Bob

First of thanks for using our website and asking the community about it.

Just to answer your points from our perspective:

The leads are genuine. We interview each buyer before placing the lead onto our system. We take the quality of our leads very seriously and strive to make sure leads are properly represented.

The other point is that we have a broad supplier base, some of our suppliers are freelancers who can deliver a functional website for under £1,000. They do this, I guess, by using many off the shelf components, libraries, etc from open-source to other places and by not having offices or employees. Your approach maybe more consultative and you may create custom eCommerce code for each project, plus have offices and other larger overheads.

What we have found is that buyers either want the lowest price or they want the best job. So its a match of what the buyer wants to the way the supplier works.

We are constantly continuing to improve the quality of our leads.

Thanks

Richard Bundock
FirstRate Directory
www.firstratedirectory.co.uk

On 11:03:14 22 February 2006 textor wrote:

I had a call from a very nice lady who offered me a trial subscription to a lead-generation service called first rate directory.    The price for a lead is low  - less than a tenner.

I checked it out and the site is a nice piece of work.  Looks good, works well and lots of leads.

However here is a typical lead:

Lead runs a garage repair business and would like to start selling car parts.

He would require the user to search by Type of car then by the type of car part e.g. wiper blades, gear nobs etc then by manufacturer then by part no./type. Then through to the checkout to buy product.

He would want to add products himself (but will need some instruction.

Will also need hosting and a domain name.

Is willing to work with anyone in the UK and has a budget of £1000.

I emphasise that this is typical. Two people have already purchased this lead and they have had 9 leads in the last two days in the category Web Site Development.

Is there some parallel universe out there where people are getting major e-commerce websites developed for £1,000?  Is there a bug in their system and all the budgets are missing a decimal point? 

Has anyone used them?  are the leads genuine?    

Bob
www.textor.com

On 10:01:52 23 February 2006 FirstRateDirectory wrote:

Bob

First of thanks for using our website and asking the community about it.

Just to answer your points from our perspective:

The leads are genuine. We interview each buyer before placing the lead onto our system. We take the quality of our leads very seriously and strive to make sure leads are properly represented.

The other point is that we have a broad supplier base, some of our suppliers are freelancers who can deliver a functional website for under £1,000. They do this, I guess, by using many off the shelf components, libraries, etc from open-source to other places and by not having offices or employees. Your approach maybe more consultative and you may create custom eCommerce code for each project, plus have offices and other larger overheads.

What we have found is that buyers either want the lowest price or they want the best job. So its a match of what the buyer wants to the way the supplier works.

We are constantly continuing to improve the quality of our leads.

Thanks

Richard Bundock
FirstRate Directory
www.firstratedirectory.co.uk

On 11:03:14 22 February 2006 textor wrote:

I had a call from a very nice lady who offered me a trial subscription to a lead-generation service called first rate directory.    The price for a lead is low  - less than a tenner.

I checked it out and the site is a nice piece of work.  Looks good, works well and lots of leads.

However here is a typical lead:

Lead runs a garage repair business and would like to start selling car parts.

He would require the user to search by Type of car then by the type of car part e.g. wiper blades, gear nobs etc then by manufacturer then by part no./type. Then through to the checkout to buy product.

He would want to add products himself (but will need some instruction.

Will also need hosting and a domain name.

Is willing to work with anyone in the UK and has a budget of £1000.

I emphasise that this is typical. Two people have already purchased this lead and they have had 9 leads in the last two days in the category Web Site Development.

Is there some parallel universe out there where people are getting major e-commerce websites developed for £1,000?  Is there a bug in their system and all the budgets are missing a decimal point? 

Has anyone used them?  are the leads genuine?    

Bob
www.textor.com

We have used them ovedr the last 3 months.
We have purchased over 30 leads, and they have all failed to reply.
I am not saying that you shouldn't use them, but I would like to see some sort of proof on their site of leads that have been converted into sales.

www.uk192.com

Darren

First off, sorry to hear that your first experience with us was unsatisfactory.

