Below is an article on the brand new penny auction site called: TixFrenzy. It just opened in December 2010 and was featured in the Indiana Daily Student. Below is the featured article:
Senior Taylor Wagener and two high school friends opened the doors of their penny-auction website specializing in event tickets, TixFrenzy.com, in December.
It’s now a new form of shopping online — entertainment in which people can gain deals on event tickets and gift cards related to attending such events.
“Unlike eBay, TixFrenzy.com is a penny-auction where the price of every item starts at $0 and increases $0.01 every time a bid is placed. Ten to 30 seconds is added to the auction every time a bid is placed. This is where the entertainment comes in. It’s fun and competitive,” said Wagener, who majors in tourism management.
Wagener teamed up with brothers Richard Lilja, a senior at the University of Illinois Chicago, and Scott Lilja, a fifth-year senior at Northwestern University, to start Lilja-Wagener Enterprises, the mother-company of TixFrenzy.com. The friends went to school together at Lake Forest High School in Illinois.
“It took about two years of research,” Wagener said. “We heard about swoopo.com and got the incredible idea of doing the same thing for event tickets. We looked at other sites to see what worked and what didn’t.”
They hired an external script-writer to make the sophisticated software that TixFrenzy.com uses, but the work is mostly contained among the three friends. Each person has specific duties pertaining to their majors to ensure the company is functioning.
Scott Lilja, the computer programmer of the group, said he mainly deals with the design.
“I see it as a full-time job for all of us. Maybe in a couple years, we could eventually sell if we had a good bid,” Scott Lilja said.
Richard Lilja, a finance major, said he works primarily with finances and advertising.
In this, there is a method to their auctions and events featured. Though the website primarily features event tickets, they are selling gift cards and flights, too.
“We try to mix in stuff that isn’t geographically limited, stuff anyone can use,” Wagener said.
A list of recently sold items include Rose Bowl tickets for $0.07, Blue Man group concert tickets for $0.04 and Colts tickets for $0.27.
The website currently features Chicago- and Indianapolis-based event tickets for auction, and Wagener said they have plans to expand the auction site to include other destinations in the near future.
