Tuesday, February 15, 2005 10:20 PM
I've been looking for new alternative sites for eBay to recommend auction sellers and use myself also. While I was comparing sites which do not charge any listing fees or final value fees for the items listed, I have seen Blujay being a step further than some other new sites. Blujay had several advantages compared to other online market places. Blujay's system is similar to what we call classifieds systems. Some advantages I've experienced during using Blujay are:
- Very easy to register, and activate your account. You don't need a credit card on file, or provide your actual address to be able to list your items.
- One page listing is one of the easiest I've ever seen on auction and classifieds sites.
- Blujay creates froogle feeds for your items and automatically submits them to Froogle. I've checked Bluejay's Froogle results and there are already almost 1400 items confirmed and listed by Froogle.
- You have flexible listing day options such as 7, 14, 30, 60 and 180 days. 180 days option is a very rare to find at other classifieds sites, and if you have regular items in stock, it's a great way to list them all with 180 days duration.
- You can upload up to 4 photos for each item for free which is a big save from image hosting costs for sellers.
- As soon as you register with Blujay you get a free web store and your own URL to give to your customers such as blujay.com/yourusername . Free webstore option is always a plus to organize your items within one storefront page and let your customers find other products offered by you.
After reviewing Blujay, first I was suspicious about the whole system. Because all of these features would cost a big time to the site owner, and they claim to offer everything for free and they insist that Blujay will stay free. So I have contacted Adam, the owner of Blujay, and discussed about my concerns and questions. And I've seen that he is a hard working guy with a great project, and willing to help online sellers. Here's some information Adam has sent me about Bluejay:
blujay.com, the free online fixed price marketplace which allows the small business and individual seller to reach their buyers over the internet, finally releases the service for the public to use. After years of development and months of testing, blujay.com announces that the service is ready for the small business to start selling on the internet for free which would otherwise cost hard earned money on other sites.
"Small businesses already have very slim margins for what they're selling. We believe that selling online should be free, just like searching online, or emailing your family. Releasing this service is our effort to further that belief," says Henderson Hsieh, marketing spokesperson at blujay.com.
blujay.com offers features that cost big money on other sites.
In order to help the small business & individual seller to reach buyers online, the service allows them to open a webstore with a simple url "blujay.com/username" for free. Additionally, the service provides space on the storefront where the seller can include a physical store address, phone number or even a brief description of what they sell.
Some other features the service provides include item management tools, item listings with up to 4 photos, and item listings lasting 180 days. By comparison, on other sites each of these features is considered an "upgrade" on top of listing fees or monthly storefront fees being charged. For instance, thumbnail images in search results costs $0.25 & each additional photo costs $0.15 for each item on ebay. These types of fees quickly add up to significant amounts. On blujay.com, everything is free.
Sometimes auctions don't work.
Not everything for sale on other sites sells because the item doesn't find the right buyer in the 7 days of an auction or 30 days of a classified. By allowing a seller to list their item for 180 days, the blujay.com service allows more exposure and therefore increases the chance that a seller will find the right buyer.
About blujay
blujay.com is the free photo marketplace that offers the small business & individual seller the tools, services, & features needed to reach their buyers over the internet. A seller can list items with 4 photos each and refer people to their store via a simple link "blujay.com/your_username" all for Free.
If you are already selling online, or want to try, I'd highly recommend to check out Blujay.com . Here's the Blujay Storefront I've setup to test the system prior to writing this article. I will be spending some time listing at Blujay and supporting this new venue.