Wednesday, February 20, 2008

ALTERNATIVES TO SELLING ON EBAY


Well I haven't posted on the blog in more than a year and with good reasons. I haven't been selling anything on Ebay in a while. I tried again last Fall by listing 4 items to see how things would go and it was just not worth all the trouble. With another increase in fees coming up, these happen every year, and new feedback policies where sellers won't be able to post negative feedback for deadbeat buyers, many people feel that this is the last straw.

A seller strike on Ebay was announced for this week from February 18 to the 25th. I don't know if it will actually work, but it seems that the powers that be are paying attention at Ebay head office. Will it pay off? Who knows? But it did motivate me to go out and see if there is any options to selling online other than Ebay. The last time that people were yelling and screaming about fee hikes, a few sites tried to start up and be an alternative to Ebay, but to no avail. The shear size of the auction monster was hard to beat and let's be honest, it 's still is.

There are 2 alternative auctions sites to Ebay that I have checked out. One is Bidtopia and eCrater.com. Both offer the same type of environment as Ebay. Another way to sell your stuff online is with Craigslist, those are free classifieds in most major cities. Craigslist is mostly for people selling stuff locally, but you can offer to ship. There is also Amazon.com that offers third party stores and finally the last option is to open your own website to sell your wares.

For more info on this and other Ebay related options, check out this very good article:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/02/15/smbusiness/ebay_strike_update.fsb/


Gerry :)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

eBay alternatives

Anonymous said...

An effective website that I found for online auctions is http://www.mainstreetfair.com. The site offers classified ads, online auctions and buy now auctions. Having had such a bad experience with ebay, this site was simple to work with and simple to leave feedback as well.Members can have their own storefronts, and best of all it is free to register and the fees are really low! Users are able to leave a comment in the blog section after purchasing something which was beneficial when deciding to purchase something. This online auction also gives money back to schools, which is great.

eBay Ticket Selling said...

First little experiment with eBay, no matter what you sell. It is likely that you have a lot of items in the attic of the house or garage, you do not need more, and can easily be sent to someone. DVDs, CDs, books, old records, and board games are very practice your selling skills.