I'm not going to lie, the price is prohibitive to most startups. Our company could definitely use your listings for the purpose of recruiting but we just can't afford $120 for any amount of time. Only funded startups can afford those kind of prices.
From a business perspective, you might do well to charge less. I was looking at the different boards the other day (before you started the Marketplace) and I saw GigaOm and Techcrunch charge $200 while R/W Web was around $100. If you have a slightly lower price you might be able to appeal to the pre-funding startup crowd (which looks like most of your base).
I do really like the idea of selling whole companies, technologies and services. There could definitely be a market for small scale acquisitions and mergers and mashable is definitely in the best position to do it. I'll definitely be checking, probably more often once we get our VC check.
Mark
· 2 years ago
–Do you think $120/month is too high to appeal to the broadest range of people? If so, what price would be reasonable?
Yes the pricing is high $35.00 for 2 weeks $60.00 for the month would be perfect imo
–What price would keep the marketplace filled with good quality listings, avoid spam and yet maintain enough volume to be useful to you? As stated above - I would also have different pricing for each category - the pricing I stated above would be fine for selling a website
The startups listing in the marketplace range from single-man projects to multi million-dollar companies (we have a few major ones backed up and we’re verifying the listings with the owners): would you prefer more varied pricing depending on what is being sold? sounds like a safe idea
Would you prefer to pay per week, rather than per month? This would mean the commitment would be a lot less - $50/week maybe.
biweekly payment I think would suit your potential users better with a discounted monthly rate
–Are you happy with the current categories? I think a partnership / funding category should be added –What other changes would you make? you would need to add more fields for the listing example: websites and domains for sale
Price, asking - biding - bin Traffic, uniques page views Page ranking (PR) Sellers contact info posted with the listing.
Category pricing posting jobs wanted / available (blogger) should be less than domains and websites for sale.
Events / providers/ consulting should have a midway pricing between jobs and sites / domains for sale.
mark
· 2 years ago
I like his suggestions.
Dave
· 2 years ago
I actually think the $120/mo pricing is reasonable, and will result in higher quality listings.
Unrelated to the price, though, I gotta say the page navigation drives me nuts. The listings appear to be alphabetized (wouldn't chronological order make more sense?) and there are no previous/next page links.
Mark
· 2 years ago
Dave - if you reference past domain sales on ebay sitepoint / dp etc - domains do not sell for very high amounts.
also there are other sites that have been established for a long time that either lets you list these same listing for free or at an extremely lower fee.
Pete has a chance to really make a dent in this market by making his prices competitive.
the high prices will of course weed out bogus listings but it will also weed out financially strapped individuals who could really benefit from the exposure their listings would receive on mashable.
Pete
· 2 years ago
Totally agree on need for chronological order.
Sam
· 2 years ago
I think the price could be set slightly lower. It could end up being a win, win situation. Smaller companies who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford it could and (hopefully)the increase in paid listings would then make up for the lower price set, anyway.
Having it in chronological order would be a bonus. Also, I'd like to be able to sort the companies for sale by value. Maybe each listing should contain an estimated price (it wouldn't have to be exact, but most people know what price they'd like for the business) and then it can be sorted by this.
Mike
· 2 years ago
I have a couple suggestions:
Tiered pricing for the diferrent categories makes the most sense in terms of reasonable pricing.
Standardize your graphics sizes in the marketplace.
The value to your customers will be greatly increased if listings in the marketplace were visible on the pages in the blog. Perhaps in a rotating manner. That would certainly be more valuable to your readership as well compared to your ebay listings for example which are currently trying to sell me IV bags. Time to start my own medical clinic? I think not...
This is a nice addition Pete, especially for those of us who write in and never hear back from you.
Keep up the good work.
Pete
· 2 years ago
Graphics are standardized to a max width, but specifying width and height would make a lot of them screwy.
eBay listings?
Other points are already in hand.
Mike
· 2 years ago
You might want to check your PNG specifications for IE6. Currently the marketplace section is a little hard on the eyes for the IE6 browsing crowd.
That's my fault for not mentioning which browser I was in at the time. Looks fine in Firefox.
Pete
· 2 years ago
Yeah, there is a problem with images in IE. Safari could use a little tweak too.
Christopher
· 2 years ago
-select #listings pp -lower pricing ($120 is prohibitive for all categories other than website for sale...think in the $20-50 range/month, lower for domain sales) -if you want to become THE place to look for 2.0 shite, the cost for posting should be a LOT less (
Pete
· 2 years ago
Guys,
Don't you think your pricing suggestions are a bit on the low side? I guess I can compromise on $50/month. Perhaps even cheaper for domains. But $120/month is nothing if you're, say, trying to sell even a tiny startup for $XX,000s
Josh Duck
· 2 years ago
Pete, I agree with you to some extent. $120 is not really much to anyone who is serious about selling a site. For advertising a job opening it may be a little bit too pricey.
