Forget eBay-sell the Penn way

Students have unveiled a new online auction site exclusively for Penn use. While e-commerce has created a global shopping community, three business-savvy Penn students are going local with a successful Internet auction house operated solely for the University community. With the introduction of BensMarket.com, a popular trend has come to fill a specialized need in the University community. "We saw a unique market space, the local student market, that big companies like eBay are neglecting," Troy Figgins, a second-year MBA student and a creator of BensMarket.com, said. "And we as students wanted to do something for the students." For Figgins and his partners Sudeep Mathur and Tony Siu, both College and Wharton juniors, the incorporation of their company, Small Auctions LLC, marked the first step in the realization of their dream. The tie that binds them, Mathur explained, is their "inherently entrepreneurial spirit." "[The newsgroup] upenn.forsale was the only way to buy and sell things and we had problems with it," Sui said. The three budding entrepreneurs knew that there were many improvements they could make to the online auction process. As Sui remembers, they asked themselves "why don't we start an online site specifically for Penn students?" The result was BensMarket.com, a site not officially endorsed by the University but only accessible to University students, faculty and staff. "We wanted to make sure there was a real sense of trust on the site," Figgins said. By limiting access to people who have registered upenn.edu e-mail accounts, students are assured that they are dealing only with persons in the University community. Though the group originally attempted to build the site from scratch, a long summer's arduous work did not yield the results they had hoped for. "Designing it was hard," Siu admitted. "We spent a month or so customizing the product, making it look stylish and appealing to the students." The site is still a work in progress and its creators modify it as suggestions come in and expansions are made. "Everyone at Penn is not as inherently familiar with the mechanics of online auctions as we were and as we were expecting them to be," Figgins said. Many of the beginning sellers on the site, he explained, would use it as a bulletin board, posting the item they were selling and naming their own price, which is not its intended purpose. "It is an education process to teach them to start the bidding lower and allow the market to set the price," Figgins said. After a brief registration process where the browser's University affiliation is confirmed and a password is given, students can view items for sale in specific categories such as "furniture" and "electronics." The items can be viewed either individually or all at once. Users can make a one-time bid or they can set a maximum bid, posting the highest price they are willing to pay for an item. The computer then bids up automatically until it reaches the predetermined limit. E-mails are sent to users to notify them of their bidding status and whether or not they have won the item. To post an item for sale, Figgins suggested starting the bidding at $1 and setting the reserve price for "whatever you are comfortable ultimately selling at." Sellers have the ability to set the increment at which bids are increased and to determine whether or not they will accept a certain bid. "This way," Figgins said, "you don't have to worry about not getting the price you want." Buyers and sellers are responsible for contacting one another and no money or credit card numbers are exchanged on the site. "Because it is local, people can just meet up on campus and exchange items," Figgins noted. "If there is fraud, it is very easy to track down." The creators are quick to note that BensMarket.com is in a very nascent stage. Their hopes for the future involve turning the site into a full-service commerce hub for University students. Plans for further development include inviting restaurants and local businesses to join the site. "We ultimately want to create an online shopping and selling community by and for the students," Sui said. The students are currently paying monthly Internet hosting charges from their own pockets but count on future advertising to generate profit. They are committed, however, to keeping the site free for students. In the words of a true businessman, Sui said, "We hope that if people want to buy and sell stuff they will think of us. We want to be a part of the student's lives."