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This page shows recent and previous news and announcements please check here regularly to keep upto date with the latest Tazbar information.

Wednesday 16th January 2008: Fundraiser Programme

Now we’re into the New Year, we are looking at several ways to build traffic on Tazbar and one initiative we’re launching is the Tazbar Fundraiser Programme.

A fundraiser is an individual who registers as a fundraiser seller and lists items for auction on Tazbar and where the proceeds from auction sales are repaid to the individual who then forwards that income to their cause.

If you are a regular user and you also want to promote items listed that are being sold to raise funds for a worthy cause, then you can register and list as a fundraiser, and your fundraiser listings will be shown with a special icon.

We are busily contacting worthy causes around the UK and will be signaling this new programme in emails to all our registered users to raise awareness of this initiative and to create more listings from fund-raisers and getting them to encourage their supporters onto Tazbar.

This means several things will happen: existing users can distinguish their general sales from fundraiser sales. New users registering as fundraisers and their supporters will be encouraged onto Tazbar; and new site visitors will be exposed to auctions in all categories.

We expect the Tazbar Fundraiser programme will complement existing generic sellers as the programme encourages fund raisers to invite their supporters to buy online to boost funds.

This is one of a raft of initiatives we will be delivering in 2008 and we will keep you up to date with ideas as they are developed and launched.

Tazbar is moving forward with the prime aims of delivery variety and appeal to buyers; raising the levels of site traffic; and increasing sell through rates for our sellers.

For more infromation about the Tazbar Fundraiser Programme please click here.

For further questions or discussion on this topic please visit the forum here.

Friday 21st December 2007: Classifed Adverts

You may start to see classified adverts show up on the site. These will be included in the mix of the normal auctions and are identified in the search results with this classified icon.

Classifieds are specifically targeted at the seller of high value items such as vehicles. The sale of a vehicle can be more complex than a normal consumer product. Things such as condition, part exchange, insurance etc... can have an impact on the success of a sale. The main consensus is that sellers of vehicles would sooner keep the advert running until the physical sale is complete rather than it is ended at the click of a Buy Now button.

In order to try to respond to this and offer a broader opportunity we have allowed classified adverts to be offered across all categories and extended their running period to 30 days. This means that it opens one or two opportunities up for sellers of all types of products. The system and membership levels have been designed to maximise this.

Classified adverts are much simpler to auctions. No bidding or buying takes place on the website. A classified advert is either live or ended and as such no feedback can be given as the system doesn’t recognise who the buyer is. Classified adverts give the seller the option to include a phone number if necessary and allow a direct contact via a question service but no email addresses are shown.

A classified advert has a fixed cost of £2 ($4 : € 3). This is because there are no final value fees. This means that if you have a high value item such as a car or expensive antiques etc.. you can fix the cost to a single £2 commitment. Membership level 1 has a free classified advert included. I will explain the reason for this in the link below.

By including a free classified advert in membership level 1 the business seller can use the classified advert as a summary of their items for sale on Tazbar and use it as a gateway to promote their items permanently from points that they can strategically feature around the website. There are specific rules about placing classified adverts and these allow for this activity.

Here is a workshop scenario to help you with this subject.

Monday 17th december 2007: Website due to be offline for maintenance Friday 21st December AM (GMT)

Tazbar is upgrading its servers on Friday morning 21st December. We have chosen this date as it is one of the quietest trading days of the year and will cause the least disruption. The website will be offline in the early hours of Friday (GMT) and the process should be completed within 12 hours due to the large amount of data to be moved. This will mean that the site will not be available during the AM. We apologise for this inconvenience and will attempt to minimise the time period as much as possible. No data will be lost in the process. Auctions ending during this period will be extended to cover the loss in time.

Thank you for your patience.

Tazbar Development Team.

Thursday 22nd November 2007: Tazbar Membership Levels Strategy continued..

Tazbar has taken note of numerous threads in the last day or so since we released information about the new fees. Having identified various concerns, we’ve come some way to meeting them with a handful of revisions to our new fee structure.

