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London-based auction Site
CQout launched late in 1999.
Founded by three graduates of
the London Business School Sloan
Masters program, CQout is hoping
to give QXL and eBay UK a run
for their money. I talked to
Tony Newton, one of the
founders, to learn more about
his site.
"Our philosophy since
inception was that the whole
dot.com thing was the Emperors
new clothes, and that an online
auction site was no different
from any other business: it
needed to make a profit! That
creates an interesting
challenge...how do you promote
your business if the numbers
show that spending a fortune on
advertising can never pay back
in a month of Sundays?"
Newton told me that CQout
relies on word of mouth for
marketing, and they offer
sellers a "no sale, no
fee" policy. But what makes
CQout different from many other
auction-sites is that they've
built in security features from
the very beginning. While anyone
can browse the site, users must
register with a credit card
before buying or selling. CQout
runs a 1 pound charge through
the credit card to validate the
card.
"We know that this put a
some potential users off, and
indeed fraudsters, but those
that elected to enter their
details knew that they would be
joining a secure, trustworthy
trading community. Time proved
us right."
The 1 pound registration fee
(or equivalent local currency)
goes to one of CQout's partner
charities, specified by the
user. The fee enables the
company to validate the credit
card in real time. CQout does
not allow user names to change
once they have been set up and
associated with a specific
address and credit card. If a
user accumulates three negative
ratings, CQout suspends them
from trading and investigates
further.
Sellers on CQout can choose
two main listing options,
auctions or fixed-price method.
Conventional auctions last
anywhere from 1-21 days. An
autorepeat feature allows for
automatic relisting of auctions
a further five times using the
same parameters and duration as
the initial listing. CQinstant
is a fixed-price option where
the listing remains for 1 month
or until sold.
CQout accepts bulk uploads in
a variety of formats. It offers
an escrow service (CQescrow) and
instant sale facilities
(CQinstant), and several
back-end tracking, management
and security tools.
CQout has users in 39
countries and plans to further
develop its user base in the
U.S. both for U.S./UK
transactions and U.S./U.S.
transactions.
Users can place and view
auctions in their home currency,
so having items listed and
viewed in U.S. dollars is not a
problem, Newton said. "As a
generalist site, which is
gaining a reputation in
specialist categories such as
movie memorabilia, we encourage
traders to use us as an
additional shop window for their
merchandise, which may also
appear on their own Web sites
and other auctions."
The auction landscape is
changing in Europe. Yahoo!
recently shuttered its auction
business in Europe and entered
into a deal with eBay to allow
eBay to advertise on the
European Yahoo! portals. QXL
ricardo, another major online
auction site in Europe, is
surviving, but has yet to be
profitable.
For an interesting discussion
of the state of European online
auctions, visit http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewtopic.php?topic=993&forum=23&8.
As for the name of the
company? Tony says it's CQout,
as in, "we'll help Seek You
Out a great deal!" http://www.cqout.com
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