Livebids.co.za, a new internet startup that will be launching on the 19th March by local company name Livebids Auctions PTY (Ltd) aims to shake up the SA online retail market and change the way consumers buy and sell online.
Livebids co-founders Rory Vollmer and Paul von Hoesslin from Cape Town, first started creating Livebids.co.za with the idea to develop an online market place that would help buyers and sellers fully connect in trade while being rewarded.
Rory who had been in the online auctioneering game of selling for a few years already, approached Paul, an already close friend for over seven years back in 2009, and the idea grew from there.
This unique online social market place offers three selling and buying formats that include Auctions, Pay Per Bid and Group Buying that that together will differentiate Livebids’s service from other pay-per-bid sites already in SA. While the first model is based on the traditional format where items are sold to the highest bidder and group buying is similar to that currently utilised by Groupon, Pay Per Bid rounds up the service as the only site to offer all three models on one platform.
In addition, Livebids rewards all buyers and sellers that utilise the service via the Pay Per Bid model whereby Livebids pays sellers to sell on the site and buyers earn points that can be exchanged for bids. Pay Per Bid aims to empower online sellers by giving them an opportunity to make massive profits.
This is how the model works: Sellers can sell products to buyers up to 95% off. Buyers pay R4 for every bid made with one credit equalling the value of R4. Sellers place their product online in which they stipulate a start and end date. The timer counts down and the auction closes when it reaches zero. For every bid that is made by a buyer, the winning amount increments by 0.01 cent when the timer reaches the last few seconds and a bidder bids it will up the end time by 15 seconds. For every bid, the seller will make R3.
Here is an example: A seller places a 1TB External Hard Drive on Livebids pay per bid for Buyers to win. She/he set their cost of the bid at R4. If the item sells for R20.00 the buyer will only pay the R20.00 to the seller, plus shipping. R20 X 100 will equal the amount of bids placed. 2000 bids X R3 a bid. The seller will make R6000 from this pay per bid sale. So, buyers can win items at a very low cost and sellers can make huge profits!
Vollmer says that “The key to Livebids is having a desk exactly like the one you sitting at. Everyone can look left at your buying tab and right at your selling tab, calculate a transaction, upload and download pictures, even chat to our Live support.”
Buyers can look for products that suit their individual preferences, not limiting them in the way they want to buy things. It’s about variety and individualism, we cater to everyone to ensure that no matter what you are looking for, or what buying method you want to use, Livebids will have the widest range of choices.
With the likes of Bidorbuy and other local online auction sites already on the market, as mentioned, Livebids’s three selling and buying models gives them an advantage over their competition. “One of our major advantages is our really easy to use interface,” says von Hoesslin, “and with Pay Per Bid being a new way of selling, buyers and sellers both win as sellers get R3 a bid into their pockets and buyers can buy low cost products up to 95% off.”