We do ask every buyer that they respond to any approach from a supplier introduced by us. However, buyers are sometimes very busy and will not respond especially if they are uninterested by the suppliers initial approach. This is always disappointing when a lead fails to respond but in most cases they do respond.

Richard Bundock
FirstRate Directory
www.firstratedirectory.co.uk

On 12:43:06 29 March 2007 djnicholls wrote:

I had a call from FirstRate, it seemed like a good idea so went and signed up. I've only bought one lead, which turned out to be a waste of time. The lead neither responded to an introductory emails or a couple of phone calls, I quickly gathered I was wasting my time. I called FirstRate, they  told me that the lead had already been taken, not the end of the world, but still a waste of time all the same. That said they did refund me, but hardly a great experience.

Darren

On 11:55:22 3 June 2006 uk192 wrote:

On 10:01:52 23 February 2006 FirstRateDirectory wrote:

Bob

First of thanks for using our website and asking the community about it.

Just to answer your points from our perspective:

The leads are genuine. We interview each buyer before placing the lead onto our system. We take the quality of our leads very seriously and strive to make sure leads are properly represented.

The other point is that we have a broad supplier base, some of our suppliers are freelancers who can deliver a functional website for under £1,000. They do this, I guess, by using many off the shelf components, libraries, etc from open-source to other places and by not having offices or employees. Your approach maybe more consultative and you may create custom eCommerce code for each project, plus have offices and other larger overheads.

What we have found is that buyers either want the lowest price or they want the best job. So its a match of what the buyer wants to the way the supplier works.

We are constantly continuing to improve the quality of our leads.

Thanks

Richard Bundock
FirstRate Directory
www.firstratedirectory.co.uk

On 11:03:14 22 February 2006 textor wrote:

I had a call from a very nice lady who offered me a trial subscription to a lead-generation service called first rate directory.    The price for a lead is low  - less than a tenner.

I checked it out and the site is a nice piece of work.  Looks good, works well and lots of leads.

However here is a typical lead:

Lead runs a garage repair business and would like to start selling car parts.

He would require the user to search by Type of car then by the type of car part e.g. wiper blades, gear nobs etc then by manufacturer then by part no./type. Then through to the checkout to buy product.

He would want to add products himself (but will need some instruction.

Will also need hosting and a domain name.

Is willing to work with anyone in the UK and has a budget of £1000.

I emphasise that this is typical. Two people have already purchased this lead and they have had 9 leads in the last two days in the category Web Site Development.

Is there some parallel universe out there where people are getting major e-commerce websites developed for £1,000?  Is there a bug in their system and all the budgets are missing a decimal point? 

Has anyone used them?  are the leads genuine?    

Bob
www.textor.com

We have used them ovedr the last 3 months.
We have purchased over 30 leads, and they have all failed to reply.
I am not saying that you shouldn't use them, but I would like to see some sort of proof on their site of leads that have been converted into sales.

www.uk192.com

Hi, actually I would recommend www.ahoythere.com, it's a site that I worked on as a designer, in a nutshell ahoy there can be described as follows:

"Ahoythere.com is a new website where anyone with a trade, profession or skill can find business without spending a fortune on marketing; where reputations do the talking rather than advertising budgets. And instead of having to chase after business, business comes to you!

All you need to do is select the type of work and geographic area(s) which interest you and we’ll alert you via e-mail when jobs come along which match your criteria. Our no nonsense approach to pricing means that you can respond to as many opportunities as you like for free! No subscriptions, no bidding, no pay-per-lead – just a small referral fee if you actually win the business. "

Anyway have a look, it's free to register.

On 09:30:22 2 April 2007 BindoffMedia wrote:
>We've had poor results from firstrate directory too.
>
>I wouldn't say that their leads are not genuine, but I do
>question how serious the people posting the leads are.
>We've bought many leads and have been dissapointed with
>the response from the lead posters. It's not that we
>didn't win the work, it's that they just don't reply to
>emails or phone calls.
>
>The one decent lead we got had closed before we bought the
>lead but, contrary to their T&Cs, firstrate refused to
>refund it.
>
>All in all a disappointing service. Not recommended. If
>anyone does find a good alternative please do let me know!
>
>_
>BindoffMedia