www.bendunne.com,his new site,discuss!

niceirishfella

Well, the last time I posted www.tenderme.ie we had a good discussion about his tender site, some good and not so good feedback on it.

What about his new one coming soon, thoughts?
He doing lots of chatting about it on radio and has ads running.

I see he's going do a donedeal type ad facility, and charge €3 for an ad?
Thoughts?

Bandara

niceirishfella wrote: »

Well, the last time I posted www.tenderme.ie we had a good discussion on his tender site, good and postive feedback on it.

What about his new one coming soon, thoughts?
He doing lots of chatting about it on radio and has ads running.

I see he's going do a donedeal type ad facility, and charge €3 for an ad?
Thoughts?

I met him yesterday, really surprised my preconceptions of him, he's a genuinely nice engaging bloke.

And he donated €20,000 to a charity on the spot

stepbar

Ben Dunne..........

Excellent salesman, Yes.
Gifted entrepreneur, No.

Already from an exceptionally wealthy family before being an entrepreneur - yes.

Hardest part over and done with.

Mickk

niceirishfella wrote: »

Well, the last time I posted www.tenderme.ie we had a good discussion about his tender site, some good and not so good feedback on it.

What about his new one coming soon, thoughts?
He doing lots of chatting about it on radio and has ads running.

I see he's going do a donedeal type ad facility, and charge €3 for an ad?
Thoughts?

Tenderme.ie has completely bombed, over the last week he has had a total of 133 responces, generating an awe inspiring 399 euro. After the vat and paying regcom their share for the premium rate number the website will turnover less than 200 euro a week!

The new site is the model he should of used with tenderme.ie (person who wants to list the job pays) but his site is a complete and utter rip off of donedeal.ie! The layout, format and even the price are exactly the same. If I was doing it I would do it including pictures, free to list, blow donedeal.ie out of the water and make your money on the advertising revenue. You will never make a fortune but you could make a hell of a lot more than 200 quid a week.

Pixelcraft

First Problem: Calling it bendunne.com
Second Problem: Site has absolutely no focus.
Third Problem: amateur visuals
Fourth Problem: usability will most likely be poor
Fifth problem: why would anyone pay €3 for an add on an unproven site (from anecdotal evidence many did with tenderme and I'm sure they won't want to feel ripped off again.)

This is a guy who never had a website for any of his gyms, think people care only about cost and little else no matter what the industry (have you heard the art adds for his wife?) and seemingly is looking to make a quick buck from 'the internet' suddenly now that we're in a recession.

r3nu4l

Okay, so it's probably not deliberately taking on adverts.it but Ben Dunne is launching bendunne.ie on Oct 14th.

It looks as though the site will charge €3 to place an advert!
Seems a bit steep to me when there are so many free sites out there. The only way I see this working is if recruitment, estate and travel agents are convinced to use it.

dunkindonuts

I agree with you, let him we will still back adverts

It seriously is the best site i have used to be honest to sell/buy items

fintan

Its all about liquidity. If he can get enough buyers and sellers using his site he will win, however he is up against buy and sell, auto-trader and ebay.

All of whom have well established positions in the market and the required liquidity to make their business viable. So getting liquidty is going to cost €€€€€

If I was his business development person, I would have him doing motivational seminars and flogging a book, less hassle, more money.

Cheers
Fintan

GettingThere101

Have to agree with Pixelcraft here.

There are a lot of potential problems with this business model. He's presuming his name will carry the business forward and people will gladly dive in to another cut-price recession loving venture of his.

Maybe they will, but this one feels a great deal more unlikely than the gyms. You can put the gyms beside the fancy Jackie Skelly and Crunch fitnesses, and if it has much the same equipment but at half the cost or less then there's a very good reason why he'll do well and people will migrate their business to him.

But as several have pointed out, bendunne.ie is trying to compete with such well established forums but offering little than another place to try and flog stuff, or get a job etc. etc. The one area that people will throw themselves into, i would reckon, would be the jobs category, simply by the desperate state of the jobs market.

