Going once, going twice, gone...
This legendary auction phrase signals the end of bidding, but it can also be used to describe the unpredictable nature of online auction sites. Many of these "smaller than eBay" alternative sites were started by well-intentioned eBay sellers wanting to give others what they missed at eBay — a fair and community-focused auction site that wouldn't eat up profits in fees.
Sellers today have a number of choices for alternative auction sites. Start-ups launch frequently and, of course, there are also a few competitors that have been around for years. Unfortunately some online sellers, myself included, are still a bit wary and skeptical of smaller auction sites. Sellers at all levels know that on eBay, even if you don't like some of the policies or fees, you can still sell your stuff. It takes time to list your merchandise, and when deciding to sell elsewhere, you always risk wasting that effort if you don't get any sales to make it worthwhile. And, as we all know, eBay isn't going to disappear anytime soon, but smaller alternatives that you invest time and money into, do sometimes simply vanish overnight.
Still, some alternative auction sites do last for the long haul. Every time eBay changes a policy or a fee, it prompts a new round of startups and boycotters and we see more sellers starting to consider some of the more well-known "little guys."
Over the years, I've covered a large number of these smaller auction sites in the "Eye On the Little Guy" profile section in our eBay Watch profiles. If you're looking to invest some time in listing on alternative sites, here we provide a little history along with traffic and listing fee details on new startups, auction sites that are growing in terms of users, and also those that have recently fallen off the auction block.
Still Going, Going...
The majority of new auction sites that have launched in the past year, and those that remain open after several years, have a couple of things in common. They all have fees that are lower than eBay's and they tend to put a strong emphasis on providing sellers with a community in addition to the listing venue. Taking a look back over the most recent site launch releases I've discussed in eBay Watch, it is becoming more common for new startups to just outright invite upset eBay sellers to their new site. Another approach is to focus on a single eBay problem and highlight their own performance in that area, as is the case with UpperBid.com.
UpperBid.com was first launched in October, 2007 by Robert King (King & Associates). This auction site claims to focus on eliminating the less than honest sellers and sales of counterfeit products, issues that are widespread on eBay. To help weed these tricky listings and buyers out of the site, sellers on UpperBid have to reside in the Unites States, ship from the United States and also use a payment processing company that is based in the United States. Dropship listings are also prohibited on the site. UpperBid offers only online auction selling (no Web stores), and there is also no insertion fee charged unless you choose to list with a reserve price. Here, final value fees are only charged when an item sells, but optional listing features such as bold and highlight are fee-based upgrades. As tracked by Quantcast.com, this site has close to 20,000 monthly visitors, and its' Alexa Traffic Rank is 634,159.
In looking back over some of the auction sites covered previously in eBay Watch, I have to say it is so nice to see that several of the more well-known auction platforms are still successfully providing online buyers and sellers with an alternative auction venue.
I know it is not nice to play favorites, but I certainly couldn't write about eBay alternative sites without mentioning one of my own. Last March, I had the opportunity to speak with Suzanne Kenney who launched the online auction Web site, PlunderHere.com in 2005 to create an online venue with a sense of community for sellers. In March 2007, the site was home to some 750 members with 17,000 active listings. This eBay alternative auction site is still going, going... strong.
Currently PlunderHere offers auction, fixed price and Web stores for its online sellers. Basic membership at PlunderHere is free and there is no listing or insertion fee, final value fees are a straight 2.5 percent, and optional listing features are fee-based upgrades. Basic stores are also free. PlunderHere statistics now show 67,601 listings with over 5,000 members. Quantcast.com shows the site has over 22,000 monthly visitors and PlunderHere's Alexa Traffic Rank is currently sitting at 107,213.
WeBidz Auctions is also doing well. Calling itself "The Other Auction Site", WeBidz is a general auction marketplace with a nice variety of categories for buyers and sellers. At WeBidz, sellers can list items for free, but can opt for listing enhancements which are fee-based. The Webidz site jumped on the auction bandwagon somewhere in between the end of 2004 and start of 2005, and its traffic statistics show that it too is still going strong. Webidz offers auction listings as well as Web stores for sellers. Basic listings are free, and no store, final value or subscription fees are charged; however optional listing features are fee-based. WeBidz stats say the site has 22,511 registered users and 75,995 live auctions. Quantcast.com charts the site's monthly traffic at over 54,000 visitors and the site's Alexa Traffic Rank is 63, 983.
.... And Gone
It goes without saying that some smaller online marketplaces are just not able to pull in enough buyers and sellers to keep going, barely making it past their site launch date before closing or becoming inactive.
Lowbid.com is one alternative site that seemed to have been doing well in terms obtaining a positive alternative site reputation. It certainly had its share of loyal online sellers, and a few buyers too. Launched in January 2005, Lowbid started as a classified ad site, that transitioned itself into an online auction site by June, 2006. Lowbid focused on serving those auction users who took issue with the quality and support of free Web sites and the high fees from the larger Web sites. In April 2007, Lowbid was still going strong, but a couple months later there was a notice that the site would be shutting down and Lowbid disappeared like a fair number of the alternative sites do.
Bidville was an online auction site that many considered to be a good contender as an eBay competitor. In mid-2006 uBid.com Holdings Inc. acquired Bidville and many sellers thought that this acquired auction site had a very bright future. At the time of the acquisition, BidVille claimed to have around 900,000 members and millions of daily listings in more than 7,200 categories. After the positive-sounding acquisition, however, everyone wondered when uBid was going to actually get around to doing something big with Bidville. Well, eventually they did do something big; they shut it down. Last May, uBid said that Bidville no longer fit within the uBid.com Holdings Inc. business model, and the site would begin to close in phases starting on May 27, with the site and all listings becoming inactive on July 1 So, bye-bye BidVille it is.
And of course we also have a few of those quickly thrown-together auction sites that also drop of the Internet with the fall of the gavel. It never ceases to amaze me just how frequently I mention new auction site launches, and when I check back weeks or even months later, the site hasn't changed or grown even a tiny little bit.
One such site is Kusbo which was officially launched in March 2008. This is probably the perfect example of how "Build it and they will come" marketing does not work on the Internet. In the past four months, the number of auction listings is still at 20 and there is one Web store (with no items listed in it) and not a single post has been made in the want ad section. The fee page is still the same template page that came with the auction site software and, as we mentioned several months ago, it still hasn't been updated from the default template information. Kusbo does fall under the new start-up category but after a visit to the site it is obvious that Kusbo is also as just as good as gone.
Digital Dozen: eBay Competitors Going Strong
Naturally, we can't cover every single new site that's been making headlines, but here's a list of 12 more that are still online, or have recently launched, many of which we have covered (see Editor's Picks and Related Articles) and are worth considering:
Vangie Beal is a seasoned eBay seller, frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com and managing editor of Webopedia.com.
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