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OnlineAuction.com Makes Bid for eBay Sellers
By Devin Comiskey

January 12, 2005


Tired of high listing fees on eBay? So was Chris Fain. That's why he created OnlineAuction.com, the newest competitor to the online auction giant. The new service was officially launched on Monday.

"We are sure OnlineAuction.com buyers will love the true competitive bidding without the fear of getting sniped. Our sellers will love the billing structure of one low $8monthly fee, with no individual listing or final value fees. Why? Because we know what it is like trying to decipher a listing bill that looks so complex you need a 'New York lawyer' to figure it out," the company claims on its Web site.

“Don't get me wrong, eBay changed the way the world does business and I've made a ton of money selling on eBay, but their piece of the pie has become a little too extravagant.”

—Chris Fain
Founder and CEO, OnlineAuction.com

Seven years in the making, OnlineAuction.com's selling point is its low all-inclusive monthly fee.

"At OnlineAuction.com, no matter how much you sell or how much you sell it for, the fee is still only $8 a month, period," said Fain, CEO of OnlineAuction.com on Monday during an interview with Car and Driver Radio where he unveiled the new service. "There's no place else you can get worldwide advertising for $96 a year -- not print, not radio and certainly not television."

Fain made a living selling millions of dollars in merchandise on eBay for several years. However, he still paid approximately $20,000 in listing fees, which ate into his profits.


OnlineAuction.com Home page
OnlineAuction.com's home page shows a design similar to Amazon and eBay.

OnlineAuction.com takes aim at what it sees as frustrating and unnecessary flaws in the eBay world. For example, eBay charges sellers a re-listing fee for items that do not sell. OnlineAuction.com does not. In fact, unsold items are automatically re-listed on the site. In addition to listing fees, eBay also takes a percentage of each sale or charges "transaction fees" once an item is bid on, even if the item doesn't sell.

For example, selling a car on eBay would cost $40 for the listing and an additional $40 once a bid is made. On OnlineAuction.com, you still only pay the $8 monthly fee.

OnlineAuction.com also vows never to shut down auctions and restrict verified, legitimate sellers from selling, unlike Ebay, which can shut down a seller's ability to function for more than a week if it thinks the seller is operating in bad faith. eBay has been criticized for being difficult to contact, The company offers no customer service phone numbers and communicates via an automated response system.

In order to appeal to new users, the new auction entrant designed its site to be user-friendly and familiar. OnlineAuction.com looks like a cross between Amazon and eBay, which is by no means unintentional.

"Don't get me wrong, eBay changed the way the world does business and I've made a ton of money selling on eBay, but their piece of the pie has become a little too extravagant," said Fain in a statement. "My goal and the goal of everyone on the development team was to design an auction site that has all the features of eBay, is simple to use while at the same time fixes the most common complaints of eBay's registered users. I believe we've done that."

Do you have a comment or question about this article or other e-commerce topics in general? Speak out in the SmallBusinessComputing.com E-Commerce Forum. Join the discussion today!

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