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back to article QXL.co.uk shuts up shop

QXL.co.uk - the online auction site that isn't eBay - is closing. It is accepting bids for two more days, until 9 May, before closing completely at midday on 30 May. The site was started by ex-journalist Tim Jackson in 1997. It bought rival German site Ricardo in 2000. It survived the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2001, …

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  1. david gomm

    I'm surprised it lasted this long

    QXL hasn't been a busy auction site for years.

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  2. Paul Talbot

    They were still around?

    Didn't know they hadn't already gone bust. Oh well...

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  3. Geoff Mackenzie
    Joke

    Noooo!

    As their one remaining user, I'm mildly inconvenienced.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here's a mad idea for you

    How about an auction site aggregator? I mean generally if you want to find something up for auction then ebay has it and you don't bother looking further.

    If there was a site which would search numerous auction sites for you then qxl could still have been in business.

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  5. Lloyd
    Thumb Up

    Ah

    Dear old Tim, I used to go out with his son's nanny, Noah was a great kid.

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  6. zxcvbnm

    Thank God

    Maybe they will finally stop emailing me. I forget why I registered ten years ago but nothing on gods earth stopped the email. They clearly decided there was no money in auctions so they just sent out advertising. It is bizzare how they never improved their site, ever, even when they had millions of pounds.

    (Oh incidentally http://www.auctionlotwatch.co.uk/ used to search multiple auction sites but people quickly learnt that there was only ever anything on ebay anyway...)

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not surprised.

    All it had turned into was a peddler for sextoys and other random rude stuff.

    On second thoughts, damn ill miss it.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Re: Here's a mad idea for you

    "How about an auction site aggregator? I mean generally if you want to find something up for auction then ebay has it and you don't bother looking further."

    Even better, we need someone to give fleaBay some serious competition. Unfortunately, this someone will invariably need to have deep pockets, meaning that if it ever is taken up it will be by a company who really couldn't give a rats arse about user's data (I'm looking at you, Google)

    If I want to flog my stuff, I'll use the tried and tested analogue method of sticking a postcard in the window of my local newsagent.

    Paris, just because.

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  9. Andrew

    Re: Here's a mad idea for you

    I was having a discussion with one of our developers the other day about this. Would be a good idea if someone had the time to put it together and write code to talk to all the different APIs

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  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    <no title>

    First auction site I registered with. Never really seemed as attracting as eBay, but it's sad another option is going down the pan. :-(

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  11. Luke Wells

    I dont understand what happened to QXL

    QXL was bigger in the UK than ebay for some time.

    How did QXL let a company with higher fees, more problems and less customer service overtake it .... and keep on going until it completely flattened QXL?

    I think there is a fairly substantial chunk of "bad management/marketing" involved in that somewhere....... A shame really

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  12. ian

    competition

    You won't get a competitor to ebay, because it's in the seller's interests to go for the largest market (ie: ebay), so they get the best price, so why would they go elsewhere?

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  13. david gomm

    likely competitor to ebay

    Amazon marketplace vs E-bay shops

    it's not much of a battleground at the moment but it has the potential to become one.

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  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    QXL Brought you Last Minute.com BTW

    I remember working for a company that supplied QXL in the early days, I met Tim Jackson on one of his supplier trips and "funding" trips when he just started the company (in thouse days they bought surplus deals to auction them off themselves to kick start it).... when he came to visit he brought his purchasing manager one Brent Hoberman. Brent then left after a few months and came back to see me and my Boss with an idea for selling discount travel over the internet, he was looking for £50K to £100K of angel investment... I said £50K its worth a punt.... My Boss said no thanks it will never catch on. Ha ha

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