A very special thank you to everyone who came out for the first weekend of RedTag Live!…it was quite the scene, here’s a video of the sale.  Thank you all for enduring a crowd of thousands that resulted in  insanely long lines, the police being called for crowd control purposes, and the Fire Marshall limiting entry to only 150 people at a time.  Truly epic!  Oh yes, and our sincere apologies to the hotel next door for our line that wrapped around thier building and extended all the way thirough their parking lot…great to see so many excited people getting great deals though! Did you happen to attend the event this weekend and get a great deal?  Please comment, we’d love to hear about it!  Thanks again to everyone for making this weekend such a success!!

This blog post is a bit of a sales pitch, but we’ve got something new going on in the Tampa, FL area this weekend that we’re so darn excited about we couldn’t help but share it with you.

uBid’s sister company,  offline sales channel RedTag Live!,  will be holding its latest and largest to date “warehouse sale” event in Tampa, FL starting over 4th of July weekend.  RedTag Live! warehouse sales have many of the same – if not better – excess inventory deals as uBid and RedTag, but RedTag Live also has bigger items that don’t ship well such as washers, dryers, refrigerators and other appliances as well as large flatscreen TV’s.  The event will take place at 13355 49th Street North, Clearwater, Florida 33762. The RedTag Live! Sale event will run from July 3rd thru July 12th while inventory lasts, and hours will be 9am-8pm everyday except Sunday, which will have hours from 10am-6pm.

The RedTag Live! Sale event will feature thousands of products including – but not limited to – appliances, computers, HDTV’s, GPS’s, DVD Players, digital cameras, as well as audio and video equipment and other consumer electronics at liquidation prices.  Customers can expect to save up to 80% off suggested retail prices at this limited time event, as well as a full customer service experience completely through the sale.

We’re very excited to be able to offer customers such incredible discounts on high quality brand name excess inventory, especially in these tough economic times.  We are also very proud to be able to offer our manufacturer partners a great sales channel to move their excess inventories.  It’s really our business model at its best.

And unlike most other physical liquidation sales, RedTag Live! sales come with complete customer care and a satisfaction guarantee.  We conduct our websites uBid.com and RedTag.com that way and we don’t feel RedTag Live! should be any different.  As a company, we pride ourselves on customer satisfaction and a no nonsense approach.  It’s very uncommon in the physical liquidation business to offer these kinds of services, but we’re different than other companies in our industry and we think that’s a good thing.

So if you’re in the Tampa/Clearwater area over the next week and a half, come check us out!  If not and you’d like RedTag Live! to come to your area let us know in the comments!

As we all know, and as this article articulates http://bit.ly/8axe3, car dealers are notorious for being vague and deceitful.  Aside from that, the average consumer will visit three dealerships before they find what they are looking for, and they’re likely not getting upfront pricing from any of those dealerships.  Well that’s all about to change.

The recent struggles of many large automakers have created unprecedented levels of excess inventory in the market, paving the way to huge markdowns throughout the auto industry. Powered by Zag Automotive, the new uBid.com category helps the automotive industry liquidate excess inventory while giving you an avenue to outstanding automobile deals.  The new Automotive category allows you the flexibility to shop for new and used cars with financing and warranties over the Internet rather than visiting multiple dealerships to find the car you’re looking for, a major complaint and source of frustration for consumers.

By leveraging group buying power, Zag customers save an average of $5,048 off MSRP including incentives. The partnership of uBid and Zag will help increase the group buying power leverage, potentially helping you save even more.  You also benefit from upfront and transparent pricing, which you would likely not get shopping traditionally.

The turmoil in the auto industry has created an unprecedented amount of excess inventory.  With the help of Zag, we’re giving our customers an avenue to find these special deals while helping troubled dealerships sell excess inventory, as well as help you get guaranteed pricing on automotive excess inventory from dealerships in your area.  It’s really the smartest way to buy a car in the midst of the best car-buying market we may see for quite some time, if not ever….so come check out the new uBid Automotive Category today and let us know what you think!

As you may have noticed we recently launched our new homepage and search tool.  We always love and greatly appreciate feedback from our loyal customers to let us know how we’re doing. Good or bad, please let us know what you think!

In our ongoing effort to help our affiliate members, we at uBid wanted to address the most important issues facing website owners; Search engine optimization…as well as some tips on how to make your natural rank reach new levels. If you really want to understand why your web site is working or not working as you had initially intended or planned, you need to ask yourself one question:

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR WEB SITE?

If you don’t know why you built your site in the first place you are wasting your money and effort. However, all is not lost. First, decide if your website is to be used for lead generation, consumer information, B2B information, e-commerce, service sales, etc.

Once you have figured out the WHY of your site you need to fill it with relevant content.

One thing most webmasters and website development companies won’t do for you is find the right content and build said content with both your target market in mind and the search engines in mind. Please note stuffing your website pages with popular keywords will only get you into hot water with the search engines. When adding content, make it relevant to your product\service offerings, company ethos, and pertinent information.

Content is king, and that is the most important aspect of what your website says about your company to your audience and to the search engines. Your website is your calling card to the world. What you say in the pages is of the highest importance. It is the portal to you and your business. A first impression, if you will, for those that read your pages.

