Name of your website?Trinibargains
Your name?
Shawn Beharry
Your Location (city, etc)
Chaguanas
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Trinibargains.com is a free online classifieds website, that allows users to post both wanted and for sale ads, with no restrictions on the number of ads.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
There are other local websites in Trinidad that allows users to post classified ads and other items for sale, but most of them are restricted to the amount of items that can be posted, as well they are only for personal use. Trinibargains allows you to post as many ads as you like regardless if you are an individual who has one item from his garage to sell or you are a small business owner with many items to sell. Our website also tries to focus on the Trinidad market so that the ads posted reaches its inteded audience, increasing the chance of a sale.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
Trinibargains was our first website launched, and it was launched in 2006
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Trinibargains was decided as a name to reflect our local trini culture and reflect the great deals that one may find on our website.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
One of the main differences in our website, is that it is totally free, and we have no restrictions on number of ads that can be posted or even who can post ads.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
The eventual goal is to keep this website increase the traffic and popularity of the website, so that when anyone in Trinidad thinks of searching for an item or have an item to sell they would automatically think of trinibargains.com As the traffic increases we hope to get some revenue from banner ads and google ads.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
The website is still relatively new, so at this point the investment is higher than the success, but that would be expected on any new investment.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
If we had an unlimited budget we would probably go with a better hosting plan, but that would be improved as the site grows, also it would be great to add in some AJAX features into the website.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
This website is built by an three individuals who has knowledge and experience in the IT industry and in the field of development and has dealt with many projects on a large scale, and we would be able to cope with the demands as the site grows.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
The biggest unexpected cost would have to be the marketing cost, its not enough to just build a website, it also needs to be marketed so that the public would know about it.
What has been your biggest challenge?
the biggest challenge is the marketing of the website. Its not enough to just build a free service and expect that people would use it because its free, you need to convince them that it actually adds some value to them using it. It is kind of difficult spreading the word about the website on a very small budget, and also convincing people that the more people that they get to use the site the more it would benefit them as they would have a wider audience viewing their ads.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
So far the most successful promotion method has been facebook ads, but unfortunately our budget does not allow us to continually advertise on facebook.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
We expected that if we built a great free product that people would use it, but on the world wide web even the greatest products can be lost if it is not advertised properly.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The website has been up for about two years, but we have only recently begun marketing the website actively, i would say we would take it on a yearly basis and reevaluate it at the end of each year.
Any closing remarks?
Yes. Visit Trinibargains.com, its free and help us spread the word, the more users the more effective it will be, as you have a wider audience viewing your ads.
What is your website address?
Trinibargains
