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SAMPLES OF WORK
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Yes There are Alternatives to
eBay!
Just as
Google is not the only search engine, eBay is not the only auction
site. In fact eBay thinks it has the monopoly over most other
auction sites and charges the highest fees, has a customer support
system that often leaves a lot to be desired and frequently pulls
auctions for no apparent reasons.
When people
think of an auction site they will usually think of eBay but a
little Internet research and this article will show you a couple of
great alternative auction sites that have better features than eBay
and even free listings so you can experiment with them at no
additional cost or risk.
Ebid:
Ebid is an
auction site that does not charge listing fees (unless you want
additional features like bold, gallery, featured, an auction on the
front page etc, which are still cheaper than the eBay counterpart)
It has auction sites for UK, Ireland, US, Canada and Australia. You
will not get charged a fee unless your item sells and this will be
2% of the final selling price.
Ebid has some
interesting listing options like the Happy Hour auction, 60 minute
auctions that appear on the front page and even an option to list
until the item has sold.
Since November 2006, Ebid has doubled the number of auctions
closed so it really is an up and coming auction site. You can also
put video on your auction via You Tube.
As
far as I can see you cannot list information products but everything
else pretty much goes.
Ecrator:
Ecrater is an auction site that is actually more
popular then eBay already – eBay Express that is. Ecrater has ranked
far higher on volume of visitors than it's eBay Express counterpart
with the added bonus of it being free.
From a seller's point of view Ecrater is very
easy to use. You can register and actually start putting inventory in your
store within five minutes and unlike eBay the store is also free!
There is a very simple 'fill in the blanks' method of entering items
onto this auction site.
You have the option of offering both Paypal and
Google Checkout as payment methods. All your products that you enter
into your store are automatically listed in the marketplace listings
for free. Another feature that eBay does not offer (unless there are
not enough search results for a particular item and stores will be
listed).
Another great feature of Ecrater is you can point
your own website URL to your Ecrater store and use a redirect to
make it look like your own site. All items are also automatically
listed in Google's Froogle as well. All in all a great alternative
to eBay to experiment with.
Conclusion:
Quite a lot of people hold eBay in low esteem,
they have had enough of the high fees, getting inadequate customer
support for the most simple of questions and their auctions getting
lost in the sea of saturation. It is time to take a look at other
auction sites and adding them to your selling repertoire. There is
no need to abandon eBay but you just might find a better selling
avenue if you take a look elsewhere.
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