Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello, My name is Mary McKinney and my husband and I are trying to put together a new business called Trade-City.net.

With Trade-City.net You will be able to buy, sell or trade whatever it is that you have or want, with your privacy being YOURS, not ours.  No credit cards, no ssn.s, those belong to you, not us or our sellers. 

So give us a try if you don`t care.. Let us know what you think..tell us what you think is wrong or right...this site is not only for us, it is for you too. 

Thank you so much for taking time to review this and hopefully Trade-City.net

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trade-city.net

Charles & Mary McKinney

Hello Charles & Mary,

I checked your website keeping in mind throughout my visit the question of "why should I sell/buy products here?".  To be frank I didn`t find something specific to encourge me apart from mentioning that I don`t need to add my CC details.  However, I have the following comments that I guess by answering to them through your website can help it become better:

- The issue of not posting CC details is tied to the credibility of the buyer/seller...how can you provide credibility if you are always mentioning that "you won`t ask any questions"? 

- You are asking for "paid" advertising....I think since the website is still starting up you need to give some free offers to drive some traffic...

- Try to add some sample products maybe real products that any of your family or friends wish to buy/sell.....this will make the website more alive..

- The navigational links disappear whenever I enter any of sub links....I am not supposed to use the browser back bottom to get them again...this is very inconvenient...you have to add them on every page

- again, you are also charging people to list their products.  Even if it only 65 cents, I think you shouldn`t have that....just let people post their products for free and you can then start to benefit from the increased traffic on the site through advertisments or the successful buying/selling leads...

- People should be able to post their products details AND images easily and without your intervension.....I find it a waste to time to have to contact you to upload images or so...and this can be done easily with a few lines of code ...

- try to use some imagery and/or a simple logo in the website design....this will make it more alive and attractive

Overall I think your website needs to be converted into an e-commerce application and you can disable any credit card payment options.  I already utilize in my business an e-commerce application where I can setup payment to manual: bank draft, cheque, e-cheque or online using any combination of CC types or a combination of both...

On another note, I checked your profile and it says: "What I do for a living: Promote Trade-City.com"...this is a totally different website ...please change it (this usually happens to me because my domain is .net too )

Hope my comments help

Good luck in your business,

Riham.

    Hello Riham, 

This one I have taken care of, I had not even thought of it so thanks for the heads up   

        You are asking for "paid" advertising....I think since the website is still starting up you need to give some free offers to drive some traffic      

This one I`m not sure what you mean, will you please explain so I can figure out what I need to do

                    The issue of not posting CC details is tied to the credibility of the buyer/seller...how can you provide credibility if you are always mentioning that "you won`t ask any questions"? 

  This one I`m working hard on

                    Try to add some sample products maybe real products that any of your family or friends wish to buy/sell.....this will make the website more alive..

I will change this today and offer free listings for awhile, should I mention that the free listings will only be for a limited time (say 6 months to get it up and going)

again, you are also charging people to list their products.  Even if it only 65 cents, I think you shouldn`t have that....just let people post their products for free and you can then start to benefit from the increased traffic on the site through advertisments or the successful buying/selling leads...

Can you explain to me how to do this?

- People should be able to post their products details AND images easily and without your intervension.....I find it a waste to time to have to contact you to upload images or so...and this can be done easily with a few lines of code ...

Thanks so much for your input, I look forward to hearing from you again,

 

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trade-city.net

Charles & Mary McKinney

Hi Charles & Mary,

I just thought I would drop my opinion off about Trade-City.
I hope you don`t mind some constructive critisisim coming from an attempting on-line retailer....lol
First off, the site looks home made, there is not much on the home page to attract attention.
The concept is good, but be careful, in all sence of the word, you still fall into the auction category.
On the fee`s, I would offer free listings all the time. One of my main issues is with Ebay, they charge you for everything you do.
I have always said about Ebay, If they offered free listings and no charge if it doesn`t sell, they would make so much more money in the end because ppl would list more items, which in turn would turn into more sales. Check out Ioffer.com.
Something else (I) look for on a site like yours is total # of members, total # of listings, and total sales to date.
If I don`t see that, I may go somewhere else because If your site does not have the the traffic, why waste my time posting when no one is going to see it anyway.
Just a few thoughts right off the top of my head.........
Let me get a few cups of coffee in me and I could come up with some more.........LOL

Hello,

Thank you for the advice, we are going to use it!!

The free listing thing seems to be the way we need to go.  And if it does not sell it will be free, of course if it sells, than there will be a fee.

Now let me ask you, how would I go about listing how many people have registered, I really am not sure. 

And any advice on how to publicize this site any better?  I do have quite a few people signing in and looking and registering, but I believe I need more advertisement.

Thank you so much, and yes, get more coffee in you and let me know anything else!!

Mary

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trade-city.net

Charles & Mary McKinney