Basic level sellers will have a listing limit of 100 items and will have access to the Seller Gallery option for £2.50 and the Auto Re-list option for £1.50. Both options last for thirty days.

Level 1 will have a listings maximum of 2000 items, Level 2 maximum is 6000 and Level 3 is unlimited, and these listing caps will be reviewed and amended from time to time.

New features, which we are steadily working on, will be introduced periodically and we will continue to strive to take the site forward in a way which maintains a balance of appeal for both buyers and sellers.

The levels and caps allow sellers to control their overheads and set a limit to the cost of retailing their stock. It will also cleanse a few categories that are rather overwhelmed at the moment, which can be off-putting for both buyers and sellers.

We’ve already explained why this has been necessary and, to give more insight, we will continue with our updates and communication with you. Tazbar still represents amazing value for sellers by comparison and we have had our detractors regarding the move, but we’ve also had many objective and supportive messages.

Target date is still December 1st but this doesn’t impact on current auctions and we’ll allow at least fourteen days grace beyond this date for sellers to trim their lists to within the appropriate new limits or move level. As auctions expire Tazbar will automate some of this naturally.

We will be emailing all registered sellers with the new fee structure and a seasonal offer to introduce it.

Jane Warke, Marketing Director

Wednesday 21st November 2007: Tazbar Membership Levels Strategy

After our first news piece signalling changes in the fee structure, we thought we’d fully explain our strategy behind the move.

It’s important to retain free listings on the site because they reduce the risk of incurring costs when not selling an item, and they encourage entry-level growth of our online seller community.

However, what we have experienced as the base has grown, is that it is important to keep the site stocked with a broad range of appealing items for buyers, and not to get too stocked up with multiple listings of a single item of low appeal and value.

After 1st December the basic free listing remains but there is no automatic re-listing and the total number of items that can be listed is now limited to a small and manageable total for occasional and entry-level sellers.

To reward our very regular sellers the monthly membership allows serious hobby and business sellers to control their overheads with one monthly sum. We’ve also introduced numerous add-ons free of charge to enhance the monthly fee packages.

Also to provide flexibility and fairness, members can move up and down the membership levels at their discretion on a month to month basis and no long term commitment or contracts are required.

If you sell large amounts regularly and look at your existing final fees from recent sales, you might even find that this new flat-rate scheme brings in new savings and still keeps Tazbar ahead of other online auction sites in terms of cost.

We’ve found that this move has become critical to purge the site of aged listings which historically would have auto re-listed if unsold, and we want to move forward in establishing a site which is known for being stocked with a broad, exciting and appealing range of products and services that people really want to buy. We also need to generate revenue to protect our future, and invest in marketing initiatives to drive more traffic to the site.

We always hold our breath when we introduce new ideas. And there’s really no real ‘best time’ to introduce a change in selling fees. We’re a young and growing company and financial sustainability is important for all parties. We want to keep our fees competitive, we want to encourage variety and value, we want to build buyers and sellers, and we want to survive well into the future.

Change is inevitable and we hope that our truly committed regular sellers will see this as a much needed and positive move to ensure that we maintain and build buyer appeal.

To see the new membership levels and fee structure please click here.

Jane Warke, Marketing Director

Friday 16th November 2007: New Membership Levels from 1st December 2007

The Tazbar fee structure is being extended on 1st December 2007 to include voluntary membership options. These will allow a seller to benefit from both zero listing fees and zero final price fees. This addition is one of the most popular requests suggested by sellers. It allows a seller to cap their monthly charges and not incur final value fees.

In addition to benefitting from zero listing fees and zero final price fees, sellers who opt for this membership upgrade will be given free promotional upgrades to more than twice the value of the monthly membership fee.

The new fee table will cover all listings on Tazbar including Motors and Vehicles.

A full explanation of the new structure will be announced in the coming week along with other promotional and information activity to follow. To see the new membership levels and fee structure please click here.

Please note : These changes will not take effect until December 1st.

