TM Auctions Relaunched as Exclusive Auction System
Published on October 25, 2010 by Steve Thomas in TM Auctions
Thomas Multimedia’s web auction software TM Auctions, has been available on a monthly price basis for about 12 months.
While their was a fair amount of interest in that time period – with virtually zero active marketing from our end – including several new auction sites being launched, some things quickly became evident:
- An auction site needs regular love and attention
- An auction site needs a strong existing business and existing customer base
- A site owner needs to be driven and expend energy getting their site to the target market
What we found is that we need to target stronger, better resourced, better dedicated businesses as opposed to the smaller startups who are probably doing this part time or as a side project.
Frankly, I can’t stand to see an auction site go down the gurgler, even if the loss of time and expense was minimal.
Analysing my own mistakes, the target market was wrong. By lowering the barrier of entry to a starting price of $49 a month, combined with a free 30 day trial, I was attracting the smallest end of business who thought they could enter the e-commerce market without anymore than a small monthly fee. As time has shown, this is not the case; as a site owner, you need to know how to sell, and you need to know how to build up a membership base.
To address this misconception, TM Auctions as a product has been redefined.
The new emphasis is to target stronger established businesses, who have the resources to dedicate man hours and budget towards a stronger push onto the market. This most certainly is a combination of a strong marketing campaign, and an existing customer base to direct toward the auction site. An existing website with steady traffic is also a strong positive.
The second change is to give every auction site owner 8 hours of credit, included in the monthly service fee. These hours are available to the site owner to collaborate with Thomas Multimedia on marketing, design and customisation strategies. It is essentially a pro-active arrangement to keep pushing the auction website to the top of its category.
Finally, TM Auctions is now provided on an exclusive basis.
That means that we will only accept one website per niche. You don’t have to worry about us helping out your competition – we will refuse them – so long as you get in first!
The new pricing inclusive of all taxes is as follows:
$825 per month (includes GST)
- unlimited auctions
- ulimited buyers and sellers
- up to 12 pictures per auction
- video support
- 8 hours included support per calendar month
If you want to go over the 8 hours per month, not a problem – additional hours are priced at $82.50 inclusive of GST.
If you have any questions about launching your own auction website, don’t hesitate to contact us.
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