Auctioning4u Scraps Franchise Program, Closes eBay Drop-Off Stores
July 17, 2007 by Sean Kelly
Filed under Business
(FranchisePick.Com) The eBay Drop-Off Store franchise concept has received one more nomination for induction into the “Hot New Franchise” wing of the Museum of Really Bad Ideas.
Ending what may have been one of the briefest forays into franchising ever, Christian Braun of UK-based Auctioning4u has announced that the company is going to focus solely on its home pick-up strategy. According to CEO Braun, Auctioning4u is closing its corporate and franchise stores, and is ceasing its efforts to franchise the Auctioning4U concept.
According to comments Christian Braun posted to FranchisePick.com, Auctioning4U has reached an amicable agreement with their two franchisees. In an interview with Ina Steiner of AuctionBytes, he stated that the first franchisee is a former independent drop-off store operator who is considering becoming an Auctioning4u employee. The other franchise belongs to Mark & Catherine Clough, whose Grand Opening we celebrated in a post just last month (eBay Drop-Shop Auctioning4u Signs Second Franchise).
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According to AuctionBytes:
Mark Clough… was “quite happy” with the settlement they received from Auctioning4u. The Cloughs have plans to look for another business, but probably not eBay-related. “It’s quite hard to do the franchise and make money,” Clough said. “Doing eBay is profitable, but not when you must give money from the pie to the franchisor.”
In reference to the title question of the FranchisePick.com post “Will Auctioning4U Save the eBay Drop Off Franchise?” which was published upon their acquisition of the assets of the failed iSold It UK Master Franchisee, Braun wrote:
It does seem that franchising eBay related ideas has not worked to date; we wish anybody else that tries another angle the best of luck in doing so.
Further reading:
eBay Drop-Shop Auctioning4u Signs Second Franchise
Will Auctioning4U Save the eBay Drop Off Franchise?
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Unlike the US franchisors, this one settled with his franchisees (and without a gag!). Perhaps the US franchisors can learn from CEO Braun!His franchisees aren’t bankrupting, divorcing and struggling like Isoldit, Quikdrop, and Snappy auctions.
Interested in the eBay drop-off store franchise phenomenon? See list of all posts on the subject at our new Blogliography: eBay Drop-off Store Franchises
Chance
I don’t know how accurate this method is in the U.S., but in the U.K. it can only be a guide, due to the practice of hiding sales, sometimes deliberately, sometimes not so.
For instance a seller (no names, no pack drill) may choose to pass their – ooh, I don’t know….shall we say fashion listings?, through another name in order to prevent eBay ‘pulling’ ALL the ‘parents’ listings, due to their “expert Listers” proving to be er…not!
Just a thought!
So – to quote Auctionig4u’s/Christian’s ‘last post’ (above, and ‘last’ in both senses of the word, Auctioning4u haven’t issued another press release since) “…will be adding to it’s fleet of four…” I seem to recall – on another page – suggesting at the time that there were probably only 2, and indeed there are; er…still only two. With the same registration plates as the old ones, it would seem he has not only lost two vans, but also lost whatever was ‘added’ to the four minus two!! Complicated I know, but that’s the trouble with lies and you were lying, weren’t you? Proving my main point all along – untrustworthy, dishonest, dishonourable man.
The tale of Auctioning4u is turning to tragedy; I’m afraid the Auctioning4u Amazon zshop is still a dead link and has no items, what’s that, 3 or 4 months now with nothing on display? Meanwhile over on Toymart they had 61 items last night, but they’ve changed their name from Auctioning4u-4toys to TheToyAuctioneer-toys (what other categories could a toy auctioneer have? TheToyAuctioneer-cakes? TheToyAuctioneer-west coast apartments? Tires? Mattresses?), presumably to help buyers forget the items which were on 365-day auctions, and which have now all disappeared?
On Auctioning4u – eBay fashion, nothing, nada, zilch, no items, again – for some time now – but as they sacked/laid-off/lost the head of fashion a while ago I guess there’s no point huh? They do however have 1,500-odd items on eBay proper, but,…they ‘aint no Midwest dormitory town store, they have two warehouses, ‘some’ vans, and a still sizable staff to cover. Thank god for investors, hay?