You need to be a little bit clearer about what companies get for their money though. Is it just a listing on the marketplace page? Do they get mentioned in the main blog? Will you have a list of for-sale sites in the sidebar, etc.
It's a new service too, so some people might be worried about throwing their money away on something that isn't tested. Hopefully once a few sites are sold or openings are filled than you can settle on a price and back it up with proof that it is justified.
Christopher
· 2 years ago
well...$120 is nothing if the audience is large enough to snatch a sale...but then I don't know the readership of the Marketplace.
-also # of listings in each category on the right sidebar menu would be nice.
Sam
· 2 years ago
Someone mentioned having the listings somehow included on the main page. Good idea. Would it not be possible to do a weekly round up post stating new listings? It would certainly gives businesses more of an incentive to get listed.
momentum design lab
· 2 years ago
135 is fine with me. Keep it there or raise it up. This will differentiate your hobbyists from your real companies.
All Comments
From a business perspective, you might do well to charge less. I was looking at the different boards the other day (before you started the Marketplace) and I saw GigaOm and Techcrunch charge $200 while R/W Web was around $100. If you have a slightly lower price you might be able to appeal to the pre-funding startup crowd (which looks like most of your base).
I do really like the idea of selling whole companies, technologies and services. There could definitely be a market for small scale acquisitions and mergers and mashable is definitely in the best position to do it. I'll definitely be checking, probably more often once we get our VC check.
Yes the pricing is high
$35.00 for 2 weeks $60.00 for the month would be perfect imo
–What price would keep the marketplace filled with good quality listings, avoid spam and yet maintain enough volume to be useful to you?
As stated above - I would also have different pricing for each category - the pricing I stated above would be fine for selling a website
The startups listing in the marketplace range from single-man projects to multi million-dollar companies (we have a few major ones backed up and we’re verifying the listings with the owners): would you prefer more varied pricing depending on what is being sold?
sounds like a safe idea
Would you prefer to pay per week, rather than per month? This would mean the commitment would be a lot less - $50/week maybe.
biweekly payment I think would suit your potential users better with a discounted monthly rate
–Are you happy with the current categories?
I think a partnership / funding category should be added
–What other changes would you make?
you would need to add more fields for the listing example: websites and domains for sale
Price, asking - biding - bin
Traffic, uniques page views
Page ranking (PR)
Sellers contact info posted with the listing.
Category pricing
posting jobs wanted / available (blogger) should be less than domains and websites for sale.
Events / providers/ consulting should have a midway pricing between jobs and sites / domains for sale.
Unrelated to the price, though, I gotta say the page navigation drives me nuts. The listings appear to be alphabetized (wouldn't chronological order make more sense?) and there are no previous/next page links.
also there are other sites that have been established for a long time that either lets you list these same listing for free or at an extremely lower fee.
Pete has a chance to really make a dent in this market by making his prices competitive.
the high prices will of course weed out bogus listings but it will also weed out financially strapped individuals who could really benefit from the exposure their listings would receive on mashable.
Having it in chronological order would be a bonus. Also, I'd like to be able to sort the companies for sale by value. Maybe each listing should contain an estimated price (it wouldn't have to be exact, but most people know what price they'd like for the business) and then it can be sorted by this.
Tiered pricing for the diferrent categories makes the most sense in terms of reasonable pricing.
Standardize your graphics sizes in the marketplace.
The value to your customers will be greatly increased if listings in the marketplace were visible on the pages in the blog. Perhaps in a rotating manner. That would certainly be more valuable to your readership as well compared to your ebay listings for example which are currently trying to sell me IV bags. Time to start my own medical clinic? I think not...
This is a nice addition Pete, especially for those of us who write in and never hear back from you.
Keep up the good work.
eBay listings?
Other points are already in hand.
That's my fault for not mentioning which browser I was in at the time. Looks fine in Firefox.
-lower pricing ($120 is prohibitive for all categories other than website for sale...think in the $20-50 range/month, lower for domain sales)
-if you want to become THE place to look for 2.0 shite, the cost for posting should be a LOT less (
Don't you think your pricing suggestions are a bit on the low side? I guess I can compromise on $50/month. Perhaps even cheaper for domains. But $120/month is nothing if you're, say, trying to sell even a tiny startup for $XX,000s
You need to be a little bit clearer about what companies get for their money though. Is it just a listing on the marketplace page? Do they get mentioned in the main blog? Will you have a list of for-sale sites in the sidebar, etc.
It's a new service too, so some people might be worried about throwing their money away on something that isn't tested. Hopefully once a few sites are sold or openings are filled than you can settle on a price and back it up with proof that it is justified.
-also # of listings in each category on the right sidebar menu would be nice.