Gixen: Notification Suggestions and new features coming up

[mario]

A few days ago, I added suggestions to Gixen notifications. If you don't win an auction, now you will receive some suggestions for the same or similar items on eBay within the same price range. These suggestions should be highly relevant, not "spammy", or you should not see any. My goal is to help you find a similar auction again, not smother you with useless listings.

It may look like a trivial feature, but this is only the first step toward more useful Gixen experience. With eBay moving toward Product-based shopping experience (PBSE), this opens many opportunities to help you find a better deal through Gixen, and not just in auctions, but fixed-price listings as well.

While I am still considering different options, it looks likely that Gixen will start introducing features that will help you find better deals, such as product alerts, and, when the conditions are right, even "product sniping" - a way to set your price for a specific product, and purchase it outright when it becomes available at the price you set (or below). This email from Gixen is where you heard this expression, "product sniping", first.

I believe this will be a win-win both for you, eBay and Gixen users, and also provide Gixen with a new life - an opportunity to expand to a wider user base. Before this is implemented, some prerequisites on eBay's side need to happen, but they will happen eventually.

[joebloggs]

Features are fine so long as they can be turned off completely, personally only want the snipe, epay is bad enough showing me s it I do not want, do not want gixen to follow that model

[Guest]

Don't do it man.

[mario]

I feel some concern here from both posts... note that whatever happens in the future, it will be sensible and not affect how the site is used today. It will not be disruptive in any way.

[Gixen]

[Guest]

Ditto the comment about having an opt-out for the new features. I'm willing to give it a try, but generally I dislike the "here's something you might like" ads, even if they're for something similar to what I just looked at/bid on.

[Cupid]

It's another example that demonstrates peoples natural conservatism.

People fear change, even when quite often it's to their own benefit... I think we should measure whether what extra is offered has real value after it is available...

Having said that I do accept that many, perhaps even a majority, will prefer to continue exactly as they are with only the features currently available. Mario's response demonstrates that he is happy for users to do that if they wish and he won't be imposing any more strain to the current users if they want to continue to do that, everyone should be happy imho.

Constant change is a given in this arena, Ebay moves on, not always in a positive manner, but it continues to move on regardless.. and occasionally the changes they make will have repercussions on the way Gixen operates and what it is able to offer... that's been the case ever since Gixen started.
_________________
Mark

[ken070]

Just remember, a large part of the eBay community consists of antique & collectible dealers/collectors (and other buyers of "used" and/or second-hand goods). There will be no "product sniping" for us, as condition is everything and there's no way to set a price without knowing the exact condition, nor will there be a way to enter a product code (UPC, ISBN, etc.) that will be meaningful (e.g. antiques).

I concur with others who say (a) give us the ability to completely turn recommendations and "product sniping" off, and (b) don't assume that a feature like this will add any value at all to our subscription. In fact, it will detract from the value to me, as I'll now have to go in and shut something else off (a waste of my time).

I have very sophisticated searches set up for eBay (using AuctionSieve) to find exactly what I want, and my experience so far with eBay's recommendations is that they're incredibly poor and irrelevant. Most of the time, they're not even remotely related to what I bid on or what I'm interested in (because what I'm interested in are unique, one-of-a-kind collectibles/antiques, for reasons that eBay couldn't possibly comprehend...) If you're going to rely on eBay to provide these recommendations for the Gixen emails, I'd almost guarantee that they WILL be spammy and uninteresting to users like me...

P.S. eBay's product-based shopping experience is a mistake (like so many ideas preceding it) and will likely drive the remaining antique & collectible people to other venues.

[DiDi]

[Cupid]

[ken070]

Cupid, Mario didn't say that, at least not in any email I received and not in his posts to this thread - if everything is opt-in, then fine..but I didn't see that.

Even so, when I hear "...step toward more useful Gixen experience" and "...better deal through Gixen," etc. my mind immediately jumps to "Uh oh, here comes a price increase for the mirror service."

