Looking for opinions for a college project on the Buy and Sell!

shineon23

Hope this is allowed.

I'm doing a project on the Buy and Sell website,

Picked it, as I used to use it quite a lot to look at car ads etc. but in last 2 or 3 years I soley look at donedeal, checking it most days, and scrolling back until I've seen all recnet ads I doubt its just me as there are a lot more ad updates on donedeal.

Anyway purpose of the project is how can the site be improved, to make it more appealing, to buyers and sellers, I know on the face of it both sites look similar enough, but features like the saved ads, and number of views are just some of the slight differences.

Would anyone have any suggestions that would make the site more appealing, easier to use, more search options for cars, price limits, personally I think Adverts is one of the best set out sites regarding usability, would a revamp to be more like it work well, personal accounts, feedback etc.

Any and all opinions are welcome and much appreciated.

carchaeologist

Not sure if this will be allowed!;)

shineon23

was thinking it might be a bit contentious! but basically, wondering how people feel the gap could be bridged to donedeal (assuming there's a big one, early stages of assignment)

Mods can remove away if its a problem!

carchaeologist

My opinion is Buy and Sell is a total rip off of Donedeal, and DoneDeal is way more subscribed.

I think that Buy and Sell saw how popular DoneDeal was, thought, hang on here, and hopped on the bandwagon, lock stock and barrel.

When i think of Buy and Sell i think of the old paper version that every car nut had on the dashboard of the van in the 90s!

unfit2006

For a company that had the small ads market wrapped up for years, Buy and Sell were very slow off the mark to identify the on-line option for it's product.

They will now need to advertise heavily and offer significant incentive such as free ad space or reduced rate "Bump Ups" to entice customers over from DD in my opinion.

MrFoxman360

The buy and sell missed the boat, they continued one promoting the paper when it was plain to see the tintertot was the way to go. Donedeal had the idea early, established itself and through promotion and word of mouth became number one. It has also modernisied its site a few times, made it easier to navigate and find things, and kinda created user profiles

I few years back I found the old buy and sell website a nightmare to use. The new one, bing a copy of donedeal, is easy enough to navigate but who goes on to it, I don't actually know anyone.

Selling of cars and agricultural stuff I feel would be the bread an butter of a site like this so that is what would need to be promoted if B&S was ever to take of again

Dondeal is good value at 3 - 5 euro per ad due to the amount of people that will view it, a new website will need to offer similar value based on the viewing numbers for the ad, people wont keep paying 3 euro if they dont get the views or calls

adverts works great with the comments, feedback and profiles, but a system like that, with all the adverts 'rules' makes it less convienient for large items which need to be viewed first, ie cars, tractors etc...

Maybe the question is how to get people on to the B&S website in the first place and to browse through it, rather than how to improve the website itself

Look at what happened to bendunne.com, which was a blatent copy of donedeal a few years back. The people make the difference, not the cost or the website

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056037672

shineon23

Thanks everyone, all good ideas that i will gladly include!

Capri

Used to wait on a Friday night to get the first copies of B&S, then it was twice a week, then they started milking it with 3 times/week.

B&S also banned me as they said I was a 'motor dealer' - 5 cars advertised in 1 year makes me a 'motor dealer' ????

Then they employed foreign call staff who misunderstood words and numbers.

Gave DD a go and was happy with their attitude /response, use it all the time now - the B&S site was s*ite , haven't gone near it in eons, good riddence to the eejits and their 'attitude'/'service'

I notice the Carsireland http://www.carsireland.ie/ seems good for 'proper' cars and Carzone is good as well

gn3dr

Yeah it's all been said. Buy and sell lost their position when they implemented that absolutely ****e website they had initially. It was really annoying to navigate with banner ads everywhere and no ability to search properly. It also had constantly repeated dealer ads and the ad age was not believable. Then they just copied donedeal but about 5 years too late. They deserve to fail for having such poor understanding of their market.

Capri

shineon23 wrote: »

Hope this is allowed.

I'm doing a project on the Buy and Sell website,

Picked it, as I used to use it quite a lot to look at car ads etc. but in last 2 or 3 years I soley look at donedeal, checking it most days, and scrolling back until I've seen all recnet ads I doubt its just me as there are a lot more ad updates on donedeal.

Anyway purpose of the project is how can the site be improved, to make it more appealing, to buyers and sellers, I know on the face of it both sites look similar enough, but features like the saved ads, and number of views are just some of the slight differences.

Would anyone have any suggestions that would make the site more appealing, easier to use, more search options for cars, price limits, personally I think Adverts is one of the best set out sites regarding usability, would a revamp to be more like it work well, personal accounts, feedback etc.

Any and all opinions are welcome and much appreciated.

I think, as a 'project' for your own information and reward / college marks it's a good idea but I bet if you approached B&S with your research they'd tell you , in a nice way, to P off .
I've found over the years that the majority of companies are so much into themselves and their way of doing things that they cannot see their faults - even when they fail they never blame themselves but 'market forces'. Maybe they should install walls of mirrors in their boardrooms so as they can pat themselves on the back ad infinitum :D

corktina

B&S were online ages before DD but it was total crépe and they got pwned, dead in the water now. Thesis written. Send cheque.

shineon23

Capri wrote: »

I think, as a 'project' for your own information and reward / college marks it's a good idea but I bet if you approached B&S with your research they'd tell you , in a nice way, to P off .
I've found over the years that the majority of companies are so much into themselves and their way of doing things that they cannot see their faults - even when they fail they never blame themselves but 'market forces'. Maybe they should install walls of mirrors in their boardrooms so as they can pat themselves on the back ad infinitum :D

Fully agree with that!

We emailed the company just asking if they had published accounts, and whether they published yearly reports that we could use as reference points, this is the response we got-
'Dear shineon23,

We thank you for the interest in our company however we are not in a position to assist you with information at this time.

We wish you every success in your research project.

Regards'

They were a great help really:p

shineon23

Thanks to all who offered opinions, the report has now been submitted

if anyone wants a copy, pm me an email address, it makes pretty boring reading to be honest though

Capri

shineon23 wrote: »

Thanks to all who offered opinions, the report has now been submitted

if anyone wants a copy, pm me an email address, it makes pretty boring reading to be honest though

04.53 :eek: You're certainly burning the midnite oil on that one - interesting to see how a once dominant paper lost the lead so quickly