Dawdle.com, founded in July 2007 by Sachin Agarwal is a Chicago-based online video game reseller and “auction house”, very similar to eBay in some ways, but also has a huge amount of very positive differences. For gamers looking for a great place to get games on the cheap, Dawdle is the perfect one stop shop. Dawdle is also getting involved in some local charity work, but we’ll have more on that tomorrow.
The real crux of Dawdle is a dedication to being user friendly (they call it “moronically simple") and customer service oriented. Tech Loop talked with founder Sahin Agarwal to find out exactly what he means by moronically easy. We asked how Dawdle is different from eBay, and here is how Sachin replied:
“Where do I start? Dawdle makes a promise to be "moronically easy". No matter what you think about eBay, no one could call them moronically easy. We're moronically easy because we handle all the payments (no PayPal), there's no sniping, people can use our database to find items and list items quickly, and we use direct deposit to put seller's proceeds right into their checking account. We've spent a ton of time looking at every step of the buying and selling processes to streamline them as much as possible. Past the whole moronically easy buying and selling thing, we have a fantastic search feature – we're the only marketplace that lets users search by price or Seller Rating from the get-go. And you can build screens to drill down to whatever your fancy is. So you can find Sega Genesis fighting games [for example] under ten bucks, sold by four star sellers or better.”
So, Dawdle cuts out the middle-man, which in many cases, is the ubiquitous PayPal which has a nasty habit of taking a portion of your earnings from eBay. That means more money in your already cash-starved pocket.
Rather than hold auctions per sey on Dawdle, they allow you to “make a standing offer”. This is different from bidding on eBay in that your offer applies to all current and future video game listings. Tech Loop thinks that this is one of the coolest features anywhere on a person to person selling site. Here’s how it works – You want to buy a Wii console, so you make an offer of $300. That $300 offer will stay for as long as you choose, and as soon as someone lists a Wii console at or below $300, its yours! It’s really is that simple.
Sachin also told us that Dawdle’s business is a 50/50 split between “old school” games for now defunct systems like NES and current generation games. This is important because there are still plenty of people out there that like to get their old-school game on, so Genesis fans, REJOICE!
Sachin also closed the interview buy saying “Please, for the love of God, stop going to GameStop to trade in your games. Use Dawdle, use eBay, go to your local independent store – we have a great one in Chicago next to the Alley on Clark called People Play Games – but GameStop is like a crack dealer. Your stuff is worth more than they give you.” We couldn’t agree more – we’ve had more than a couple instances of getting a good run around at places like Gamestop and EB Games. It is a miracle that these types of places are still in business. Tech Loop feels as though it is everyone’s duty to support start-ups like Dawdle, or go to their local independent video game store. If nothing else, your shopping experience will be more pleasurable simply for the fact that the staff at most independent stores are hardcore gamers themselves and are always willing to help a fellow gamer.
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Blake Schnitkey
As a graduate in Visual Communications Technology from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, Blake was drawn into a love for technology via the biggest passion in his lif More
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