Negative feedback is creeping back up again, and they’ve lost the ‘Flash-graphic’ element of their website. Meanwhile Blueice Communications of whom Auctioning4u still state are “Auctioning4u’s PR Consultancy” last posted on sourcewire on 01-11-2006, over a year ago and that was the first post on the wire-service that wasn’t Auctioning4u-related. They have ceased to list A4U as clients, and are specialising in ‘property’. Although I’m sure they used to have an interactive Flash-graphic site, they now seem to have a buy-in-the-box site of the sort you might get from Homestead.com. Falling on hard times Liz?
http://www.blueicecom.com/
http://www.sourcewire.com/releases/?compid=XXXLm
Lets now turn our heads to the question of ‘Human Resources’, headed by the fragrant Isabella Pawlowski, “Charity Sales Director & HR Manager”, She has ruled over a period when staff turnover (or given the current situation; Staff decline) equates to something in the order of 95% (or more) over five years, or 80/85%‘ish in the two years (to 1st November) since I started there!! The CBI (Confederation of British Industry)
http://www.policyhub.gov.uk/evaluating_policy/era_papers/03.asp
gives 30% as the UK average for the retail sector, 25% for other ‘service’ sectors. Even over a 20-year period they can only come up with 75% across the board. What is Isabella doing to achieve these world-beating figures, taking people round the back of the warehouse and shooting them? ‘HR’ is about taking an interest in staff welfare, not just hiring & firing, or as seems to be the case these days at auctioning4u; firing & more firing! Oh – and she seems to have lost 100% of her charities, they’re probably in the missing vans.
Either Auctioning4u managed to employ a hell of a lot of very unreliable people, or Isabella Powlowski has allowed a large number of good people (and take it from me most of them were damn decent types) to be treated very badly. Is there a third explanation? Answers on a postcard please!
So to recap – Auctioning4u (still calling themselves “the UK’s fastest growing eBay service provider”) have in the 5 months since the above post, lost – in no particular order – their Macromedia graphics, Amazon sales, fashion department, Toymart trading name & listings and umpteen staff, they’ve lost vans before they’ve bought them! Lost all their shops, all the iSold It stores they were to ‘carry’, both franchises, all their drop-off sites, lots of friends (I now know who ‘Patrick’ is) and a PR company. They’ve lost all their Charity clients and they are still losing staff, seem to be losing customer goodwill, and must be losing money – if 84/200 items didn’t sell on the 20 November, as they didn’t.
The one thing they haven’t lost is a top-heavy structure with most management-types surviving to dampen their snouts in the trough every day. A trough that used to be well filled by Foresight Venture Partnership
http://www.vcf.co.uk/generic/default.asp
However – to quote from Auctioning4u’s own website – “Foresight invests in growth businesses driven by technology”, and with Auctioning4u losing size and graphics they fail on both counts; growth and technology! We see that while Auctioning4u weren’t as keen to press-release this years investment as they were last years, Foresight publish the figures and the payment was down, by more then three-quarters. Foresight are not VC’s using their own money, but investment managers, using other peoples, and have to pay dividends, so how much longer do you think they will continue to top-up the trough?
With a similar ‘contraction’ picture at iSold It and Snappy, I think we can say ‘The Internet Multi-consignment Drop-shop eBay Facilitation concept’ is dead in the water, and all these shysters need to start to wind up sensibly, causing as little damage to their remaining staff, customers, franchisees, clients and investors….some hope!!
It is notable that two of the three jobs currently being advertised by Auctioning4u are an IT Manager and Financial Controller, both roles similar to those held by the other two members of the Executive Triumvirate and major private shareholders. Now they wouldn’t be planning on a swift exit with golden handshake, leaving a couple of newbees holding the dead baby would they? That would be morally reprehensible.
[Sean, this page has lost some posts my post on Jul 24, 2007 at 2:27 pm was in reply to one by Chance, and is now out of context??]
So – to quote Auctionig4u’s/Christian’s ‘last post’ (above, and ‘last’ in both senses of the word, Auctioning4u haven’t issued another press release since) “…will be adding to it’s fleet of four…” I seem to recall – on another page – suggesting at the time that there were probably only 2, and indeed there are; er…still only two. With the same registration plates as the old ones, it would seem he has not only lost two vans, but also lost whatever was ‘added’ to the four minus two!! Complicated I know, but that’s the trouble with lies and you were lying, weren’t you? Proving my main point all along – untrustworthy, dishonest, dishonourable man.