Monday 12th November 2007: User Agreement Updated

In accordance with the "Acceptance of terms" statement in the Tazbar User Agreement notice is given of an update to the Tazbar User Agreement. The amended items include the removal of the term “People Programme” and the inclusion of the debt collection process and associated actions within the “Collection of Fees” and "Credit Limit" sections. The amended User Agreement can be seen here.

Friday 2nd November 2007: Introduce a friend winner.

Congratulations to: GODMUM2004

Who has won a Sony Sat Nav-U50 system by being drawn from all entries to the "Introduce a friend" competition. Welcome also to new member Beckyboo who was introduced by the winner. The winner has been emailed and has until the 20th November to claim their prize. Thanks to all who took part in this promotion.

Tuesday 23rd October 2007: Introduce a friend prize draw.

Tazbar is giving away a new Sony Nav-U50 Satellite Navigation System. Members who introduce friends and contacts to Tazbar will be entered into the free draw which takes place on November 1st 2007. For further information click here.

Monday 8th October 2007: Tazbar 2.0 Phase 1 Released

The first phase of Tazbar 2.0 will be released today. There will be a down time from 8.00am to 10.00am (GMT) during the maintenance period. We apologise for any inconvienience caused.

Monday 1st October 2007: Tazbar 2.0 Phase 1 Release Date

Tazbar will be releasing Tazbar 2.0 phase one on the 8th October. This is planned to take place in the early hours of Monday 8th October. There will be a downtime from approximately 8.00am GMT on the morning of Monday October 8TH. We hope that this will be limited to a 2 hour period and the site should be back up and running at 10.00am if all goes to plan.

If you have auctions ending during this period, please reschedule them to end at a later time. If you have problems with this due to bids already being placed please contact support@tazbar.net for further help.

Important:
Tazbar uses a Secret word as a 2nd level of anti-phishing security. This word is presented to you when you log in as a recognition check. It has been felt for some time that the terminology of this word is incorrect. This system will remain in place however the “Secret Word” name will now be changed to “Welcome Word”.

All logins, usernames and other records will remain the same.

Please be aware that this is a major site rebuild and although we hope all will go to plan we have to expect the unexpected! With this in mind we ask that you forgive us for any alterations to planned schedule or any inconvenience caused.

What to Expect:
Tazbar 2.0 is very different to Tazbar that you see today. The site will have the new logo and colour scheme. New control panel, complete new help system, complete new place advert and advert pages. There are a number of navigational changes that you will soon become familiar with.

The People Programme will be removed. If you have any outstanding auto-respond credits please contact accounts@tazbar.net and a refund will be made to your Tazbar account. The People Programme will be re-launched as a part of phase 2 later in the year and will be referred to as Tazbar Services.

The long awaited Control Panel will be the area that will give you your initial concern. Once you have become familiar with the navigation and layout you will feel more at ease. This is similar to somebody else and tidying your desk. At first it seems to be a case of you can’t find anything and we hope that the navigation is obvious to reduce this. If in doubt there is extensive help within the control panel and in the new help section. You can also visit the forum where the moderators and other beta testers will try to help you. Once you have settled into the systems you will start to see the extent of the features that have been added. We have tried to cater for all users in giving both a logical and extensive tool.

Once launched, I will give more information about the Control Panel facilities via the forums. TLC (Tazbar Learning Centre) Flash movies will be included on the site to help you with such things as preferences, overview, and the new invoicing system.

There is a completely new advert display page in Tazbar 2.0. The design and layout of this page is very different to any that you will have seen before and sets the standard for the future in terms of efficiency for the viewer. The description section is restricted to a width of 910 pixels whilst this will be fine for many people if you have a fixed width template that is over this size it will mean that a horizontal scroll bar will show at the bottom of your description. Over 90% of visitors to Tazbar view the site in 1024 pixels or higher this led to our decision to develop the site based on 1024. The decision to restrict the width rather than to stretch to full screen is to present adverts in a uniformed way. With the advent of widescreen PC and Lap Top monitors many stretched pages become unsightly or difficult to read. The choice of 1024 caters for the majority of visitors.

