Flippa Blog « New Trust Ratings and Tweet Listing on @flippa Upgrade!

I have literally joined the site within the last couple of hours so am very new. However I must agree with several of the previous comments about the value of facebook increasing credibility and trustworthiness in the business world.

Great … just great. I use Facebook for personal use only and don’t care to have every tom, dick and harry contacting me via Facebook. You’ve got my phone and tons of feedback from my customers … exactly how does having a Facebook acct make someone trustworthy?

All,

I definitely hear all your concerns, and I agree that Facebook isn’t really the perfect mechanism for doing this. However, it’s better than nothing. We’ll be adding more trust factors in the near future – connecting to LinkedIn being one of them – and this will make the Facebook Connect option proportionally less important.

As it is, we’ve adjusted the numbers slightly so that it’s not too important. The maximum you can now get from Feedback alone is +7, and you’ll have +2 from your phone number. So you can get a very decent trust rating even without connecting your Facebook account. I hope this works OK – we’ll keep monitoring it to make sure we’re getting the effect we want.

“We don’t have any plans in the short term to do anything more than connect to Facebook, and even if we do start doing more, we won’t be doing anything without your explicit permission”

What or how many or how often we use a social network is a matter of privacy. It isn’t Flippa’s business and has nothing at all to do with trust. I have no intention of connecting any social networks to Flippa and the response above that you gave to someone else indicates to me that you do have plans to exploit your customer’s social networks to promote Flippa.

The fact that I have a lot of happy customers and you have all my contact info should be sufficient for trust ranking.

I also have no interest in adding to the huge amount of Twitter spam by using Twitter to promote my auctions or any other social network.

Has anyone noticed flippa has been a lot slower lately in terms of selling your sites? I use to be able to sell websites within the first hour or two of listing. But for the first time in 3 years, I’ve had sites go unsold twice. And the new sites listed for sale are some of the best sites I’ve had. Plus, I use to get 500 or more views, but now its down to 100. And half of those are probably me checking my own auction.

I noticed it seems to be happening for 2 main reasons:

1.) The site is getting flooded with the free relists, so it pushes your new listing off the first page right away. And we all know that visibility is going to get you the sale.

2.) When people use the filters, it saves the filter for the next time they come back to search. So if someone selects established sites, it will always only pull up established, unless they know that they must go back and select all sites.

Ever since Sitepoint changed to flippa, its been worse to sell. They charge more but are getting unsold sites now!!!!!

Is there a new marketplace everyone is going to? The same thing happened to DigitalPoint. Whats the deal?

Flippa/Sitepoint is run by dummies, and every month it gets worse. Flippa is such an awful product, even a 10 year old nowadays could build a better platform and make more sense on a company blog. Please, shut down the site already.

A few Flippa rants if you don’t mind.

1.) Something else that I just noticed (that I absolutely hate) is that I relisted an auction today that didn’t sell last week. I rarely have to relist anything, so it’s not something I’ve seen previously.

But it shows the link to view 2 (TWO) previous auctions for this site. It’s had one previous auction (failed) and then you did your switch to where I can accept offers. Now, I relisted it and it appears to buyers that I’ve listed it twice, and nobody has purchased it. I don’t care what you say, buyers don’t want a product that it appears nobody else wants (even if they wanted it before this).

I didn’t CHOOSE to have you automatically make it go to where I was accepting offers, and this shouldn’t count as a previous listing. I merely waiting until today to relist it.

I would be amazed if someone purchased this site now. It appears to buyers that I’ve attempted to sell it twice, not once. And that it’s a product that’s somehow tainted or unwanted.

Can we do something about this please?

2.) Also, to add to my rant list. I hate that when you win a dispute over an unpaid auction, they relist your site automatically whenever the dispute is won, even if it’s 3am (Eastern Time). AND they don’t relist it with the upgrades that you’ve paid for. Let me have the option when I want to relist it, and give me the options that I paid for. It’s not my fault someone didn’t make payment after they won my auction.

3.) One more for the road. If you are going to charge me close to 10% of the sale price (after your fees), provide 24 hour support. I’d say a good portion of us live in the United States, and we have to wait until the wee hours of the morning for you to open your support office in Australia. I don’t think you understand that we’re essentially paying for time here. Once we’re off the front page, it’s quite a bit harder to get the traffic we need to sell our site. Often, by the time we get support, we’re pushed off the front page, and it doesn’t matter anyway.

4.) It’s been said many times, but your fees suck. If you are going to charge us more, give us our moneys worth. And right now, we’re not getting that. The “features” you add are ridiculous. Whois lookup? How many pages in Yahoo? Alexa ranking? Duplicate content check? Seriously… we could all do these for free on other websites. Is this really what we’re paying for?

Dave, great points. I kind of forgot about that being useful on my end as well. I didn’t really think anyone sold sites as they were sitting around “accepting offers” but I can see how that would be helpful. Thanks for making me understand.