I'm not a naysayer, I'm simply pointing out that anyone who's looking for coins, or stamps, or collectibles, or antiques, or virtually any used widget, won't find these new "recommendations" or "product sniping" features interesting/valuable at all. And that's probably a pretty high percentage of eBay's (and Gixen's) active user base.

[mianom]

I agree with Mario.
I myself often wrote to eBay auction losers to offer suggestions about how to find the items they lost at a lower price. (This was in the days when eBay IDs were completely available to the public.) But sellers found out what I was doing and made it impossible for Ebayers to contact auction losers.)
As far as I am concerned, one cannot have too much information....particularly about fellow eBay family members.
Mario has saved me thousands of dollars and countless hours of auction obsessing. Whatever parenting advice he wishes for his child is fine with me.

[Cupid]

[ben]

horrendous idea. obviously just copying this abstrusive ad pushing from ebay, so some total noobs will still get shoveled something else into the throat, so ebay gets its share.

remember, people who use sniping know what they are doing and sure as hell know how to search for something they want without this totally annoying ads pushing!

when you lost a bidding, ebay send directly some spam mail with other products.
some weeks ago they started to redirect sold items auctions directly to some other auction to treat us like complete consumer idiots, buy buy buy, no matter what.

please no suggestions!! this is advertisment and we all know it, no matter how you want to sell it.
im not paying here for 5 years to get spam from you!
otherwise i will be out immediatly.

[thirtythreeforty]

So, I feel like this could be a mixed bag in terms of value.

I am not sure the suggestions are going to be that useful. Currently I already use eBay search, which is highly parametric and pretty useful, to narrow down to one or two items I want to snipe. Then I set Gixen with a copy-n-paste and forget about it. The suggestions might add some value, but you're going to have to be able to beat eBay search in terms of relevancy, which I think will be difficult. I certainly will probably ignore them.

Product sniping could be very cool, if you are able to sufficiently set your criteria. The problem with bidding on, say, used electronics is that there's a wide variety of conditions that fall under "used" -- including "very beat up but technically still functions perfectly." If there's not a way to filter condition, or to preview the listing, then I may not use that feature either.

Here's where you could make your figurative money: The Android app. Currently, it's extremely difficult to use, and it's laggy and I don't really trust it to work at all. However, if you fixed those problems (I'm an Android developer, hit me up ), and added a push-notification of "new product posted" with two prominently-placed "Review" and "Buy Now" buttons, that would let me product snipe in a very nice way -- I don't have to beat out the people who live on eBay for the cheap BIN listings.

Another advantage of this approach is that it keeps you from running a second, private Gixen "auction" which has to choose from several users, somehow, who all have rules that fire on a particular item. This way, it's whoever mashes the push notification button first, removing you from the "fairness" of the winning bid.

Please ignore all the ranty replies you're getting. It's a decent idea to consider, and I don't think you'll lose many mirror subscribers if there's a "stop showing me these" button right below any suggestions.

[gixen_user111]

I just don't care,
as long as it can be turned OFF,
e.g. by setting "Switch your notifications to: Off"
at gixen.com/settings.php?username=yourusername

I'm not interested in getting any email notifications related to the sniped items:
I can visit Gixen directly when I want to check the current status of the items.

[peter3mullins]

Hi Mario,

First of all, thank you for providing Gixen in the first place - it has definitely saved me a lot of time and money over the past few years and I'm a happy subscriber.

I have to echo the majority of feedback so far though - I'm not particularly interested in more product suggestions as I've already set up my search criteria in eBay, I typically buy antique/unique items, etc. - so you would have to do better than eBay to potentially add any value for me.

That said, I also appreciate that Gixen isn't a big money maker for you in its current form while a site that focuses on "helping shoppers find the best deals" may have broader appeal, etc.

