Buyer Auction Manager 1 year anniversary facebook contest ended yesterday night. While thinking of something to do for this first anniversary I decided that since the software is for eBay buyers, it would make sense to give away some eBay gift cards. I purchased 4 custom made $25 eBay Gift Cards and today, I got to pick 4 winners.
There were 54 people who entered the contest and there were 3 people who got bonus entries for referring friends. Here is the overview from the appliation that I used to run this contest:
Without further ado, here are the winners as they were chosen. The first winner is Terry Mckay:
Second winner is Thomas Almasi:
Third winner is Sara Alexander:
And the fourth winner is Maxwell Skipper:
Congratulation to all the winners! You'll be hearing from me shortly. Thank you to everybody who participated. Keep reading the blog for eBay related articles as well as other contests and promotions.
If you haven't tried Buyer Auction Manager yet, give it a try. It will save you time, money and make your eBay buying experience more enjoyable.
Robert
Beginning and Plan A
Buyer Auction Manager (Full) was officially launched on February 24, 2012 so today marks one year anniversary. When I first started working on the original version of the software, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. It has been a long and bumpy journey but the software is better for it. It's now gaining momentum and growing faster than ever before. As part of this journey, I have learned a great deal and I'm learning new things every day.
As some of you may know, I created original version of Buyer Auction Manager for myself after noticing that some Buy It Now items were selling on eBay for low prices. My search did not produce any satisfactory software that would do what I wanted, so I created my own. Original version had only one module (Win It Now) that would search for newly posted Buy It Now items on eBay. After successfully using it myself for a while, I released it to the public as a freeware hoping that people would like it, save money and donate some of the savings. Was I wrong about that! Looking back, I think there were at least two reasons for this. I had no clue about advertising the software to get more users and if you can get something for free, you usually do not pay for it. I'm like that myself so creating freeware and expecting donations was a flawed strategy.
Time for Plan B
Since plan A was not working and my wife was starting to get upset because I was spending a lot of my free time on the computer without any results, it was time to double down and conceive plan B. I decided to leave the original version as it was and create a new version of the software where I would add additional functionality and improve Win It Now module. I started working on that new version in November 2011. I spent several months writing those improvements and finally in February 2012, I released what is now called Buyer Auction Manager (Full).
After the software was released, it was time to work on advertising. I started using Google AdWords, learned a lot about Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing, Social Networks and started a blog. I wrote several blog posts over 2-month period but after not seeing big results, I moved on to other things and abandoned the blog for a while. Towards the end of 2012, eBay started making significant changes to their website and functionality that relied on scraping started breaking so I had my hands full trying to fix everything.
At one point, I thought that eBay declared war on sniper programs because their auctions did not have End Time. They would only have countdown to the end of the auction. You cannot snipe accurately if you don't have precise time when the auction ends. Fortunately this was changed very quickly and a few weeks after that, End Time was back in eBay listings.
Recent growth and future
Since the end of 2012, I've been getting more people to try the software and some of those people offer suggestions and ask for new functionality. This is something that I like to see because it makes the software better for all users. I've been making a lot of changes recently and there are some more changes coming within the next month or so, a lot of it suggestions from people who use the software.
I'd like to thank everybody who offered their suggestions and supported Buyer Auction Manager over the last year. Without you, the software would not exist.
Robert
Blog for eBay buyers
I started writing blog posts for this website almost a year ago. I saw a lot of resources for eBay sellers on the internet but I couldn’t find much for eBay buyers. Most websites target sellers because they’re the ones who want to grow their businesses and are willing to spend money to make their lives easier and their businesses better. Since my software Buyer Auction Manager targets people who buy on eBay, I wanted to create a resource for buyers.
Writing is not my strongest skill so each post that I created took a lot of time and energy. After 2 months, I stopped posting. I started working on other things and could not find the time or motivation.
Goal for year 2013
My goal for 2013 is to make this #1 eBay buyer resource. You’ll start seeing posts by other authors and I’ll try to post more myself. If you’re interested in guest blogging or if you have something valuable for eBay buyers and would like to publish it, please contact me.
Also, if you have comments about particular blog post, feel free to post it. Comments are moderated so they have to be approved before they’re published but as long as it’s not spam and it’s relevant, it will be approved.
Subscribe and get notified
Finally, if you’d like to be notified when new blog is posted, you can subscribe to blog feed, you can subscribe to a newsletter (on the right navigation bar) or you can follow BAM on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.
I wish you Happy New Year 2013 and I hope you can score many good deals on eBay this year.
Robert
Introduction
Hi. My name is Robert and I'm a programmer. In the early 2000's I used to sell on eBay small value items (around $10 each). I've sold over 13,000 items and after couple of years, after seeing my fees going up and my sell through rates going down, I decided that it's not for me. In 2007 I sold my eBay business and got a job as a programmer.
How Buyer Auction Manager (BAM) was born
One day in 2011 while looking at ended auctions on eBay, I've noticed that sometimes there were items that sold for below what I was willing to pay for them. I've noticed that those were mostly Buy It Now items and they ended very quickly (few minutes after being posted). That gave me an idea to create a program that would search for newly posted Buy It Now items.
Originally I created BAM for myself and after using it for a while, I saw that it provided value and I released it as original Buyer Auction Manager (now re-branded to Lite version). I offered it for free, hoping that people would start using it, save money on eBay and share some with me by donating. That didn't work out too well because not many people were using my software and nobody was donating. It was time to change strategy.
Split between original BAM and Full version
At the end of 2011, I decided that I wanted to make my software better but I also wanted to make some money along the way. I froze new development on the original version (Lite) and created new version (Full). I put all the improvements and additions to that new version. I've added eBay Sniper and released Full version for beta testing in December 2011. Since that time, I also added Ending Auction scanner (which was an idea I got from somebody using the software) and I officially released Buyer Auction Manager (Full) on February 24, 2012.
Purpose for this blog
I'll use this blog to post some of my thoughts related to eBay geared towards buyers, how to save money and "how to eBay".