How much would it cost to get a site up and advertised enough to compete with ebay

10 million donkeys

Millions, no doubt about it.

Competing with ebay, google or amazon is nearly impossible. They've reached such immense sizes that it would literally be cheaper to buy them.

And a very catchy name. You would need to offer something much better then ebay.

Yahoo couldn't afford to do it so my guess is around $500 million. You'd need national advertising and you'd have to offer free listings for the first year or so to hook people. Still require a credit card number to set up an account though. That way you scare off some of the scammers...Yahoo's problem was way too many scammers.

youd have to have those stupid ass commercials too...

ebay was better back in the day when it was

www.ebay.com/aw/

and the front page was pics of the dudes dog

Great question....

The key in marketing is that there is always room for a good competing #2 company......which means if there is not really one that is in the online auctions, then there should be an open market there for someone....you just have to create something new and different...something that would create a buz....you do have to have financial backing as well as make sure you understand marketing and PR....it is not just advertising you need, but you will need a nice media blitz too in order to create the buzz.

Both Amazon.com and Yahoo.com tried to compete...the key to marketing properly though, is not to spread your brand name over too many things...that is what both yahoo.com and amazon.com did..... amazon is the perfect example of what not to do to a brand...they had the market in online books....then they went around and bought just about every other online company...they were selling toys and pet food through amazon...and also the auctions....they lost focus and also lost a lot of branding too.....in the past amazon = books online . . . .then it became amazon = ? hhhhmm...everything? ...they lost their foot on books online..... that allowed Barnes and Noble to push themselves strongly online and take a lot of the online market from amazon.....no amazon still sells a shit load of books....but they lost a lot along the way.

Man...it will take a lot as mentioned above...you need a buzz...a unique position...what will make you different than ebay....you need backing and credibility...do you know credible companies that will back you in name or financially, etc.

Good luck on the thought of this....always good to see people are thinking the next step....there are so many opportunities sitting in front of us everyday....most of us just think or talk about them...only a few take action.

well i had anti-ebay.com up for about 2 months had ruffly 390 sellers on there and about 2200 closed auctions and next thing i know ebay sends me a certified letter state in short term take site down or we sue you. I got tons of emails to bring it back but i dont need all the legal troubles. But the needs to be another major auction site. There is no serious contender with them. There are a lot of anti-ebay and anti-paypal people out there.

http://web.archive.org/web/199706140.../www.ebay.com/

I think its next to impossible to compete with ebay/paypal.

Probably only msn can pull something like that off.

i honeslty dont think its a good name

the first time i heard it i thought "what the fuck is THAT spose to mean?"
the "e" part i get - but why BAY?
must be some US terminology

Probably East Bay aka San Jose, Ca

Go and make a motion picture about your auction site. Make a movie that millions of people will watch (like titanic) and make the guy always bid and buy, sell stuff at your auction site. That is one way to go against eBay

Well your only problem was that you used their name in your Domain. You have to have something unique. It also needs a good jump start as well, the more people you get to jusp on right away the better chance it will have. You need buyers, but for that you need sellers as well. You have to offer referal programs to get people involved to spread the word. I simply do not have the resources or the people to back me financially to pull anything like this off. I would Love to be a part of it. But more then anything I would like to see it happen. I for one would be one of the first people to sign up and start refering people. Offer a % of what the site makes. say XAMOUNT% goes to the referer for all sales anybody they refer generates and XAMOUNT% for everything a user buys (obviously this would be less then the seller commission) If nothing like this happens in the next few years I will find a way to do it myself. I will get people to back me, and I will learn a little more of what I need to know to get this started. Quite honestly If anybody wants to take the idea go ahead!!! But ICQ me and keep me posted, let me help get affiliates, I will be the first to sign up if im making a %. Hell, Ill go advertise right on ebay.

Wow, that is actually insanly brilliant. Name of the movie would be THESITE.COM it would be out there... everyone would log on just out of curiousity. However, now we need some people in the movie BIZ.

I heard they added the word Ebay to the unabridged dictionary. Would be hard to compete with something so large, it's name is a new, valid word.

ebay is a household name now it would take millions also it would take a very long time to get up to there popularity

It's virtually impossible.

I had at one time consulted for and then went to work for what was at the time the #2 auction site online.

Yahoo not included because it is a portal and not just an auction site.

Anyway the owner dumped all kinds of money into it it's still around but never has it amounted to anything than a trading place for a bunch of friends.

^^^^^^you would need this much money^^^^^^

ok, new idea... We need a Large Team of Hackers....

If Amazon and Yahoo! can't compete then you sure as fuck can't.