The tale of Auctioning4u is turning to tragedy; I’m afraid the Auctioning4u Amazon zshop is still a dead link and has no items, what’s that, 3 or 4 months now with nothing on display? Meanwhile over on Toymart they had 61 items last night, but they’ve changed their name from Auctioning4u-4toys to TheToyAuctioneer-toys (what other categories could a toy auctioneer have? TheToyAuctioneer-cakes? TheToyAuctioneer-west coast apartments? Tires? Mattresses?), presumably to help buyers forget the items which were on 365-day auctions, and which have now all disappeared?
On Auctioning4u – eBay fashion, nothing, nada, zilch, no items, again – for some time now – but as they sacked/laid-off/lost the head of fashion a while ago I guess there’s no point huh? They do however have 1,500-odd items on eBay proper, but,…they ‘aint no Midwest dormitory town store, they have two warehouses, ‘some’ vans, and a still sizable staff to cover. Thank god for investors, hay?
The tale of Auctioning4u is turning to tragedy; I’m afraid the Auctioning4u Amazon zshop is still a dead link and has no items, what’s that, 3 or 4 months now with nothing on display? Meanwhile over on Toymart they had 61 items last night, but they’ve changed their name from Auctioning4u-4toys to TheToyAuctioneer-toys (what other categories could a toy auctioneer have? TheToyAuctioneer-cakes? TheToyAuctioneer-west coast apartments? Tires? Mattresses?), presumably to help buyers forget the items which were on 365-day auctions, and which have now all disappeared?
On Auctioning4u – eBay fashion, nothing, nada, zilch, no items, again – for some time now – but as they sacked/laid-off/lost the head of fashion a while ago I guess there’s no point huh? They do however have 1,500-odd items on eBay proper, but,…they ‘aint no Midwest dormitory town store, they have two warehouses, ‘some’ vans, and a still sizeable staff to cover. Thank god for investors, hay?
Negative feedback is creeping back up again, and they’ve lost the ‘Flash-graphic’ element of their website. Meanwhile Blueice Communications of whom Auctioning4u still state are “Auctioning4u’s PR Consultancy” last posted on sourcewire on 01-11-2006, over a year ago and that was the first post on the wire-service that wasn’t Auctioning4u-related. They have ceased to list A4U as clients, and are specialising in ‘property’. Although I’m sure they used to have an interactive Flash-graphic site, they now seem to have a buy-in-the-box site of the sort you might get from Homestead.com. or WHSmith! Falling on hard times Liz?
Lets now turn our heads to the question of ‘Human Resources’, headed by the fragrant Isabella Pawlowski, “Charity Sales Director & HR Manager”, She has ruled over a period when staff turnover (or given the current situation; Staff decline) equates to something in the order of 95% (or more) over five years, or 80/85%‘ish in the two years (to 1st November) since I started there!! The CBI (Confederation of British Industry) gives 30% as the UK average for the retail sector, 25% for other ‘service’ sectors. Even over a 20-year period they can only come up with 75% across the board. What is Isabella doing to achieve these world-beating figures, taking people round the back of the warehouse and shooting them? ‘HR’ is about taking an interest in staff welfare, not just hiring & firing, or as seems to be the case these days at auctioning4u; firing & more firing! Oh – and she seems to have lost 100% of her charities, they’re probably in the missing vans.
Either Auctioning4u managed to employ a hell of a lot of very unreliable people, or Isabella Powlowski has allowed a large number of good people (and take it from me most of them were damn decent types) to be treated very badly. Is there a third explanation? Answers on a postcard please!
So to recap – Auctioning4u (still calling themselves “the UK’s fastest growing eBay service provider”) have in the 5 months since the above post, lost – in no particular order – their Macromedia graphics, Amazon sales, fashion department, Toymart trading name & listings and umpteen staff, they’ve lost vans before they’ve bought them! Lost all their shops, all the iSold It stores they were to ‘carry’, both franchises, all their drop-off sites, lots of friends (I now know who ‘Patrick’ is) and a PR company. They’ve lost all their Charity clients and they are still losing staff, seem to be losing customer goodwill, and must be losing money – if 84/200 items didn’t sell on the 20 November, as they didn’t.
The one thing they haven’t lost is a top-heavy structure with most management-types surviving to dampen their snouts in the trough every day. A trough that used to be well filled by Foresight Venture Partnership. However – to quote from Auctioning4u’s own website – “Foresight invests in growth businesses driven by technology”, and with Auctioning4u losing size and graphics they fail on both counts; growth and technology! We see that while Auctioning4u weren’t as keen to press-release this years investment as they were last years, Foresight publish the figures and the payment was down, by more then three-quarters. Foresight are not VC’s using their own money, but investment managers, using other peoples, and have to pay dividends, so how much longer do you think they will continue to top-up the trough?
