eBay alternatives: eBid

[Mark]

http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2...%2F&frame=true

18 February 2008

I’ve covered eBid before, quite some time ago and it’s certainly worth another look. They’ve made some great advancements since I last covered them and are quickly becoming the leader in the eBay alternatives race.

Lets start with the fees, as that is usually what most people are looking to avoid when they are looking for an eBay alternative.

There are two levels of seller accounts on eBid. The first is seller and the second is seller+. The seller account is free, while the seller+ account is a membership account. At the moment, the seller+ account has three pay levels. They are all time based. The shortest is a 7 day subscription for $1.99, then a 30 day for $6.99, 90 day for $16.99, 365 day for $59.99, and a lifetime membership that is $99.99 but is on special right now for $49.99.

Of course the difference is in the fees that apply. A basic seller account can list for free and has only a 3% flat final value fee. You can add a Gallery image for $0.05. Pretty good deal, even if eBay does give the gallery for free now. The Seller+ gets no final value fees except on auctions that have a gallery. If the auction has a gallery, they have a final value fee of 2%. Again, a great deal.

There are some other add ons that are the same fee for all sellers. Those are the featured ($0.75), frontpage ($0.15), and also the 60 minute and happy hour auctions that are variable fees that start at about $0.01. They also have a Highlight, Bold, Extra photos, and Extra category. I wasn’t able to find fees for those, but if they are along the same lines as the others, they can’t be much.

Other highlights of the site are it’s endorsement of more than one payment program. They clearly support not only paypal, but also google checkout and PPPay.com. Amazing what can happen when they don’t own a payment service. The Seller+ account also includes all the necessary fees for your first store. Additional stores have a monthly fee associated with them, but they also have a “offline” function whereby you can take a store offline and not get charged the monthly fee for it. Bring it back online any time and all the inventory and such is still there.

The feedback on eBid is fairly similar to the current (pre feb 2008 changes) system on eBay but with a few small changes. The feedback is editable, so if you leave a bad feedback and it gets resolved, you can edit it to reflect that. They also make it very easy to request feedback on items.

I’m sure that eBid has its own share of problems and that more will come as it becomes more and more popular, but with the wide array of great features, I really don’t see any reason that it can’t be a great auction site. And what do you have to lose? Sign up, it’s free and if you want to try out the seller+ account, just pay the $2 for a 7 day trial and see what you think.

A quick trial would be just the thing for keeping you busy during the eBay boycott!

[Gothicina]

http://www.propeller.com/viewstory/2...%2F&frame=true


The Seller+ account also includes all the necessary fees for your first store. Additional stores have a monthly fee associated with them, but they also have a “offline” function whereby you can take a store offline and not get charged the monthly fee for it. Bring it back online any time and all the inventory and such is still there.

Another nice article, looks like the help pages need updating Mark
it should read your first 5 stores

32) Can I open an eBid Store?

As long as you have upgraded to Seller+ you can open your store straight away. There are NO extra monthly fees for opening your initial eBid Store, all costs are included within your Seller+ subscription fee.
Upload a logo, add a store title, create your categories and colours and set your store to "Online" and you are set. Upload auctions the same way you would normally and you will see an extra drop down menu allowing you to choose the category which the auction will be allocated to in your store.
All auctions in eBid Stores are shown as normal within our search and browse pages. You can open subsequent stores for a minimal monthly fee. If you set your subsequent stores to "Offline" you will not be rebilled at the end of the current month.

[gazza]

Ok, we'll see to that today.

Gazza