Why You Should Get Off BTtradespace Now!
By Jim Symcox on Aug 21, 2007 in blogging, blogging hosts, bttradespace
I’m always experimenting and testing the marketing I do.
And online is no exception.
For example I’ve even set-up a BTtradespace account to see what it was like. It’s a bit like a poor man’s blogger. And it seems to be aimed at companies who want to meet companies in their own area. Which is a laudable goal.
British Telecom (BT) (who run the accounts) has now allowed each account to use PayPal to accept payments for items and services. The slight downside is that BT takes 5% of the payment as their fee – I’m not sure exactly why as the accounts were being hosted free of charge previously.
However, it looks as though you can only sell 5 products before you need to upgrade to their slightly more premium version of the account. Which again means spending more money.
All I can say is WHY?
Why bother using BTtradespace.com to sell stuff? It’s fine as an introduction to your fellow business people who are located nearby. Why not simply have a link straight from bttradespace to your own web site or blog where you can sell as many products as you like without having to pay a 5% tax on top.
Instead you can use any of the following:
www.blogger.com (to set-up a free blog where you can easily add a paypal button for sales – I’ve done it on my own site.
www.wordpress.org (you need to set-up your own domain name and hosting but you get freedom!)
www.wordpress.com (free blog, although you can’t run Adsense on it)
Even if you’ve been on bttradespace a while I’d suggest putting your energies into one of the above blogs and simply do a few posts on your bttradespace account linking to your new blog. As I have.
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screencastcentral | Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
Jim
I don’t think you have to get off BTTradespace – but I do agree that it should be part of a two step set-up
If you already have a paypal account it’s easy to provide a link to page on another site with payment info
I guess BT are implying security for the transaction with their brand…
TomC
jimsym | Oct 17, 2007 | Reply
Hi TomC,
Of course you don’t need to get off bttradespace, although I can think of better platforms.
However, adding steps to a sale means that more people will drop off at each step and going to a completely different web site means even more will wave goodbye.
As to security, I think PayPal has a pretty good reputation for security and BT looks to be hanging on their coat tails.
Jim