Why bother with the rest when you have a market of hundreds of thousands on ebay international, your car to a vast specific car buying audience on auto trader or advertise your stuff completely for free on Adverts to a national audience; he has no edge, no angle or innovation on this, other than adding his brand to it and oh what a brand.

What he might have forgotten is that people go to his successful businesses because of the price and the value he offers, but they are also the least loyal, most fickle of all consumers as they can simply be swayed by a better deal or price elsewhere.

Initially i hated his radio ads, they are truly terrible. Then i realised that was the point, they are wilfully, strategically awful, cheap to the point of cringing and after a while, strangely endearing. Are they meant to echo his brand exactly or that just unfortunate?

He is to some extent, a cheapo recession appropriate, Irish answer to Richard Branson, mirroring our shoddy real Irish economy.

As a previous poster hinted, it's a great deal easier to be a successful entrepreneur when you have a vastly wealthy family fortune. As the saying goes; what's the easiest way to make a million? Start with ten million.

At least he's generous to charity, trying to come up with new ventures and give value to Irish consumers, overall, fair play to him.

Pixelcraft wrote: »

First Problem: Calling it bendunne.com
Second Problem: Site has absolutely no focus.
Third Problem: amateur visuals
Fourth Problem: usability will most likely be poor
Fifth problem: why would anyone pay €3 for an add on an unproven site (from anecdotal evidence many did with tenderme and I'm sure they won't want to feel ripped off again.)

This is a guy who never had a website for any of his gyms, think people care only about cost and little else no matter what the industry (have you heard the art adds for his wife?) and seemingly is looking to make a quick buck from 'the internet' suddenly now that we're in a recession.

Mr Biz

What is it with all these "Recession Bustin/Deal Crunchin" websites popping up all over the place..

I know many who have tried to gain business from them with no such luck.. In one case the guy was getting calls asking if he wanted to bid again and again on a tender, which he did, yet never got one single job..

I can't see this one lasting too long either.. As said, it's hardly going to knock it's rivals off top spot..

Next he'll be relaunching the 80's Classic "Dunnes Cola". . . .Tempting maybe..but i'd rather d "real deal" with my JackieD thanks!!

Mr Biz

BnA

Agree with other posters here. I can't see what he is trying to do. He is up against so many established players.

Donedeal.ie seems to be gaining momentum at the moment. Not the best in terms of search options, but there is an awful lot of stuff on it.

ronaneire

What about beendone.ie? Why would you want to call bendunne.ie?

gavney

Deleted User wrote: »

Already from an exceptionally wealthy family before being an entrepreneur - yes.

Hardest part over and done with.

In fairness though, he can hardly be expected to go backwards and start from scratch. He's just playing the hand he was dealt (and what an excellent hand it was!)

gavney

r3nu4l wrote: »

It looks as though the site will charge €3 to place an advert!
Seems a bit steep to me when there are so many free sites out there. The only way I see this working is if recruitment, estate and travel agents are convinced to use it.

Is it to remove alot of the crap? You see tonnes of **** on adverts.ie and I personally hate sifting through the crap on adverts.ie. I think that 3euro would get rid of alot of the time-wasters who post complete crap on it- who are posting stuff on it BECAUSE it's free, and not because it's worth putting up

gavney

gavney wrote: »

In fairness though, he can hardly be expected to go backwards and start from scratch. He's just playing the hand he was dealt (and what an excellent hand it was!)

Completely agree with you.

Sorry that wasn't a begrudgery comment or anything. I was just stating in case others get mesmerised by his wealth and power without actually knowing the fully story.

gavney

Deleted User wrote: »

Completely agree with you.

Sorry that wasn't a begrudgery comment or anything. I was just stating in case others get mesmerised by his wealth and power without actually knowing the fully story.

Ah fair enough, misinterpreted your comment so!

EKRIUQ

Well Ben's tying anyway.

His own supermarkets
Sandwiches
BenDunnedirect.com
Gyms
Nora Dunne Art Gallery
Tenderme
etc..etc..

