This site that is referred to by rasaqrasaq is very elusive (not to mention the individual's identity here or on the site in question). It doesn't indicate who owns it or where it is located. After a lot of searching, it seems that I may have found the administrator, "foxadmin"... with a picture and general profile (
http://talazo.com/foxadmin), but no name. He's a 31 year old "Nigerian-American" apparently living in Brooklyn. (It might be noted that the Terms of Use for the site states that it's operating under California law.)
It may not be meant as biased, but the tagline at the bottom of the site reads:
*** talazo.com: social networking website for africans and african lovers ***If he is basically targeting the African market and African Lovers only, then I suppose it would be appropriate. However, if he is targeting a U.S. or worldwide market, then this would seem to be a poor tagline and irrelevant to a marketing effort that would be considered as enticing for everyone to join.
Of course, this is just another of MANY auction/e-commerce websites that are trying to compete in the online marketplace. The sad part is that even the ones that are appealing to the masses to join, aren't getting much activity. Outside of eBay, the few that have made a small dent in the online market are Overstock.com, eCrater.com & Blujay.com and the rest drop off in descending order quite rapidly. Most get VERY FEW visitors and the ones they do get, don't seem to hardly buy anything from these other websites... no matter how cheap the products are or what products are being offered.
Unfortunately, regardless of eBay's fee hikes and changes in their rules, their primary competition is actually Amazon.com, although Amazon is an eStore, eBay seems to be heading in this direction, as the online auction format seems to be decreasing in activity. Over the Christmas holidays, Amazon was actually outperforming eBay in visitors and increased sales. However, Amazon also has more limitations on how and what you can sell, so eBay may be able to compete by gradually changing their format to the eStore format which they seem to be drifting towards.
While I doubt that eBay will completely dissolve the online auction format anytime soon, I can see them increasing their prices in the hopes of driving more sellers to the online ecommerce style of marketing. Will this provide an increase in traffic for the other online auctions? Perhaps a little, but I also think the online consumer is evolving to a "get-it-now" attitude, rather than waiting a week to try to get a lower price in the online auction format, not to mention the increasing distrust, as stories of unethical sellers, although a small percentage, seems to be effecting the buyer's perceptions in using eBay. After all, they have the online resources to search out the best price and only have to weigh the decision on their perceived trust of the individual Seller, which means they may even pay a bit more, just to have that reassurance of trust. This is where Amazon may be winning, as they take all of the responsibility to assure the buyer of a safe marketplace.
However, I think that primarily targeting only a small segment of the potential online market, such as African, Hispanic, Italian, Asian or any other, will not likely do well in bringing in a substantial amount of traffic to make the venture worthwhile, unless they are
offering very specific goods that are targeted to that
specific niche market. But, I certainly don't see that selling prepaid Phone Cards as a "special niche market" that can't be found almost ANYWHERE, whether online or at the local convenience store, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or any other specific diversity in the marketplace.
Jim Ford
Professional Auctioneer & Auction Marketing for the 21st Century
