Chosen by Asker

It is hard to follow eBay's model where anything and everything can be traded on their site (within their guidelines, of course). Even Yahoo Auction, with all their marketing might and technology, can't even hold a candle to eBay. You'll stand a better chance of succeeding if you focus on a particular niche Look at the wine arena for example. You have Winebid.com, CellarExchange.com, and other auction sites that are doing pretty well. Think of a sector or a particular audience. For example, Playle.com is a small auction site for vintage postcard collectors. Then find a good auction software that you can configure and customize to add features you'd like in your auction community. It is best if you yourself is a techie, or can have someone on board who knows how to troubleshoot and configure the software Unless you can make the software yourself, expect startup capital to be around $10,000 or more. You'll need robust and scalable hosting, one that can handle 100 to 100,000 users on the fly without crashing -- and those don't come cheap (dedicated servers start at $99 per month and up)

by imisidro

2 years ago

Asker's Rating: 

You will have to find an experienced web site designer. an auction site needs some pretty complicated programming. Plan on spending several thousand dollars to create the site before you can put it to work.

by Serge M- 2 years ago

I don't know why people seem to think that this is such a huge undertaking... and how much money???? LOL I guess if you are trying to do an exact replica of eBay you may consider spending thousands, but really it's not that expensive. The real chore is researching the different scripts that are available and getting to know PHP yourself or having an experienced PHP developer who can help you. There are tons of scripts out there, yeah some are better than others and you will need to be careful how much you put into a script because the majority of what you spend will be on customization and debugging. Now, if you know html and php pretty well, then it should not be as hard as if you were someone with no technical knowledge. As far as a server, try SBI (Site Build It) AWESOME host as well as traffic generator. As far as scripts, there are MANY. I would suggest finding a script with open source so that you can have a developer of your choice work on it. I do have to agree with one statement I heard here, it's probably best if you do stick with a niche market if you are starting an auction site. That's smart thinking. But don't get discouraged. I would not suggest on spending any money on any business venture unless you are prepared to loose the investment because there are risks involved with all businesses, whether on-line or brick and mortar. It also takes time to get something like this rolling, can't expect it to become successful overnight, so if you have the time and patience to make it work, than go for it! Good Luck to you!

by *Keepers of the Wood*- 2 years ago

Hi we setup out own auction site, living on a small island everytime you buy from *bay there are fees from the sellers, its a bloody scandle, so we setup www ... the script is from phpprobid, its a good script with many enhancements, its easy to use, there are a good selection of mods, and templates available for it, although the price is over £100

by nhkjv- 2 years ago