What are the best alternative online marketplaces to ebay?
Or do they effectively have a monopoly?
I now find that ebay’s seller fees cut too far into my margins on low value items. To rub salt in my wounds, they charge again for accepting payment by Paypal (part of the same company).
The final straw has come from them imposing tight limits on the number of responses a seller can make to enquiries after a listing expires or sells out. Ebay say this is to protect members from being spammed - Any fool can see it is really about protecting themselves from sales off ebay - leaving sellers with no means of contacting their potential customer.
Recent fee increases have been ludicrously high, and I only hope that it backfires on them, with sellers doing as I am doing and seeking out an alternative.
I don’t know their current profits, but in the 3rd quarter of 2004, they averaged $2million A DAY! Seems that isn’t enough for the greedy bastards!
February 18th, 2009 at 4:24 am
Hi Pete!
Couple of ideas:
1) Try amazon.com - works similar to eBay’s ‘buy it now’ concept. However they too charge fees that some may find exorbitant.
2) Open your OWN web store. Not as complicated as it sounds; you’ll need a hosting company that provides free shopping cart / catalogue software. You could choose to get set up with a merchant account for credit cards, or just take payment by money order. That way, you’re in control! Check out vervehosting.com and colinstone.com for some ideas.
You’ll never know until you try!
Kind regards.