Re: Follow up on Tenagra's Grand Experiment

From: David McKnight <David_at_McKnight.net>
Date: Wed 12 Jan 2000 13:39:23 -0800

CLIFF KURTZMAN WROTE:
> Because of the attention we knew the auction would generate,
> we had notified the eBay press office of the auction before
> it began. In the end, eBay was left with a lot of
> embarassment over the fiasco. Their auction process is
> clearly flawed for high profile and high dollar value
> auctions, and there are fairly simple procedures that they
> could implement to solve the problem. They could have used
> this situation to announce that they would take positive
> measures (which we suggested to them), but instead seem to
> have taken more of a "this kind of thing hardly ever happens
> and let the seller beware" attitude towards the whole thing,
> and they are getting burned in the press for it.

Last year, MTV partnered with eBay for their "Cool
Crap" charity auction. I arranged for the company I
worked for at the time to supply the highest-value item
in the auction -- the Fleetwood RV motor home used in
"Road Rules" that season. It was quite clear to MTV and
to us that bidders would need to be verified before
their bids were accepted. That responsibility was
handled by MTV, not eBay.

While a $50,000 motor home may not compare to a domain
name with a claimed value of $4-mil, from our position
it was just as critical that flakey bids NOT enter the
picture. Every bidder was verified -- and
non-verifiable bids were not accepted. When the auction
goes on for the better part of a week, that should be
no problem at all for most businesses. Inasmuch as the
highest activity during the auction took place during
the final weekend, when it went live on MTV, it was
still not a problem to verify the bids. And when you
consider that "Road Rules" primary viewer demographics
are young people 12-24 years old, you just know there
were some outrageous bids coming from kids, many of
whom didn't even have their driver's licenses.

I won't say that the project was not time consuming. Of
course it was. But I have nothing but the highest
regard for the folks I've worked with at eBay. They do
an excellent job in providing the infrastructure and
services for your auction -- that's right, it's *your*
auction. Anyone auctioning something they value highly
would be well-advised to do their homework, and build a
business plan around the activity so they can feel
confident that the results will meet their
expectations.

I don't want to be unjust, because I was not involved
in the domain name auction mentioned; but I can sure
tell you from someone who has been there, it at least
*appears* that these folks didn't do their homework.


DAVID

David K. McKnight
TeamMetrx, Groupware That's Simply Addictive
<mailto:David_at_McKnight.net>
Web Site: <http://David.McKnight.net>
(for "Diary of an Internet Startup...")





Received on Wed Jan 12 2000 - 15:39:23 CST