He's just trying to copy other peoples ideas and his name will only get him so far, it was clear to most that Tenderme was a very bad business model having to pay money to apply for a job that others were applying to. Now he's targeting the success's that are in the Irish internet marketplace place Donedeal and Daft.

donedeal charges just €3 per ad and he's advertising €75 per week, Estate agents won't look at it either as daft only charge €40 per week for all of an estate agents properties(Rental and Sales)

fiscalstudent

Is this not just a bad version of gumtree??

gefpm

anyone know what has happened to the new bendunne.ie website? it only launched yesterday and is down already, i was trying to have a look at it last nite but could only get a blue screen

dhayz2000

Same here, I registered yesterday out of interest and blue screen today. Not a very impressive website launch.

I see they're undercutting DoneDeal in pricing terms too. €1.50 as opposed to €3 on DoneDeal to post an advert.

deisebabe

yeah it doesn't work. I get a blue background and thats it.....

W!zard

The site seems to be a testbed version and not a real working one yet.
It will likely appear again with a new lick of paint / functions, content. One would think anyway.

He is testing the waters, this is good and it is only a matter of time before he gets a good one going as the Irish online market is a very different beast to the global markets

niceirishfella

It launches Monday next, according the radio ads anyways.

zac8

dhayz2000 wrote: »

Same here, I registered yesterday out of interest and blue screen today. Not a very impressive website launch.

I see they're undercutting DoneDeal in pricing terms too. €1.50 as opposed to €3 on DoneDeal to post an advert.

Not quite. On DoneDeal.ie your ad is live for 2 months for €3. On Ben Dunne's site it is live for only 2 weeks for €1.50. At least that's what it stated on the site before it disappeared. They've had two price changes already before going live. I'll hazard a guess they haven't a clue what they're doing!

niceirishfella

zac8 wrote: »

Not quite. On DoneDeal.ie your ad is live for 2 months for €3. On Ben Dunne's site it is live for only 2 weeks for €1.50. At least that's what it stated on the site before it disappeared. They've had two price changes already before going live. I'll hazard a guess they haven't a clue what they're doing!

to be fair, any ad you put up on DoneDeal, you'll invariably "bump" up often, costing €3 a bump - so, if BD is going to do ad's for €1.50 or €3, its very similar in pricing tbh.

Dakor

All I'm getting it is a blue page, see attachement. The good news is that it did load fast

TheWaterboy

the site isnt broken or anything, its just set to display that blue screen and google analytics are on it too. Gathering stats i bet until the live launch on Monday

niceirishfella

TheWaterboy wrote: »

the site isnt broken or anything, its just set to display that blue screen and google analytics are on it too. Gathering stats i bet until the live launch on Monday

yep, and with the national radio Ad running, they can see what hits they get for their media spend.....

Dakor

Well, that's not very smart. If you spending that much money on a radio ad at the very least you should have an operating website with a little info on it.

The very first thing I do when I hear of the new product or company is go to their website. If I see a blue page then I would probably not be interested in using their products/services.

Dakor

Dakor wrote: »

Well, that's not very smart. If you spending that much money on a radio ad at the very least you should have an operating website with a little info on it.

The very first thing I do when I hear of the new product or company is go to their website. If I see a blue page then I would probably not be interested in using their products/services.

Exactly.

And it that is their planning, it sounds very much like a case of "more money than sense" in their strategy.

niceirishfella

Dakor wrote: »

Well, that's not very smart. If you spending that much money on a radio ad at the very least you should have an operating website with a little info on it.

The very first thing I do when I hear of the new product or company is go to their website. If I see a blue page then I would probably not be interested in using their products/services.

Smart? Who cares till it launches proper and shure ain't that the beauty of being a entrepeneur. You can spend your marketing cash which ever way you wish and be extolled or berated for it!:P

spartacus93

I can't understand why they didn't leave the (albeit poorly designed) blurb page online. The blue screen is useless.

They can still run analytics, and collect all the stats they want, while still providing some information to the public that are interested in the site.

mcaul

I don't see this site working the way Ben Dunne thinks it will. Probably similar to tenderme.ie where there was loaads of huff and very little puff.

His biggest problem is he is the public face and his public face is not a selling point for the people he is targeting.

If he was to open a chain of discount retail stores similar to lidl / aldi and used his face to advertise it, it would be a huge success, but using his image trying to sell a concept that will be used primarily by 18 - 40 year olds just won't work.

