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

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

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.

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.

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!)

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

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

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.