of the driving forces behind Tazbar from the start. I certainly wish him and the team well with the site and hope that it goes from strength to strength!Ok I think one of the issues has been the constant development and changes to get it to where it is now. Whilst there has been some great improvements to the look and functionality of the site I think this has been at the expense of marketing. It is easy to concentrate on getting the ssite perfect, during which time you are not promoting the site as heavily as it deserves.Moving forward from what I can gather I think the team will hold off on further major development and focus efforts on the marketing. In addition I think we will see a affiliate scheme being announced which will help drive new members and business to the site. Certainly I believe that this will have an extremely positive effect on the visibility of Tazbar and I would certainly welcome it.I think the new fee & membership structure will enable them to reach a wider audience and provide several opportunities that were not previously available. The changes may well have raised concerns and complaints from some sellers but it is abundantly clear that this business model is far better for the long term goals of Tazbar. Sellers have to realise that marketing a site is not free and to have any chance of being a viable marketplace you have to invest large sums. You can have all the anti-ebay sentiment on your side but that doesn't neccesarily translate into bids.With the changes that have already been implemented I think a lot of the ground work has been completed and they are best placed to move forward now.I guess once the dust has settled we shall see more evidence of the change in direction and it will certainly be interesting.CheersSteve |