If he simply provided the finance and knowledge and allow some twenty something likeable person to front the concept, it would have a better chance of success.

Time will tell, but as others have said, its nothing new.

DJB

Looks like Ben has pulled the plug on this project, according to the Evening Herald:

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/my-buy-and-sell-site-was-a--disaster-admits-dunne-as-he-pulls-the-plug-1916115.html

Must have been reading this thread!

_Kooli_

Glad i didnt put an ad up there then.

John McG

Did you read the reason for the site failure?

"It just didn't perform at all. Even with a small bit of flow it was stalling. If you have it wrong, you've got to stop it."


For God's sake Ben, would you not have just thrown a few Amazon EC2 servers clustered behind it for now and tweak it later? Of course your going to get big hits with all the advertising. Frankly his IT infrastructure guys have let him down big time.

On another note, it's amazing that Ben Dunne gets all this TV/Radio/Press coverage without even having a business up and running. Remember the massive coverage for his €50 "cheap suit" business that never even materialised? What a lucky guy. Fair play to him!

fintan

DJB wrote: »

Looks like Ben has pulled the plug on this project, according to the Evening Herald:

http://www.herald.ie/national-news/my-buy-and-sell-site-was-a--disaster-admits-dunne-as-he-pulls-the-plug-1916115.html

Must have been reading this thread!

Ben if you do read this, send me a PM, I'll get you a site that stays up no hassles at all.

Cheers
Fintan

EKRIUQ

fintan wrote: »

Ben if you do read this, send me a PM, I'll get you a site that stays up no hassles at all.

Cheers
Fintan

There was only one site on the server :rolleyes:

You should really help him with his Nora Dunne art gallery website too

http://noradunne.typepad.com/nora_dunne_gallery/blog_index.html

niceirishfella

EKRIUQ wrote: »

You should really help him with his Nora Dunne art gallery website too

http://noradunne.typepad.com/nora_dunne_gallery/blog_index.html

+1, hell yeah, thats some mess too.
Ben clearly needs to BOOT his IT people - or just give up on his net ideas.:P

qwertyTRiG

Deleted User wrote: »

Those who can; DO, and those who can't; TEACH

What a bizarrely punctuated signature!

Those who can, DO; and those who can't, TEACH.

And, if you want to quote Shaw correctly, drop the and.

TRiG.:)

qwertyTRiG

qwertyTRiG wrote: »

What a bizarrely punctuated signature!

Those who can, DO; and those who can't, TEACH.

And, if you want to quote Shaw correctly, drop the and.

TRiG.:)

I actually do thank you for correcting that. I personally hate grammatical errors and I just copied it straight out of something else on google.

EKRIUQ

His ad is still the radio

"Ben Dunne.com is in full swing, 50% cheaper than dondeal. Ben Dunne.com"

zac8

the guys at DoneDeal must be in stitches. what an embarrassment. my guess is that he's got some young fella building his websites and he's just out of his depth.

Cianos

EKRIUQ wrote: »

His ad is still the radio

"Ben Dunne.com is in full swing, 50% cheaper than dondeal. Ben Dunne.com"

Jesus. Must be frustrating for all the genuine hard working entrepreneurs out there who would kill to be able to fund ads on the radio.

mayhem#

Wouldn't be much more fitting if they called the site "www.beendone.com"?

coup1917

Delighted this has flopped..
Have been extremely happy with donedeal.ie and its simplicity for buying/selling or searching..
I'm sick of listening to this knobhead who seems to be on Newstalk constantly....While most of the country is scraping pennies together with no job prospects in the near future, this pleb is advertising his wife's art gallery or a bargain cappucino...

spartacus93

The site must have been very poorly designed / thought about if it crashed and burned before it even launched.

DoneDeal seem to be going from strength to strength, it will take an excellent service to knock them off the top spot.

PhatPiggins

Seems to be up and running now. Not a lot of traffic though.

fintan

I'd imagine donedeal are delighted with all the free advertising in the bendunne ads

Riamfada

10k advertisment and 6 ads to show for it at 1.50 each.