whale1

What could I possibly say that I haven’t already and many others haven’t already said about Sitepoint launching it’s new marketplace for buying and selling websites, called Flippa. Suffice it to say, buyers and sellers alike are very unhappy with it.

For whatever reasons, they thought that switching from a highly successful and highly usable interface to a queasy looking Twittery blue Web 2.0 with pathetic usability was a good move. They also apparently think that shoving something down paying customer’s throats that they don’t want and charging them a great deal more for the service is a good idea. When users complained about the interface as well as the exhorbitant price increase, this is what Mark Harbottle: Co-Founder of Sitepoint has this to say to his paying customers who voiced their thoughts on the new Flippa:

Thanks for all your positive feedback guys. We appreciate it. One thing to keep in mind…
Our buyers aren’t going anywhere. They are savvy business people. They don’t care about the design of the site or the fact the logo sucks (the current logo is a placeholder BTW), they simply get on with the business of buying, and we’ve made it a lot easier for them to do that on flippa.com.

Meanwhile while you all whine and complain about the fees, the design, etc. the smart sellers are listing their sites on flippa.com and they are attracting the majority of the buyer interest. They will also get the added benefit of the PR we’re about to roll out.

So, it’s totally up to you! If you want to come across to flippa and sell your site in the professional marketplace we’re creating for serious buyers, we welcome you with open arms. If not, please do go to digitalpoint. List your site for free and see if the old adage of “you get what you pay for” applies.

He also indicated that he doesn’t want to hear any more complaints about the pricing.

In a comment on this post, Matt Mickiewicz says that Mark has already apologized on the CenterNetworks blogs regarding his poor choice of words.  In case anyone missed the big apology, here it is:

“Mark Harbottle says …. I’ll stop by here Allen. Perhaps a poor choice of words, but I stand by message…”

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound like an apology to me.

As a sort of bandaid to the bleeding wound that the 5% success fee has caused in addition to the increased listing price, Flippa staff changed the success fee to where the sellers can now be the bad guy and pass this extra cost on to the buyers if they choose to. Buyers are going to love that, aren’t they?

Considering that sales on Sitepoint have been pretty slow the last couple of months, I don’t think gouging the buyers for an additional 5% is a good idea. But hey … that’s just me.

Now I don’t know about you, but considering that Flippa has had such a rocky launch, calling his paying customers names does not seem like a good idea to me. I’d try a little ass kissing if it were my business that was on life support.

Contrary to what the Flippa staff is telling people, the new site has slowed down considerably. When I was using Sitepoint daily, my listings would scroll off the first page within 1/2 day because of all the new listings being created. It now takes 2 days for listings to scroll off the first page.  All of these changes haven’t changed one thing that was very wrong with the old marketplace called Sitepoint … and that is the large amount of scammers, both buyers and sellers on the site.  It appears to me that the legitimate sellers have been offended and insulted into looking into new options while the same old scammers are sticking it out at Flippa.  Just scrolling through the diminishing listings on the front page, I see the same old scam sellers selling the same old cloned traffic sites and MMR packages, the same old Revolution Church sites that are a dime a dozen … only difference now is they are charging more to make up for their losses in the new pricing and some are passing that success fee onto their buyers.

Matt says that’s because on the Sitepoint marketplace, the other listings came in as well.  Ok.  Probably true enough, but it looks to me like they’ve now cut off the lifeline of the Sitepoint marketplace.  I used to browse and buy from other categories, such as templates, scripts, domains, etc.  I only noticed them because I was there to buy and sell sites.  I don’t check them out any longer, and according to this Alexa screen, I’m not the only one who is not visiting the Sitepoint marketplace any longer.

sitepoint1

In addition, we keep hearing from Sitepoint staff about all the sales the site continues to make.   Ok … so let’s take a look at today’s sales.

ESTABLISHED CELL PHONE STORE WEBSITE BUSINESS FOR SALE $58
XTRA LOW PRICE BIN! Won’t Last Long CovertMarketingGuru.info MIN… $76
SEO Tools Site with more than 50 SEO Tools $85
SEO Tools Site with more than 50 SEO Tools $85
ShortSaleInvesting.info MINISITE ON BUYING SHORT SALES FORECLOSURES $87
StayMotivatedToday.info CUSTOM MINISITE Sells Motivational Ebook CUST… $97
92,700 articles autogrowing Articles Directory, Adsense Optimized… $100
BLAZIN’ HOT Astrology Niche Blog Memorable, Extremely Brandable, Keyw… $147
92500 Articles Directory, Adsense SE Optimized, 1 Yr. FREE HOSTING $149
Professional Bad Credit Loan Tips Site with Videos $150
Original Ebook Site Plus Affiliate Center $151
PetIguanaCare.com Loaded With Unique Content, Already Indexed Ear… $175
100 Unique Site With Perfect Products In Super Profitable Niche Super… $199
Techfloat.com Social Bookmarking for tech $280
SITEPOINT RELIST Premium TopWeightLossOptions.com Quality Site $277
ECO HOME BLOG Exclusive Limited Time $327
iPhone 3.0 Unlocking Website $350
Star Movie Ratings $400
Startup ClickBank Ready Product www.BloggingAmbush.com $497
Niche Adsense Earning Website, Stable and Growing $2400
Established Two year old Paid Hosting Business. Earn xxxx Per Month $15000
PR3 Registry Cleaner Site $400 /Month! Highly Ranked! private
Brand New Content! Brand New ClickBank Ready Business and Product… private

You can see that the majority of the sales being made are the low end, dirt cheap sites.  I was under the impression that the NEW site would be catering more to the high end.  That doesn’t appear to be the case.   It looks like the same old same old all dressed up in blue Web 2.0 to disguise the fact that the site is still full of people out to make a quick buck rather than savvy professional buyers and sellers.

Whenever a service fails so miserably to make it’s customers happy, you can bet there’s a new service around the corner to pick up the pieces.

Enter Sitedeal.org

sitedeal

Sitedeal.org is a brand new marketplace for buying and selling websites and unbelievably, it is free. You can pay for some upgrades, but listing on the site is completely free. The site is packed full of features.

One feature I particularly love is the Sitedeal Stores. I’ve built one already. You can see it here. Within a couple of hours of placing my listings there, I was getting pms from interested buyers. One buyer likes my sites and is interested in a package deal. That’s more interest than I’ve gotten from Sitepoint for a couple of months now, other than the “savvy Flippa buyers” who pm me to offer me $65 for a network of 4 Tattoo sites that gets over 21,000 visitors per month and has revenue.

I could go on and on about the potential and features of Sitedeal.org, but just go check it out for yourself … and while you’re there, Stumble it, bookmark it, Tweet about it, blog about it. Shout about it. It’s a whole lot better than the alternative.

In case you want to check out the reaction to Flippa, here’s the links:

Don’t Flippa off your customers

Flippa: It’s Alive (from the Sitepoint Forum)

Flippa is Alive from the Warrior Forum

SitePoint Spins Off Website Marketplace As Flippa, Upsets Users from Techcrunch