A new HTML editor is present in Tazbar 2.0 however the spell check facility will not be present on the 8th. This will follow a few days later.

Forums:
The forum will be re-coloured to match the main site during the days that follow the re-launch in a colour combination as discussed with forum members a number of weeks ago.

Dispute Consol:
A brand new dispute console will also be introduced in the days that follow. In order to reduce down time and the size of the initial upgrade we have chose to delay this from the initial launch by a few days. The new dispute consol has systems that are designed to ensure that all members are responsible for their actions if they wish to continue to use Tazbar and gives equal facilities to both buyers and sellers.

I will try to keep you informed throughout the process of any changes to the time or dates or issues that occur during this major development change.

Many thanks for your consideration and patience in waiting for Tazbar 2.0

We have some busy weeks ahead and look to this as a huge step into the future of Tazbar.com.

Regards.

Lee.

Friday 17th August 2007: TV Adverts and Archives.

There will be a few TV adverts running next week on ITV2.

There is a specific reason for this. Tazbar is running some tests on all aspects of the existing site performance and in particular the browsing and searching facilities. We have introduced some new search systems to help speed the search facility up which we want to test in a live situation before applying them to the Tazbar 2.0 platform. Whilst we could run stress testing software against the website this doesn’t give us a true indication of exactly how the site performs under pressure from a very random audience.

During the period immediately after the adverts we will be running analysis software in the background. This software in itself will cause a slight slowdown. However it highlights the areas that may be causing bottlenecks.

Once these area’s are recognised we can work on the development and improvement of them and run specific replication tests after using stress testing software.

It is like having a barrel that looks as though it is water tight. The best way to test it is to fill it with water. In this case we will run a few adverts specifically to test the site. The benefit is that it also introduces new members to Tazbar.

As these adverts are for a specific purpose we will use the old “are you doing it” commercial. When we run the full TV campaign later in the year there will be a totally new series of commercials.

This message is to inform you of this activity to avoid any confusion and to highlight that on a couple of occasions next week the site may encounter slowdowns. I should receive the spot times for the adverts later today or on Monday. Once I get these I will let you know via the forum. The advert will be running mid morning on ITV2 on at least 2 days of the week. We are looking for high viewing figure programmes so these will more than likely be Emmerdale or similar.

In addition to this Tazbar will start to archive all adverts over the age of 90 days. This will mean that you will no longer be able to view adverts over this age. Although this is standard practice, Tazbar has attempted to keep all of your historic adverts available. With the development of Tazbar 2.0 this change forms part of the streamlining of the site. Tazbar will keep copies of every advert for legal reasons but they will not be available.

To clarify this point. All adverts over the age of 90 days will be archived and no longer available. This process will start with oldest adverts first and will be completed in 4 to 5 days.

Many thanks for your contiued support of Tazbar.com.

Regards

Lee

Monday 23rd July 2007: Charity Auctions Update.
Tazbar receives many requests to help with charitable donations and auctions. As a part of the extensive development work that we are currently doing we will be addressing this issue.

For the most part people who are involved with charitable work are honest and caring people. However, as with every aspect of modern life there can be the unscrupulous element that will exploit any facility. With this in mind, if Tazbar is to create a charity facility it must be both transparent and genuine. The current work behind the scenes at Tazbar is intended to address all issues in a meticulous way. Therefore as Tazbar is not experienced in this area we have chosen to work alongside CAF http://www.cafonline.org/ to control the charitable activity on the website.

This will entail some work in order to set systems up that allow honest transactions and collection/distribution of funds. This will allow you to choose your charity and give the bidder the comfort that the charity is genuine, has been approved by the CAF process and that the funds actually find their way to the desired charity. In addition direct donation facilities will be added to support specific charities. All of this will be handled by CAF. We would hope to have this in place during the latter part of September if all goes well, we will keep you informed of the progress.

