BibZoo
A marketplace for race registrations
There is a small glimmer of hope.
- Just last week, I had my first user; someone posted a wanted-ad for a race. I immediately checked a well known Facebook Group, found someone who had a registration on offer for that race, directed them to BibZoo and they exchanged addresses.
- I know someone (a runner) with 800+ friends on Facebook, 99% runners. They offered to promote my site. I'm reluctant to do this, because the site is pretty much empty. I may get a lot of visits, but not many people will stick around.
The main reason I've built BibZoo is to practice, but still, I've made several mistakes with this project.
- I did no market research. Are people struggling to find race registrations to buy? Do they also find Facebook to be unpleasant to use? Do they care about their privacy when trading?
- I wasted $100 on ads on Facebook and Google. This got me 5 likes on Facebook, but 0 users.
If you want to participate in a race (running), you have to register and pay in advance. A lot of things can happen between the time of registration and the race, some people find themselves with a race registration but being unable to participate.
Most races allow registrations to be transferred, which is why quite a lot of people are interested in selling or buying a race registrations.
I offer a simple platform for this, where people can exchange e-mail addresses securely.
A lot of there trades are currently done in Facebook Groups, that are (I think, mistake) unpleasant to use (not chronological, content changes at every refresh, difficult to search).
My main goal with BibZoo is to offer the platform, for free, with ads that will hopefully pay for hosting+domain ($60/year). I don't ask for more :)
3 Comments
Curious:
I have been a runner of 10km/half for 20 years, but I have never heard of trading race bibs. Not a serious runner but a runner for fun. So for me, if this is allowed legally as your first post says
Then I would contact each race and let them know your free service exists.
WOM wills spread it, once the initial awareness in the 'running cycles' takes place. All events are advertised and it would not be hard to be one link off the race registration page (e.g. once race is closed, they publish your link)
Thanks for your comment!
A lot of races have limited space available and may be completely booked weeks or months in advance. People may get injured or not be ready for the race, so they may want to sell their bib to recoup their costs.
Some races explicitly do not allow it (which means people run under other people's names if they trade), others do but you have to notify the organisation.
Most organisations are not keen on providing an easy way to do this, because it is extra work and may attract people who try to make a profit!
I see.. so sorta underground stuff. As an underground librarian.. i am getting the pickle now. Still stand by my point. This service is in peoples DKDK. Like literally never heard of it.. and people who I run with, know I am into open source, underground stuff.... Maybe it is just for the elite style runner versus happy-go lucky runners like me. Still super interesting.
I will ponder more... as a strong believer in waste-free world. A bib unused is a waste. Missed opportunity.