Your site’s content needs to be geared to educate the masses and sell your products or services while drawing the attention of the search engines looking to index the content of your site. When you have content that is matched to high volume search terms, the more likely it will be for you to be indexed and gain higher natural search rankings. In this regard, you have the potential to kill two birds with one stone. Develop excellent content for your audience and excellent content for the search bots or spiders.

Once you have a solid understanding of what your website is for (purpose), then begin looking for keywords which are both popular and relevant. When placing the keywords within your copy, make sure make these words in bold or italic. This shows the search engines that these words have significant importance.

There is an extensive check-list needed for solid search engine optimization. It is an ongoing process which requires a lot of work. SEO is not an insurmountable task…it can be done without the thousands of dollars a professional firm would normally charge. It takes time, effort and yes, knowledge of website coding. However, if you have a webmaster, getting some of the basic principles of SEO down and passing on these items to your webmaster will help. Stay tuned for continuing information on all things search engine related.

Here is an interesting way students at the University of Washington came up with to help promote saving money http://www.psfk.com/2009/03/want-fake-retail-encourages-saving-money.html

Very creative but they could have just come to uBid.com!

This is part one in a series of posts we’ll be making aimed at helping our affiliate partners run the best independent websites possible. We hope these little nuggets will help maximize your website because, after all, the better you do, the better we do!

Our first post in the series is on basic Search engine optimization (SEO). There is a lot of material on the web about this but we’ve got some tips on how to make your natural rank rise.

PURPOSE

If you really want to understand why your web site is working or not working as you had initially intended or planned, you need to ask yourself one question. WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR WEB SITE? If you don’t know why you built your site in the first place you are wasting your time. First, decide if your website is to be used for lead generation, consumer information, B2B information, ecommerce, service sales, etc.

CONTENT

Once you have figured out the WHY of your site, you need to fill it with relevant content. One thing most webmasters and website development companies won’t do for you is find the right content, and build said content with both your target market and the search engines in mind. Please note stuffing your website pages with popular keywords will only get you into hot water with the search engines. When adding content, make it relevant to your product and service offerings, company ethos, and the like.

Content is king, and it delivers your company message to your audience and to the search engines. Your site’s content needs to be geared to educate the masses and sell your products or services while drawing the attention of the search engines looking to index the content of your site. When you have content that is matched to high volume search terms, the more likely it will be for you to be indexed and gain higher natural search rankings. In this regard, you have the potential to kill two birds with one stone. Develop excellent content for your audience and excellent content for the search bots or spiders.

KEYWORDS

As you build your content begin looking for keywords which are both popular and relevant to include. When placing the keywords within your copy make sure make these words in bold or italic. This shows the search engines that these words have significant importance.

CONCLUSION

SEO is an ongoing process, which requires a lot of work and the above tidbits are a mere starting point. SEO is not an insurmountable task and it can be done without thousands of dollars from professional firm. However, it takes time, effort, and yes, knowledge of website coding.

Stay tuned for future posts on all things search engine related…

We’re now on Twitter! Follow us at @uBid_RedTag and we’ll keep you up to date on the latest industry trends and what’s new with us, as well as just some good ‘ol fashioned tidbits of knowledge you can share around the water cooler.

We’re also tweeting @uBidDeals to keep you up to date with our latest great deal alerts. You follow us, we’ll tweet you up and show you the way to outstanding deals that’ll keep your pockets full…Come check us out!

Ever wonder where all the products go that don’t sell out in stores? Many people today are asking that very same question, especially as more and more retailers close their doors. These products, referred to as excess inventory, have always been a part of the retail process, as forecasting inventory levels has always been a very inexact science. The surplus created by these inaccurate forecasts creates a constant flow of excess inventory. The retail industry’s “dirty little secret”, is that excess inventory must be dealt with in such a way so as to recover some value for the product but also to be careful not to de-value the new product by creating channel-conflict. It’s at this point in the retail process where smart businesses can help savvy consumers cash in on the downturn of the economy. What does this mean for consumers? Bargains.

A retailer wants to make sure it gets full retail price for each item sold. For example, let’s say computer retailer “A” is currently offering this season’s notebook computer model. Once Company “A” develops the newer model, it will need to make room on the shelves for the new product. Now, Company “A” could sell you last season’s model for half price to make room for the new model, but they’re not going to do that and cut into potential full retail sales of the newest model. That’s where asset recovery comes in.

Retailers must then turn to partners who can help them with liquidate their assets and recoup some value for these products, and that’s where we come in. Computer Company “A” can’t sell you last season’s model at half price because of channel conflict concerns, but uBid.com or RedTag.com can. In this scenario, the computer company recovers value for its asset, the asset recovery partner takes its commission, and the consumer gets a brand new excess inventory laptop for half the price of retail. In essence, it’s a winning proposition for everyone involved in good economic times as well as in bad, but especially given the current market where excess inventory levels have been reported as being the highest in recent memory.

I recently came across this article and it left me saddened to see people getting ripped off, but also left me with a revelation…This is why you buy excess inventory from somewhere with customer care: http://tinyurl.com/aq8ht2