Thursday, 14 June 2007: Forum Featured Items. (NEW)
Tazbar is pleased to introduce Forum Featured Items. This is an optional listing upgrade that allows you to feature your advert at the top of the forum pages. This works in the same way as the Home Page Featured Items does. When you choose to upgrade your listing to Forum Featured, the listing will be displayed at the top of the forum pages on a rotation basis.

The forum section is a popular section of the website. Whilst every visitor who comes to Tazbar sees the home page, the forum pages are refreshed and reviewed thousands of times a day. This makes the upgrade a very cost effective way of reaching a wider audience. Remember also that by adding a link to one of your items in this manner, members may also continue to your other items or Seller Gallery.

It is proven that many sellers have a great deal of success when promoting products to other forum members. The fee for this upgrade is £1.50 ($3 USD) and is a single non refundable fee. The upgrade will run for the duration of your advert. If your advert auto-relists the upgrade will not be carried forward unless you have chosen to do so in the place/amend advert pages. If you choose to carry the upgrade forward the fee will be recharged each time the item relists.

The initial fee of £1.50 ($3 USD) is for a promotional period only up to the end of August 2007. This will then be reviewed and possibly amended on the 1st September.

If this facility proves to be successful further additions will be added to improve the presentation such as scrollers etc.

This is the first of many onsite cross promotion features that Tazbar will be releasing in the coming months.

We would like to thank all community members who have helped in the development of this feature.

May 14th 2007: Invalid Card Details Email
Some members will soon receive an email asking them to re-enter their credit card details with a failure reason of "missing or invalid security code". This mainly applies to members who joined before February 2007 as we have had a credit card verification system in place since then.

We believe that the banks increased their security measures at that time, so cards that were valid before no longer work unless the CV2 details are correct. The next security change to be implemented by the banks will in June 2007 with the adoption of 3D-Secure which affects Visa, Maestro, Mastercard, Switch and Solo transactions. Please note that Switch is also set to be discontinued in June 2007 and replaced by Maestro.

We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause to sellers, but please email us if you have any questions.

http://www.tazbar.com/Help/Help.aspx?info=69

May 11th 2007: Release Of Google Checkout
Sellers can now attach an existing Google Checkout to their Tazbar account and enjoy much cheaper transaction processing charges. Instructions on how to add it to your Tazbar account can be found here.

April 17th 2007: Motors Charging Changes
As part of the testing of the new motors section of the site, the charging for selling a vehicle privately has now changed to it's new level. The new pricing stucture will be shown on the fees page in the near future.

These are the only changes made to charging.

March 23rd 2007: Changes in username policy
Users are no longer allowed to use usernames that are addresses of sites offering items for sale or containing offensive content.

March 6th 2007: March Newsletter
This important newsletter outlining Tazbar's plans for user verification was sent out to users by email on Tuesday evening.

January 27th 2007: Event Ticket Sales Policy

Please note: This policy will take effect at midnight GMT on 22nd January 2007 any auctions that were started prior to or on the 22nd will be allowed to run their full course. Auctions placed from the 23rd January onwards will be deemed to be in breach of this policy.

Tickets.
Tickets other than those prohibited under other sections of the prohibited items list such as, but not limited to, concert, festival, sporting event tickets must meet the following criteria.

Please ensure that you are not in breach of the terms of the ticket regarding resale, this information is often printed on the rear of the ticket.

All ticket sales must conform to the Resale of Ticket Regulations 1994. http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si1994/Uksi_19943248_en_1.htm The face value of the ticket must be clearly shown preferably by photograph and definitely in the description.

Tazbar does not allow the sale of tickets that are not in your possession at the time of placing the advert and during the complete period of the auction.

Charity Event Tickets.
Tickets for charity events can only be sold on Tazbar with an Instant Purchase price that is equal to or less than the face value. If an auction contains more than one ticket to be sold as a lot then the face value can be multiplied by the number of tickets. (e.g. two concert tickets with a face value of £20 each can have an Instant purchase price of £40 if sold as one lot). Auctions for charity event tickets that do not have an Instant Purchase price equal to or less than the face value may be removed without warning