With a similar ‘contraction’ picture at iSold It and Snappy, I think we can say ‘The Internet Multi-consignment Drop-shop eBay Facilitation concept’ is dead in the water, and all these shysters need to start to wind up sensibly, causing as little damage to their remaining staff, customers, franchisees, clients and investors….some hope!!
It is notable that two of the three jobs currently being advertised by Auctioning4u are an IT Manager and Financial Controller, both roles similar to those held by the other two members of the Executive Triumvirate and major private shareholders. Now they wouldn’t be planning on a swift exit with golden handshake, leaving a couple of newbees holding the dead baby would they? That would be morally reprehensible.
Sorry about the mess guys but the original – with links – has been in moderation for over 24 hours now. What with posts missing further up this page, an inability to post anything on the original A4U page and several people over on the ‘Contours Express’ page expressing concerns re. posts, one might be forgiven for thinking censorship had begun to raise it’s ugly and undemocratic head round here??
So I cut&pasted by paragraphs, leaving out the links I had provided and hitting the enter key twice at one point (although with a spelling change! – my internet is slow at the moment, 22 other users on the router!!). Not to polished round-up I hoped it would be!
[Sean, this page has lost some posts - my post on Jul 24, 2007 at 2:27 pm was in reply to one by Chance (in turn; in reply to someone else) and is now out of context??]
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Hugh:
There is an anti-comment-spam filter called Akismet integrated into the site, as well as some wordpress approval functions. Generally, once your first post is approved yours aren’t held up for moderation. There are some exceptions, such as comments on posts older than 30 or 60 days.
I’m not familiar with all the rules, but I believe comments with multiple links are placed in the Spam queue, since that’s a common attribute of comment spam.
I used to go through every comment identified as Spam to pluck out the rare non-spam comment. However lately it’s been a deluge – generally 600+ and I’m forced to delete the buggers en masse. Some of Hugh’s wheat may have gotten blown out with the chaff.
So I’m not censoring intentionally, though if I were to start your lengthy missives about a certain company and its CEO would certainly be attractive candidates, notwithstanding your most enjoyable prose. If we could only get you onto another subject!
Another subject? but I’m having so much fun…telling the truth!
HI.. GETTING DODGY INFO FROM AUCTIONING4U.. APPARENTLY THEY HAVE SOLD NAME AND EVERYTHING TO SERIALSELLERS..EBAY AGAIN.. I THINK IT HAS FISHY SMELL
AuctionAssist have been bought out by someone called ‘ArgentVive’ a mean-nothing-money moving-city-finance-PR-marketing name if ever I heard one! There is no mention on the new-logo’d website of the stores, so I guess you can add another 30-odd stores to the graveyard. And that wil put the UK figure at a +95% failure rate, as ‘Chance’ would say; The concept does not work!
However, the parent has listed on the London Stock Exchange, so they’ve got further than someone else I could mention!!! Meantime – now that I’ve mentioned someone else (sorry Sean, but people are reading this and sending the links to each other, 3 congratulations yesterday, one from a mate of CB!!) – his new ‘baby’ states on it’s website homepage “The Toy Market Just Got Bigger”…er, no…The slice of the pie those in the market might have got used to, may at some point in the future get marginally smaller? Just so he can try and destroy Vectis, a company that never did a thing to him????
If we could post images I’d show you the posters put up at yesterday’s show, to quote; “Offical Onlinie [sic] Auction House…”, that’ll be some Scottish internet then??
Your comment has been held for a few days Richard or I would have said more earlier, you’re right though, ‘The Toy Auctioneer’ is also being very quiet about it’s links to CB, Toymart, Auctioning4u et al…no heavy press releases, no long lists of staff (although the website graphics are the same – just different colours!), and a bastardised version of ‘the concept’, except that actually it’s two old models tacked together with gaps showing and a bit of on-line activity to make it look/sound/appear (?) modern and with-it!
There’s also the fact that it’s trading on eBay without the usual “this seller also trades as…” which you or I would automatically get if we re-registered from the same IP address. As The Toy Auctioneers are working out of the same buildings, using the same staff, from the same computers this is an anomaly. While I guess from my limited knowledge that if they ripped out the old server, and got a new one they might end up with a new IP ad. one has to ask why eBayUK have allowed it to happen, when they’ve been down there giving out rubber key-rings and mugs?
