With an appealing price tag -- free -- and a spot on one of the most
popular portals on the Internet, Excite Auctions would seem to be a great place to run high-profile
auctions.
However, its limited set of capabilities more closely resemble a managed
classified ad than a true auction service. Excite Auctions is a service best
left
to private parties selling Mac the Cardinal or Rocket the Blue Jay than a
business looking to sell a high volume of products or services of any sort.
Basically, anyone can place an item for bid on Excite Auctions after
registering for use. The honor system is in
place: users enter an address and affirm they are 18 years of age or older.
While other online
services require the use of a credit card in order to prove that a customer is
18, Excite Auctions does not.
Excite Auctions is the Wild West of online auctions:
pretty much anything goes.
The site does not offer a lot of flexibility or options when
running an auction. One limitation is that a product must fit into one of the
Excite
Auctions categories and subcategories, which are heavily slanted toward
collectibles (like Beanie Babies and action figures)
Users can set a minimum price for the bidding and a reserve price, which
must be met before an auction is consummated. When attempting to sell more than
one item, the auction automatically becomes a Dutch auction. A
Dutch auction is one where the selling price for all the items is the
lowest winning bid. While it''s nice to have the
option to run a Dutch auction, it''s a little extreme to require that an
multi-item auction be run as a Dutch auction.
Other options include a photo inserted with the ad, which Excite will scan
free of charge. Sellers can also set the ending date and time for the auction,
and are able to rate the condition of the bidding item.
Customers do have access to a decent search engine, which increases the
chances of the right buyer. The search engine returns listings based on the
subcategory, the
price range, and other criteria. For
instance, the comic-book listings have search criteria based on comic-book
subgenres; this sort of specificity is great if your item fits into the Excite
Auctions framework but bad if it''s a miscellaneous product. In addition,
buyers can sign up for e-mail for regular updates in their favorite
categories.
There''s no way to actually manage a transaction, either with a secure
credit-card transaction or a third-party
escrow service once a winning bid is accepted. Sellers have to trust the
buyer and the buyer will need to trust the seller. However, all users can
upload comments about other both sellers and buyers.
The current listings in Excite Auctions are heavily geared toward low-end
collectibles. If a user''s e-commerce needs
include moving retired Beanie Babies or those comic books that seemed like
such a great investment, then they might consider using Excite Auctions. But if
e-com needs are more sophisticated, look into other online auctions.
Pros: Free,free, free.
Cons: Few auction options; no credit-card transactions
or escrow services.
Date of Review: 6/29/99
Reviewed by: Kevin Reichard
IE 7
Firefox 2.0
