{mosimage}Wow, just WOW!
You can read Ray Romeo’s (posting as Andrew Pittino) statement to Wagglepop sellers below, but basically, in a nut shell, he says: 1) They’re to blame for Wagglepop 2.0 crashing and burning, 2) Fees to use his Wagglepop site will double in a week, and 2) If you don’t pay up, he’ll shut down Wagglepop.com, and send your account to collections for payment!
It’s EXACTLY the same whining and excuses he used for Wagglepop 1.0, the only difference is that he’s posting as “Andrew Pittino” rather than himself.
Ray tried to invigorate Wagglepop at the end of last year by making current sellers continue to pay the $29.95 per month to keep their store, yet allow NEW store owners on Wagglepop a free pass for one year. Nobody fell for that scam, and Ray himself must not have been able to figure out the programming behind that because new sellers were still getting monthly invoices!
Now, realizing he’s completely failed again, he lashes out at the only people who supported him, doubling fees, and threatening to send anybody and everybody that never paid an invoice to a collection agency, using his “trust based environment” as his own grand idea that nobody supported.
Ray also makes a claim of an “operating” loss in April ($743), but from his announcement in 2008, when he tripled the fee to $29.95, that was supposed to keep revenues in line with expenses. Now he has to double them AGAIN just to break even. Poor guy! He claims he only needs 35 “good” sellers to pay $59.95 a month to keep the lights on.
Anyway, Ray was kind enough to give his sellers a week’s notice before this latest price increase. He doesn’t say anything about what happens to the sellers that signed up for a FREE STORE for a year, but I doubt they’ll get that free ride anymore, or maybe they already left Wagglepop.
Coming soon, Ray should soon announce that he received a turd in the mail (Wagglepop 1.0), “Wagglepop, we hardly knew ye”, and then claim that all the customer information has been wiped from the hard drive, and then another spam attempt will happen in a year for the announcement of Wagglepop 3.0.
We’ll miss ya Ray! Let us know how much you’re able to get out of sending those Wagglepop seller accounts to collections!
Click the jump for Ray’s announcement
More…
http://community.tuliptools.com/index.php/topic,3775.msg74291.html#msg74291
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=wagglepop+site%3Asneakydave.com&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=wagglepop+site%3Asneakydave.com&fp=_rpp-4zAm3I
Hello Wagglepop Members,
After a very difficult meeting with ownership earlier today I am bound to relay the following dire circumstances that force us to drastically increase the cost of participation if Wagglepop is to continue operation.
Paid participation is way down – all the way to 45 SmartSell subscribers in good-standing.
As a result, as of May 1, 2009 we will no longer have any financial support from ownership to make up the difference in our operating loss each month. Zero, zip, nada. No more money except that which we generate.
It was a difficult decision for ownership to make, though I do understand the reasons behind it – Wagglepop is a terrificly effective site for focused individuals to set up shop and make money, but for those looking for another eBay it is simply viewed even by us as non-competitive. Not for lack of features or performance, but simply out of lack of participation in numbers required to support that along with so many having difficulty operating in a trust-based environment – particularly in regards to payment of seller account balances.
My goal now is to be able to continue operation of Wagglepop for those loyal members who wish to continue to be a part of it.
The ultimate decision was mine whether or not to close Wagglepop or restructure to be able to continue operation, and as such the following by way of full disclosure must guide me:
Average Monthly Operating Expenses
Fixed
1. Technical Support Contract = $975.00/month (15 hours)
2. Server Costs = $379.00/month
3. Customer Care Labor Costs = $576.00/month (12 hours week)
Non-Fixed
4. Technical Support Overages = $150.00/month average (2 hours)
5. Supplies & Miscellaneous = $40.00/month average
——————————
Average Total Monthly Operating Expenses = $2120.00
April 2009 Operating Breakdown
Total Revenues = $1422.35
Total Expenses = $2166.31
—————————————-
Operating LOSS = $743.96
As noted above, we will not be able to continue operation unless restructured immediately so that revenues meet expenses in totality. Customer Care hours have already been cut from 24 to 12 weekly in the last several months and the remaining expenses are either fixed or anticipated.
To continue, we must do the following:
Effective May 1st SmartSell Enterprise will (as it must) effectively double to $59.95 per month. Based on further attrition, if we can maintain 35 paid SmartSell subscriptions at that subscription cost, we can continue operation. Mathematically, revenues should meet expenses while still offering a tremendous value for subscribers.
This is something we simply must do.
Barring the ability to do that, we will have no choice except to close Wagglepop, sell off the programming, the domain name and licenses, and farm out the delinquent accounts to collection agencies to the highest bidder.
Please note that should we be able to continue by retaining and supporting around 35 loyal members, we will likely make unlimited Stores a permanent part of SSE.
Ultimately, sellers will be able to have unlimited Stores, unlimited listings, and no final value fees all for about 2 bucks a day. A great opportunity for those who can and would utilize it.
We’ll be making the subscription cost changes for May billing and emailing all sellers over the next few days to notify them of the change and the needs behind it.
Yes, there are certainly smaller similar sites that do not incur the monthly expenses we do such as Customer Care, and ongoing need for a Tech Support Contract or hosting on a dedicated server. They live with basic code and features that are either not as complex or not as monitored, self-operate, and share server space. That is simply not what Wagglepop is, and for those that use us the difference between our performance and sites such as those is crystal clear.
Wagglepop has become and will further become a small “private” site where a small group of highly observant and motivated sellers can prosper, and buyers can find great deals.
It’s clear – we’ll never become the big or profitable enterprise we envisioned when first conceived and introduced, but in shooting for those stars we have simply built a good site that supports a handful of sellers to profitablity in a friendly community where shoppers can find a real bargain and great customer service.
That’s something we can live with. We are hoping that about 35 of our wonderful sellers and thousands of buyers feel the same way about that and support the continuation of your and our Wagglepop.
Andrew P.
WP
