Thanks for sharing these thoughts on the problems of large scale ebay trading. I bought great items from auctioning4u on ebay and was surprised to see the change of ebay trading name to clocktronix, which must have been when you sold off the auctioning4u brand name to temporarily combat cash flow problems.

The worst thing to do in business is to take on expensive long-term leases on business premises, which add to overheads, incur inflexibility, and cause worries when cash flow problems occur. It’s the same with taking on a lot of staff on high salaries. If you get cash flow problems, you can’t negotiate to reduce the fixed overheads like rent and salaries, so whatever bank reserve you have and other assets are soon lost to cover overheads, then cash flow doesn’t pick up the business is finished, the bank pulls the plug. But I suppose you desperately needed the warehousing and storage space at the time you got it.

Recently you have specialised in selling quality refurbished computer equipment, and it would be nice if you could somehow adapt and use this business model to break the virtual monopoly of high street retail chains like PC World on the new laptop and mobile market.

I think what you should do in future, if and when you can sort out the present difficulties, is to take a look at the possibility of gradually establishing a business on ebay to compete with firms like PC World, e.g., bulk buying from manufacturers (to get low unit costs) and auctioning a range of popular laptops on ebay. New laptops, mobiles, etc., come in small packaging so vast warehouse space is not required.

Auctioning (not fixed price) is obviously the fairest way to sell, and should attract customers on that basis. I think that the reason that nobody is currently bulk buying new laptops, new mobiles, etc., and then auctioning them on ebay is that they’re scared the business model won’t work, people won’t bid enough, and they’ll make a loss. However, if the first few customers get a good deal, they’ll do advertising for you by telling others and leaving extremely good feedback. You can write off initial problems as a loss-leader effect.

Possibly the first few will make a loss if you start selling from a brand new ebay account with zero ratings, but with positive feedbacks pouring in (which should be no problem, if you are selling new, sealed boxed equipment), hopefully it will snowball quickly with everyone using it to buy new hi-tech products at fair (auction) prices.

The problem here would be to raise the capital to bulk buy large quantities of in-demand goods to sell in sufficiently large volume that the unit price becomes small enough that you can afford to undercut stores like PC World by auction in a sustainable way.

Possibly donating a percentage of the selling price to charities directly via ebay would help cement customer loyalty, etc.

This is a message for anyone who has worked or still works for clocktronix.

in the last week i have purchased 4 items totalling over £1000. this is since the 31st jan . the adminstrators are in at this point i think, will i still get the items i bought, any ideas anyone.. ?

thanks

Now he tells us!!

Since the consumer proposition does not work at the moment there is no point in brand building.

The part of our business that sold consumer electronics did make money and therefore would still be in business. However, it would never be a large or very profitable business.

We had initially try to build a nationwide retail chain similar to say Boots and for that reason had a large team of software developer, marketing executives and part-time experts for various subject areas (for example carpets), to generate the current revenues we would have taken a commercially available software package and only needed a team of less than 20.

1) Is “building a brand” a worthwhile exercise for a trading assistant? Sure you need a brand, but does it need to be a costly exercise or can you target your optimum customers without great expense?

2) Bearing in mind the only profitable exercise appears to be disposal services for businesses is it even worth being a trading assistant or is it better to simply purchase the stock as millions of other eBay sellers do.

3) Probably the most interesting question… could Auctioning4u have survived had it not spent millions building a brand and investing in personnel and processing centers initially aimed at appealing to consumers? Would the company still be trading if they had focused on business clients from day one?

Good luck with your next venture Christian.

That just seems to prove the point that VERO is misused, and those submitting VERO takedown notices don’t apply due dilligence to ensure that they are valid

I’m sorry to hear that A4U has been wound up and personally believe that there is space for such a business in the eBay UK ecosystem.

I think your analysis of the problems is fair. In particular, the unfair pressures of VeRO is a point well made and one I’ve heard from sellers again and again. In these cases eBay is a ‘hanging judge’ and faceless.

That said, two things always struck me about A4U. Firstly, that you had an awful lot of staff. More than 100, as I seem to recall and I always thought that that seemed a lot. Secondly, on your main ID at least, it seemed like you got a lot of negative feedback (for P&P costs and despatch delay, as I remember). Possibly because you were being judged more harshly as a professional outlet or because you had a some kinks in your processes.

Best wishes to you, and the staff.

dw