@Andrea: That’s true. The new fees effectively destroy the profits for startup sites like that. Although maybe those would be better of posted for free on Digital Point, even though it’s so “unprofessional” compared to Flippa.

@Domaining Diva: I think they’re just delusional. What “positive feedback” are they talking about? And for anyone wondering, that quote was from this post on the SitePoint forums.

Mark Harbottle: Co-Founder of Sitepoint has this to say to his paying customers who voiced their thoughts on the new Flippa:

Thanks for all your positive feedback guys. We appreciate it. One thing to keep in mind…
Our buyers aren’t going anywhere. They are savvy business people. They don’t care about the design of the site or the fact the logo sucks (the current logo is a placeholder BTW), they simply get on with the business of buying, and we’ve made it a lot easier for them to do that on flippa.com.

Meanwhile while you all whine and complain about the fees, the design, etc. the smart sellers are listing their sites on flippa.com and they are attracting the majority of the buyer interest. They will also get the added benefit of the PR we’re about to roll out.

So, it’s totally up to you! If you want to come across to flippa and sell your site in the professional marketplace we’re creating for serious buyers, we welcome you with open arms. If not, please do go to digitalpoint. List your site for free and see if the old adage of “you get what you pay for” applies.

Yes, it’s true that you get what you pay for, and I’m not paying for insults and name calling by a co-founder who doesn’t like paying customers to air their negative opinions about the pathetic launch of Flippa.

And they say they are charging these ridiculous fees to raise the bar of quality but many of the $100 sites are very high quality they are just small and have no traffic. They are after all STARTUP sites…

This new market place will drive me away permenently and I know at least five other flippers who say they will go elsewhere to sell their sites.

As an experienced flipper who has sold a great many websites on sitepoint (many of them in the thousands), I have side with Leland on this point. Flippa doesn’t feel right.

First, as Leland rightfully pointed out, there used to be 3 sections: Startup, Established, and Premium, which was incredibly useful for both buyers and sellers. By chunking them altogether now, buyers will have any way of weeding out the gems from trash (believe me, there’s an awful lot of those). The original guidelines established by the sitepoint marketplace was good. If if it ain’t broken, don’t try to fix it.

Second, the design feels… wrong. There’s a time and season for web 2.0-ish graphics but a professional marketplace for high-end websites shouldn’t be one of them. The new design is almost blog-like. Not that its a major factor, but I can definitely see how some people be put off by the design.

If nothing else, please try to fix the categorization. There NEEDS to be a distinction between the quality sites and the crap sites. I really liked the old sitepoint, and would hate to see flippa fail.

#5: We’ve been very active in responding to everyones comments, and have even modified how the fee can be paid. If you go back in time, you’ll see similar 100+ post threads about why the Marketplace will fail when we started charging a $20 listing fee and predicting our imminent demise. Have a look: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?t=292992

Likewise, 99designs received many similar comments from naysayers when we spun it out of SitePoint, only to see it grow faster than ever before while attracting national media attention from the likes of “Good Morning America”.

I think their current pricing is not that bad, since it at least filters out the complete garbage sites that would probably be listed if there was no fee.

Their new pricing structure is a little too Sedo-ish for my taste, with the percentages and all, but I think that’s what they’re going for.

I dont even agree with their current pricing – $10 for a maybe sale is weird.

$19 listing + 5% is even worse, but they did make a go of 99designs, so you never know.