

Swoopo: The Pay-Per-Bid Auction Site Is Dead - pjo
http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/27/goodnight-swoopo-the-pay-per-bid-auction-site-is-dead/

======
Construct
Interesting. I would have figured their margins were massive, given the fact
that they could collect far more from selling 'bids' than the price of the
product.

Then again, unethical companies tend to be run by unethical people. I wouldn't
be surprised if nefarious accounting practices or greedy executives ultimately
drained the company of all its money.

------
yannickmahe
I really don't get how they failed. The business model was sound (financially
if not ethically). What went wrong?

------
ch0wn
I used to work for a copy-cat that does really well so far. However, their
main problem is that the majority of the turnover comes from a hand full of
power users.

Most users behave like described here. Pay 10 bucks once, lose them all and
never look back again. Attracting customers in the long run is hard for this
business model.

------
citricsquid
Discussed yesterday here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2373262>

~~~
JoachimSchipper
Please use news.ycombinator.com, as documented at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=524470>.

Clickable link to correct domain:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2373262>.

~~~
citricsquid
oops, my mistake. Edited.

------
vaksel
surprisingly I saw 2 of their competitors advertise on TV last week...so maybe
the business model isn't dead just yet