I was unaware about the userbase. I figured a majority of them were US based, as that’s what we’re kinda trained to believe about everything that comes to the internet. My apologies on this one, and I can understand why 3am doesn’t mean much to anyone outside the states. But, it doesn’t really matter if that’s where a majority of your users are coming from anyway, as sites will get traffic, even at 3am (Eastern)!

Also glad to hear you are still working on rolling out new features. I’m ok with the extra fees if I feel I’m getting my money worth, and I don’t feel that I am at this point. I’ll reserve judgement on that until I see the new features, and extras. Until then, I’ll take your word for it and leave the “fees are too high” rants out of the conversation. By your estimation, how long until we see these features, and what do they have to do with (site navigation, user experience, identity verification, etc.)?

Nobody expects Flippa to be perfect, we just want to feel like our feedback is being taken into account.

You’ve been a great help to the Flippa brand by answering our questions. Much appreciated, and thanks for fielding these rants!

You keep trying to justify the decision to add Facebook into the Trust formula when your team made this decision in a vacuum without any input from your users. When you say “It’s better than nothing”, I completely disagree. Sometimes nothing is better than something and, in this case, the Facebook something is worse. I don’t use Facebook and have no intention of using it…. it’s not part of my business model. So I am going to be penalized for something as moronic as Facebook. The best way is the ratings from transactions, the date someone joined (so the longer they are apart of the marketplace, the more trusted they become). Any level of social networking connection means nothing to me and I continue to be unimpressed by Flippa. I understand it’s your business, but we, your users, made it was it was…. and, now, you’re trying to make more money without really getting input PRIOR to implementing changes. Oh well, I am speaking into the wind as usual. I have reduced the time I spend here by 75% and I find it a lot more difficult to find good sites here to purchase. I know you won’t change course, so end of rant.

I think there’s something wrong with the facebook connect function on flippa’s site. I already connected my accunt but it doesn’t refelct on my flipa’s account.

Rebecca,

OK, I have to apologise, this is a documented limitation of the Facebook Connect API – it’s specifically made to support only IE, Firefox and Safari. If you want Facebook’s not very useful documentation, have a look here: http://wiki.developers.facebook.com/index.php/JavaScript_Client_Library#Supported_Browsers

Unfortunately, until Facebook do something about this, we can’t do anything from our end. However, you can work around it by Connecting in another browser and then you can continue to use Opera happily!

Yep, I definitely agree that we’d rather connect to a LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn don’t make it especially easy, but as soon as they give us access we’ll be adding that in – with greater weight than Facebook.

Michelle,

Yes, this is definitely something we’re considering – the beauty of this system is that we can take points away from users who we consider nefarious, and thereby warn other users of that fact.

“What, if I have 150 friends on FB that’s to small for trust, but if I accept everyone and I have 450 friends on FB that’s good. That increases trust?!? Sorry but this is silly.”

In fact, if you have more than 50 friends on Facebook you get +2 and otherwise you get +1. It’s obviously an arbitrary line, but this attempts to combat the point that a few have raised, that it’s easy to create a new Facebook account.

“I’m very frustrated simply because of FaceBook thing… This is very very very annoying as I personally don’t use it and now it can affect my business… Really bad idea as you are actually forcing me to use FB now so I can have one more point?!?!”

I think you’re underestimating the intelligence of buyers. They know that your feedback history is more important than your Facebook account status, and that’s what the trust rating system perpetuates. The difference between a +7 for feedback and a +2 for Facebook is pretty big, and even the +3 for account age outweighs it.

But obviously we’ll be monitoring this feature and if it appears that people who choose not to use Facebook are being unfairly penalised, we’ll rethink it. We hear your concerns, we just think that once it shakes out and we add everything else we want to the trust rating, we’ll get to a place you find acceptable.

Thanks for all the comments, it’s really helpful information for us!

You do realize it’s equally as easy to just add 50 friends to reach your arbitrary imaginary line right.

The fact that you are trying to go the social networking route to establish trust is another issue all together.

However, the argument that it proves any sort of trust is laughable at best. Anyone that wants to game said system can easily do so.

All this does is penalize people that do not game said system, or choose not to participate in these social networks to provide the illusion of trust.

“I think you’re underestimating the intelligence of buyers.”

While I think that’s partially true for experienced buyers, there are plenty of -new- buyers that come to Flippa who really only see the numbers and have no real fundamental understanding of what they mean other than the higher the number the better.

So in turn, I think you’re also underestimating the understanding a new buyer would have with your system.

I agree with Suzanne’s sentiment as well.

I think everyone can absolutely agree about the need for a trust ranking that has true meaning. However, by utilizing the arbitrary lines that you are drawing with social networks, you are not solving any problems.

All these things can easily be fabricated and absolutely will be for those that you are looking to dissuade from doing such unscrupulous acts.

So really this route accomplishes nothing.

Does it keep me up at night that I don’t have an extra point? No, however it does do a disservice to the honest individuals that are trying to make a buck and alienates individuals that do not wish to participate in social network spam.

I got your email about this Dave. Thanks for taking the time to reply personally. I have over 150 friends, not the 0 that it’s returning.

