Flippa.com – The blackest sheep from SitePoint
June 22, 2009 at 6:54 pm, ScorpionoWe’re going to talk in this post about SitePoint Marketplace.
It’s the place where we pay a fee to list our websites, domain names, services – all web related – for sale on the market. It’s a great place simply because it’s very intuitive and has most of the features needed for a perfect sale – even more, it has the fame of #1 Marketplace for Websites, therefore people browse it alot.
What does SitePoint team do with SitePoint Marketplace?
They grab it by the troat and kill it in the most mizerable way possible you can ever imagine.
They create Flippa.com!
Okay, so 99designs.com was a failure in my mind when all the design work moved there, but at least 99designs’s design wasn’t that bad considering that people were selling banners and logos.
Flippa.com has a same design idea, horribly understood as web 2.0.
Functionality is zero, I find it the most ugliest user interface they could have ever decided for a place to sell websites.
They also add a 5% success fee, on top of the listing fee. Why? They don’t handle transactions as Escrow does, so why 5% success fee, to encourage fraud.
Bottom point Flippa.com sucks hard, hopefully they will take their eyes out of the numbers they paid for developing it and realize the old one was better and they just wasted a pile of money on something new and whom the hole community dissaproves with.
Quotes from the community:
edit: I think interface is rather bad. Price is shown only in featured listings tab, all other tabs show is auction title and start/end time. Visitors have to read every single ad in order to filter good websites from junk. I think it would be a good idea to add columns for current bid and buy now, maybe also a column that shows monthly profit.
edit2: Aha, there is a price, but its shown only when I use filters. Filters are very inconvenient, there is too much stuff in it and its all confusing. I think it would be a good idea to add a quick filter for price sorting and keep current advanced search as extra option. Also I think it would be a good idea to add some preset filters, such as good old “premium websites”, but name it “Established: $10,000 or above” (filter by current bid, not by buy now price) and few more similar filters (”Established: $5,000 – $10,000″, “Established: $1,000 – $5,000″, etc…) and add them as popup for quick filtering.
edit3: Statistics popup is badly coded too. Visitor checks listings from top to bottom, not the other way around, that popup covers statistics link for listing below it and it doesn’t disappear when visitor moves mouse out of it. I suggest to put it on timer, so it would disappear 0.5-1 second after visitor moved mouse out of statistics link and out of that popup area.
That website should still be in beta with its current interface.
I’m a big fan of SitePoint, I’ve sold my site here a few months ago for 10k USD, I know how it works and if I were to chose a perfect place to sell a website, it would have been SitePoint Marketplace.
Flippa is actually a horrible decision, horrible!
No only that the design interface looks so bad, so non-userfriendly, thinking that the old marketplace was stylish and had a perfect touch makes me wonder why have you decided such as bad thing?
Regarding the costs, you added a 5% succes fee, this will encourage fraud, bad again.
Stop looking at the development costs of Flippa.com, they are nothing considering a future failure. Go back to old marketplace, it rocked.
I might never get a feedback on what I’m saying here, but I’m a true fan of SitePoint and it’s heart-crushing to see this happening. I’ll also blog about it.
Flippa…. what a stupid name, and stupid design. I doubt I’m going to use Flippa, and prob will start using DP more from now.
Guys… seriously… think about what your customers want. We want the old Sitepoint Auctions back.
Category Sitepoint | Tags:
You have read the article, you have enjoyed it possibly and you have commented on it, so what's next?
Well the best thing you can do if you really liked it, is stumbling and digging!
Ragnarok Guide says:
On June 27, 2009at 1:23 pm
I also disapproves flippa :/
Scorpiono says:
On June 27, 2009at 1:24 pm
Thanks for sharing, I think MOST (95%) of those who used it at least one time disagree with it.
Harsh Agrawal says:
On July 14, 2009at 8:42 am
Flippa never appeals me..
James - CreditScore says:
On September 9, 2009at 7:29 am
ya Flippa leaves a bad taste in my mouth too, it is not too bad of a site, and i like many of their features. However it is not a Marketplace for selling or buying websites as they claim, don’t be deceived. It is an advertising arena.
Have you seen the listings, most of the sites listed are garbage, 90% of whom don’t sell. Does anyone wonder why?
Juan Davis says:
On March 24, 2010at 7:19 pm
Flippa Sucks! They are liars! Nothing sells but they brag that their success rate is 60%. Bull Crap! Flippa marketplace stats are inflated and nothing sells. Don’t even think of selling a good website at Flippa, it is taken over by cheap $50 websites that are nothing but a rip-off. I tried to sell 5 websites within last one year. NONE sold and I wasted my money, took all the botheration and nothing sold. What a freagin Rip-off!
Juan Davis says:
On March 24, 2010at 7:21 pm
Flippa Sucks! They are liars! Nothing sells but they brag that their success rate is 60%. Bull Crap! Flippa marketplace stats are inflated and nothing sells. Don’t even think of selling a good website at Flippa, it is taken over by cheap $50 websites that are nothing but a rip-off. I tried to sell 5 websites within last one year. NONE sold and I wasted my money, took all the botheration and nothing sold. What a freagin Rip-off!
dror says:
On June 20, 2010at 2:10 pm
Flippa.com is RIP OFF, Scam website that charge you money and control everything about your listing.
if you thinking to sell your site, dont!
their customer services is bad, they never respnod to you when you need. i post one time and its my last time
dror says:
On June 20, 2010at 2:12 pm
yes Juam, you right, nothing is sold, and on top of it, they hire pepole to set up fake account to place bid on website auction so it will look real, dont give them and $ to post your website, its simple waste of your time and money.