From my perspective, if you can still provide the core service and the rest can be opted in or out, then that would be the best of both worlds.

Regards,
Peter.

[im2bz2p345]

Longtime Gixen user and paid Mirror subscribers here. While I probably don't use Gixen as often as many of you, I pay the nominal fee ($6 or less = about the cost of a Starbucks drink) to support mario and his product. Why? Because for the many, many years I've been using Gixen (first as free; then paid), mario has always had a desire to improve his platform/product, provide excellent support, and actually listen to his user base (several features have been implemented that people have discussed here). As a single developer (not some company), there is not much more we can ask for.

Anyway, in regards to topic at hand, the e-mail that I received stated: "These suggestions should be highly relevant, not "spammy", or you should not see any. My goal is to help you find a similar auction again, not smother you with useless listings."

I would love to see this implemented before passing judgement. I could certain instances where I could use this (finding generic items - especially if this feature allows you to selects condition of item - "used," "new (other)", "new,"etc.). I like that we have differences of opinions on here, because as ken070 brought up, I sometimes I want to find very specific items in a specific condition and want to verify the auction description doesn't say anything goofy (these items would be hand selected for sniping by a human).

Regardless, I hope this feature is opt-in and users have the ability to quickly toggle off/on this feature in Gixen settings.

All the best,

~ Im2bz2p345

[bron47]

I am fine with the suggestions feature as long as it is done well. Ditto with the product alerts. The product sniping idea is interesting, but seems a lot of things could go wrong if not careful. But I'm sure you will factor that in as you implement the idea.

As long as people can opt out, I don't see a problem. If there are any issues, I'm sure you will respond to them and deal with it.

I think it is good that you are considering new ideas and tracking the evolution of eBay as, clearly, things are changing all the time and one has to keep up.

[nickel85]

Hi Mario,

i like gixen very much like it is. But i can understand if you like to broaden the user base / income with new features. But i think gixen will be a new product if it incorporates all the "new" possible features. If they can completly turned off it´s OK, but i personally have no need for this and regard it as a downgrade to bloat software.

But maybe i am wrong just my personal feelings....

Best regards

[JohnK]

Hi Mario.

Thanks for a site/service that's been great so far but I am really uncertain about the new features.

I am regularly subjected to Amazon's AI making utterly inane suggestions based on what I have just bought or looked at and ditto for EBay.

I have yet to see suggestion from either of them that is actually relevant or useful to me.

Honestly, introduce the feature by all means but please just - unlike Amazon or Ebay etc., - give users the chance to turn it off

[Rickajho]

I don't have anything in sight to test a feature like this out right now but I do see issues.

I don't know how Mario could reasonably tweak the suggestions to be relevant enough when what seems like something that's an obvious thing - like a microSD memory card - should be in obvious categories when performing an eBay search - but they aren't necessarily. Right now somethings "microSD memory card" are listed under categories like Sporting Goods and Toys & Hobbies. Who knew?

At eBay I will intentionally not look at an eBay search suggestion under those categories to the deference of more relevant categories. But I'm the picker and the chooser when ferreting out things in an eBay search. Many times eBay's search process can be less than relevant, can Mario automate it any better?

We'll see...

[Matthewk]

I would be willing to try the new suggestions. If they pop up in the email that tells you that you have been outbid or what not, who really cares. You have all the info you need with just the subject line anyway. You can delete those messages without even opening them.

I would go even one step further. I would try to make the suggestions hyperlink back to the Gixen account page to add them with "one click", assuming your browser has your Gixen creds in it's password store. That would be very handy if you are looking for a commodity item and wanna keep bidding until you get one at your price.

I would not want the desktop manager or the main web page to get littered up with stuff, but if you wanna send suggestions in the you have been outbid emails that you send out anyway and as I said, the ones that you don't even have to open to know what they are, that is fine by me! I think it could be very handy. Hell, even ad's, they would not make me happy, but you gotta eat like everybody else!