Not sure what’s going on. I did turn off it’s ability to write on my wall, which, contrary to what you said above, it’s set to default to writing on my wall, you have to uncheck the box in your settings menu to keep it from doing that.

I’m not to thrilled about it being connected at all, and I thought I disconnected it, but it’s actually still showing up on my flippa profile, so I’m not sure. Can you let me know about this? Do we have to LEAVE it connected, or can we verify, and then go back to disconnected?

I think it’s a bad idea personally, and I agree with Kate that I’d be happy to send you a copy of my drivers license, or a utility bill and photo ID to verify my identity.

I see where you’re coming from, but wouldn’t it be much easier to start a Facebook account, add a hundred or so people, and then verify there than it would be to convincingly Photoshop a drivers license, passport or state id? Just my thoughts.

Also, did this site change ownership when it became Flippa? I never hear anything about the owner anymore.

I don’t know what to address you as, as you didn’t leave your name, but I wanted to weigh in here. The marketplace isn’t slow for me, and I think that the switch from Sitepoint was actually much better than I thought it would be.

I wasn’t thrilled when I heard about the change, and I was quite vocal in the comment area about it, but I think all in all that Flippa is ok. I think the fees are ridiculous (costs me about $40 w/ highlight add-on, listing fee, and success fee) on a $400 site (10% before Paypal, and my actual costs!). That’s absurd, but until something better comes along, I’ll be selling here still.

Now, I am was rather new when Sitepoint became Flippa, but I haven’t noticed a huge decrease in sales since it switched. That said, I have noticed a decrease in what sites are selling for. It sucks just a bit to make less money on these sites, and then pay more fees. I shudder to think that I may have to take on a “real” job if this continues, while the Flippa crew makes more than ever and doesn’t really provide any new services other than some API’s that we all have access to.

That said though, I find the support team to be pretty good, and reasonable for the most part. I just hope that they do something about these fees. Maybe a sliding scale of some sort, or dropping the fees a tad. Nobody says you can’t get paid, but 10% before you figure in my costs, and then the money Paypal takes, that’s a big chunk to give up for someone who isn’t selling websites for thousands of dollars.

All that is really beside the point. Facebook is hardly a valid verification of who you are by any stretch of the imagination. Facebook and Twittering your auctions are simply ways for Flippa to advertise their site through our social networking accounts.

Again, name, verified phone number, address is all you need. Even when a person has submitted ID of some sort, that does not tell you whether or not they are honest. Only experience with these people will tell you that.

Suzanne,

“Facebook is hardly a valid verification of who you are by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Even when a person has submitted ID of some sort, that does not tell you whether or not they are honest.”

I agree entirely with both of these things. That’s why we’ve got the Feedback History making up a large part of the trust rating.

However, identity is also an important concept – we spend a lot of time searching for duplicate accounts and finding them. People will always push the boundaries. The more pieces of information they verify, the more likely we’ll find them. You’d be surprised at the number of users who gave away duplicate accounts by verifying the same Facebook account with multiple user accounts!

Kay,

We’d much rather that Copyscape indicates false positives than that it indicates false negatives. A false negative is truly misleading, as it says that there are no copies of a site when there are. A buyer acting on this information could be seriously misled.

However, the false positive allows the buyer to review the “possible copies” and to decide for themselves. In the vast majority of cases this is really quick and simple – more than half the listings we’ve checked have fewer than five possible copies.

We have to work for both buyers and sellers – you’re all our users. It’s important that we provide the buyer with as much information as possible to allow them to do their due diligence. This is especially important for new buyers who may not know what methods they should use. No-one is in favour of buyers being scammed, so we need to help them inform themselves.

Jeri,

“I didn’t CHOOSE to have you automatically make it go to where I was accepting offers, and this shouldn’t count as a previous listing.”

Um, OK. This is actually a feature which the majority of people find helpful – that they get a free private sale listing if their site fails to sell. I’m not sure what you feel we should do about this? Would you prefer it not to be listed as private sale? Or not to come up as a previous listing?

“I hate that when you win a dispute over an unpaid auction, they relist your site automatically whenever the dispute is won, even if it’s 3am (Eastern Time).”

Incidentally, the majority of our users aren’t in the US, so 3am Eastern Time doesn’t mean a lot to them.

Sites are relisted automatically because that’s a measure to combat users filing fraudulent disputes – this doesn’t happen a lot, but it does happen.

This is the first complaint we’ve had about the timing of relistings, but I can see that if you want full control over every aspect of your listing then that might be a concern.

“…and give me the options that I paid for.”

Yep, I agree. We’re implementing this and will roll it out soon.

“One more for the road. If you are going to charge me close to 10% of the sale price (after your fees), provide 24 hour support.”

At this point, that’s not feasible, unfortunately.

So you can bid on your own auction and drive up the price for legitimate bidders, for one. There are a few other reasons, but that is the most malicious one in my opinion.

It’s nice that Flippa is trying to do something about it, but only a total idiot would try and authenticate duplicate accounts with the same information, and there is nothing stopping the scammers from just creating another account to replace the one that just got banned.