Feebay strikes again!

As an avid user of Auctiva, a free auction management tool, I was mortified to receive an email on Friday from Auctiva telling me and every other user that they will no longer be offering a free service.

My first thought was back to the last email I got from them, which they announced they had upgraded their servers and employed a high paying tech guy to see them into the future and I had a thought then that it wouldn't be long.

Alot of starting out internet companies offer free services whilst in the beta stage they use feedback from the forums to develop the site and also build up their customer base by word of mouth about free service. They make money though advertising and partner programs once the software or site is developed to a standard of other sites that currently charge fees they turn into a commercial paying site.

As it turns out eBay responded to a media question that Auctiva's desicion would have primaly been made to start charge fees due to eBay charging it partner referral scheme which pays sites who traffic people to eBay the new system cuts Auctiva out of the loop and given Auctiva hosts around 20% of ebay sellers around the world that is alot of money lost and for eBay alot of money saved.

I have looked around at a couple of the auction management sites I think I will be switching to inkfrog, Auctiva is okay and does the job but if I have to pay the same fees as I pay elsewhere than Auctiva service is not good money for value.