Likewise while they were promoting their new venture on Saturday, the emphasis was far more on the Toymart/Sponsership deal with the whole yellow graphics thing going on there rather than Auctioning4u pink or The Toy Auctioneers blue/greens.
It’s like they want the general public to believe they are three unrelated concerns, when as far as I am aware CB is ‘CEO’ of all three. certainly he’s issued cards to that effect for two of the companies in the last 18 months, and if he is not boss of the third perhaps he’d like to tell us here so we don’t pass on false information.
Oh!…I forget; he said he wouldn’t post again, then he posted again, then he said he wouldn’t post again and now Sean’s closed comments on that page!!
Hay Ho…Keep pluggin’ away
Well neither Auctioning4u nor Serialsellers make any mention of it, nor indeed do Toy Auctioneers or Toymart. There’s no traceable press release and three out of the four are continuing to trade on eBay apparently independently, so…Yes, distinct wiff of smoked haddock hovering over the whole edifice!! I follow it up in my own sweet way!
Richard – we were both wrong…the buyout seems to be by a company called Clockworx, a name all too similar to Auctionworx, the eBay listing programme developed by Auctioning4u, after they bought in the skeleton from a German software concern.
Indeed the similarity in name would suggest that Clockworx has been bought rather than done the buying? The web-page is currently dead;
http://www.clockworx.com/
possibly because there is already a ‘Clockworx’ on the South Coast which is a software developer with a fine list of international blue-chip clients;
http://www.clockworxdesign.com/
The Clockworx now ‘attached’ to Auctioning4u or Toymart or is it Thetoyauctioneer?…is linked to a couple of what appear to be multi-level marketing companies in Staffordshire, one eponymous the other called (or trading as (T/A)) Perfuma.com which has itself been ‘bought’ by/merged with Beauty Expert, a company that – depending on which page you find first – is based in either Dippenahall [sic] (actually – Dipenhall) , Surrey or Farnborough, Hampshire.
Two factors to bear in mind, we were shifting loads of perfume, at one point, for someone else while I was at A4U, and the first ‘Franchise’ was in the same area of Surrey as Dippenahall. It’s also worth noting that Mr. Daniel Agnew – Director (not CEO) of Thetoyauctioneer, has a website with A4U graphics, a business card that looks identical to those issued to Auctioning4u employees – even down to that so-eighties lower-case everything, it also gives the same postal address as Auctioning4u, but the telephone and fax-lines go through a different exchange/server, hence eBay’s not yet attaching Auctioning4u to the Toyauctioneer as ‘previously’ or ‘also’ trades/trading as. Something they (eBay) would do automatically if you or I tried to change our eBay identity???
Now Sean may still believe Christian Braun is a strait-up kind-a-guy, but I think there are more shell companies here than you’d find registered in any given solicitors office in down-town Nassau, Bahamas!!!
Tiddly-dum! – I’ll keep digging!
Sean – can you put my last comment through moderation please?
thanks!
Nononononono…no…no…NO – It’s Clocktronics, or is it Bob Rock Ltd??? No, maybe Richard WAS right and it is in fact Serialsellers. As Sean has pointed out in the past, a little insignificant company, but carrying-on like the Virgin group!
“Oh boss, the pipes in the yard are leaking”
“Really – form a new company, put someone from er…Sotherby’s in charge of it, get some quotes from a TV personality, and don’t disturb me, I’ll be discussing piranha’s with Miessterrr Bond in my secret lair”
You’ll get a hollow laugh reading;
http://www.jigsawuk.org/index.php?title=Auctioning4u
Does this make it any clearer? I don’t think so…
http://www.tamebay.com/2007/12/auctioning4u-isold-it.html#comment-22293
The Quik & The Dead: eBay Store QuikDrop Joins Franchise Graveyard
Sean seems to have forgotten this page, too busy I don’t doubt.
Thanks, Hugh.
Actually, since you have been such a a gentleman, I posted it here:
Will Auctioning4U Save the eBay Drop Off Franchise?
Merry Christmas.
e-jumble (www.e-jumble.co.uk) seem to be the only ebay selling company that have got things right. I recently bought something from them and collected from their Stockport warehouse which is a huge operation but it is set up by down to earth people, not trying to run too quickly, they are taking things one step at a time and seem to be getting things right as from talking to them they have many many clients and offer a personal service – their ebay username is e-jumbleuk.
A bit like Auctioningforyou in Guildford.
Auctioning4u has sold off assetts and finally gone into liquidation. A full history and explanation is at http://www.tamebay.com/2008/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-auctioning4u.html