I'm not sure how appealing it will be... Its certainly unique conceptually. I've been busy as busy can be so I have not really had time to think alot about this concept.
Some ideas come to mind right off the bat.
For example lets say a bidder need "solve" some sort of puzzle or perhaps arcade blast em' up to some point count to get purchase incentive, $1 off shipping, free shipping, free merchandise etc. In other words how can a bidding game be turned into a marketing tool at eBay .vs. a more novelty based approach?
Conceptually it might encourage a consumer to bid playing a given game to obtain a savings and/or reward for "winning" at a game.
Another strange idea that just hit my most local neural net would be 2 player or more. Whether its bids driving upward or the reverse, not really reverse auction but instead say cutting off a Buy It Now price? Weird idea huh?
Not sure how eBay'd feel about such things either?
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Kolstrom: I'll take a look at it. Generally speaking I am always coding something or another up in VB or C++, once in a blue moon Assembly Language. I really want find some time to learn to code with Flash since its now become so popular. With graphics creation I am rather challenged but my fiance is just unbelievable with creating graphics, so that works.
I get just about every "AAA" release of PC Games mailed to me that hits the US/Euro markets due to my prior work in the industry so I sometimes get deflected into playing something. Often they are just looking for my opinion as I dont pull punches.
In fact, we entered into sales completely by mistake. Electronic Arts former CEO came up to me in a CES backroom discussion and manuevered me into it and then some. LOL. I was working some of the AI code for the Maxis "Sim Games" (SimCity, Isle etc...). In fact not long after we handed our low level graphics kernel code to ID which some was used in the original Quake. We'd re-written the entire graphics kernel for the Atari ST computers all in hand tuned 68000 assembler. It screwed! LOL
Anyways... since Jeff's in here some prospect suggestions for Auctiva:
1. Auctiva Stores - It'd be nice to have a gateway page to the stores option. Reason being then store proprieters could use said page to optimize for search engine inclusion.
2. Auctiva Mall - Putting all those stores together under one domain gateway. Auctiva could attempt paid advertising for the landing page, category feature on and on. In the same regard perhaps vertify vendors. ie: There are members and there are gold members whatall with varied standards of customer satisfaction requirement.
3. Auctiva might wish to consider a "ticket system" for vendors. Just as Auctiva (and many many other webs) has a "Support Ticket" system it'd really be a nice thing for vendors in general. Its professional. So as a vendor we can slap in our ad's "Need support... blah blah"...
First it gives Auctiva a good edge on some of the other services (I believe a few of them do have this already) and there are ways Auctiva can generate revenues from it both in say advertising and not or flat rate fee, $5 is cheap cheap for any vendor a month for that professional support ability. To Auctiva such a system would be very cheap to implement as it really takes no storage of any consequence or bandwidth etc.
4. As I said in another thread, a "Optional" profile ability would be nice. So for seasonal this/that, promo's on and on it can be used to inject the information into the template/listing.
5. A Bulk template replace/update function is fairly important to vendors with lots of stuff. We have LOTS of stuff, over 4000 SKU's easily that we need make ad's for (oye). ie: We want add a new store category lets say to our template or anything for that matter. We should be able to select our "Custom template" replace it with the new updated one and have the option to replace all SAVED listings using said template with the new one... So next time we post to eBay the changes take effect.
I have more
Additionally if Auctiva's interested in talking I know how "we" can make more money than either of our businesses could conceive making.
Lastly...
I presume eBay is not going to get all upset with me putting BattleBids in a few auctions?
Should I attempt promote Auctiva within these or will they get bent on that?
I have no issues in helping promote Auctiva in our listings if eBay doesnt get pissed at me. ie: a "custom" field in our custom template where I can inject a "Auctiva... la la la" banner or something thats more visible than the bit down in the gallery.