Wigix Archive

Online non-financial goods stock market service (phew!) Wigix has announced two new members of their board of directors. Wigix’s Board is led by CEO and co-founder James Chong. Tim Draper, founder of Draper Fisher Jurveston and wall street analyst Bill Burnham have joined the Wigix Board. Earlier this year, Wigix raised $5.35 million in Series A funding, led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Check out our initial review of Wigix to learn more about this unique service. The company is calling themselves, "the world’s first online stock market for all non-financial goods." I see it more like Amazon’s third-party sales with negotiation.

Here are my concerns with Wigix from the review, "The bottom-line with Wigix is whether they will be able to get enough buyers and sellers to move over their inventories from ebay (and other auction sites) to Wigix. Many heavy sellers have enormous switching costs due to the feedback profiles on eBay and the easy Paypal integration."

Picture this: you get up early on Saturday morning and head down to the local swap meet where 100 sellers are there, each one is selling the same items. Normally you need to walk around from seller to seller and attempt to discuss a deal with them. Eventually one seller will match your price and you purchase the item. This is what a company launching today is attempting to do online, only easier. Wigix is looking to line up sellers based on the products they are attempting to sell so you can easily see what’s available and then negotiate with the sellers directly if you aren’t happy with the price they are offering.

The company is calling themselves, "the world’s first online stock market for all non-financial goods." I see it more like Amazon’s third-party sales with negotiation. They are going directly after eBay which can be a mess when you are looking for an item. Wigix also has a different pricing structure than eBay which currently charges listing and final value fees. Wigix will charge a flat-rate fee per item. On Wigix the buyer will pay a fee along with the seller.

The idea of an organized eBay is one that I like. It’s a mess right now – especially with the spam listings. The one question I’d have is how they will deal with accessories. Let’s say you want to sell your iPhone plus 5 accessories. It’s easy to highlight those extras and charge accordingly on eBay – will it be that easy to differentiate the individual products and those with accessories online?

The bottom-line with Wigix is whether they will be able to get enough buyers and sellers to move over their inventories from ebay (and other auction sites) to Wigix. Many heavy sellers have enormous switching costs due to the feedback profiles on eBay and the easy Paypal integration. Also, calling this marketplace a "stock market" will scare away average buyers and sellers I believe. Not sure why they went with this marketing message but there appear to be others that would work better.

Stacey from GigaOm seems to agree with me that calling Wigix a "stock market" is a mistake. Mark Hendrickson suggests that Wigix will bring order to online trading.