Alternatives to Selling on eBay

by Michael Ellis (10/21/2006)

There seems to be a lot of interest among the online auctioneers in finding websites, other than eBay, to market their products. It's probably safe to say that this interest has been fueled by the seemingly constant increase in the fees eBay is subjecting onto its sellers. I'm an eBay user myself, and I can share the frustration. That said, I will also say that eBay is definitely the most heavily used online auction site available, and can still be very profitable. But, and let's make that a big BUT, there are other online auction sites that can be profitable as well.

In terms of the number of online auctions posted, of course, eBay is king. Currently eBay has over ~13 million auctions running and that number has been steadily growing. Of course, more products usually translate into more sellers/buyers, so don't expect the same volume of traffic on the alternate sites, at least not right now.

Here's a list of a few of the leading alternatives:

The above list certainly doesn't encompass all the eBay alternatives that are available online. There are a lot of other online auction sites out there that are making gains in the overall number of products being auctioned, however, the usability and performance of those sites tend to be less than desirable. The ones listed above seem to have a greater potential for promoting products online, outside of eBay of course.

An interesting strategy some entrepreneur's use is to find bargains on eBay (or even the alternative sites listed above) to purchase and then resell the items in other smaller auction sites and even non-auction sites, like craigslist (www.craigslist.com).

Craigslist is basically a website full of classified advertisements. The site has postings for just about any area within the United States and it gets a lot of traffic - a whole lot of traffic! The best part about Craigslist is most of the postings are free, which is probably one of the reasons it is so popular. I should say, however, that eBay has acquired a 25% stake of Craigslist, but from what I can tell, that partnership hasn't changed much of the original function of Craislist (it's still free!).

The alternatives to eBay selling don't have to be limited to online sales. In fact, some entrepreneur's are making very good money finding deals online and reselling those items the old fashion way in their local newspaper via classified ads.

Ebay has become extremely competitive, so finding deals on eBay isn't so hard, but reselling after you pay the shipping costs and ad posting cost really cuts into the profit. The smart strategy may be to use a combination of the above. That is, find deals wherever you can and market those products in the places where they are most likely to be sold for the highest profit.

Author - Michael Ellis (Email: michael@victorykey.com)

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