Should I buy from eBid?

eBid is a British company created in 1998. It markets and positions itself as an eBay competitor with the main difference being the vast difference in fees charged to sellers. The marketplace consistently rates among the top 5 online auction sites in the world, but the question remains: is it a reasonable eBay alternative? One of the major differences between the two online auction sites is in traffic. eBid.net has a monthly average of 10 million page impressions and a daily traffic volume of around 50,000 visitors. The marketplace also averages out to about 15 million unique visitors per year. There are more than 5.3 million live listings in more than 15,000 categories with a gross value of more than USD $5 billion. Moreover, the site is very popular on social media as well, garnering 15,300 likes on Facebook alone. While these stats might sound quite impressive in isolation, they are only a fraction of the business eBay does in a single day.

First of all, eBid is extremely easy to use. Because the rules and regulations stay consistent, there isn't a lot to deal with in maintaining a store on the site. The support and customer service ratings for eBid are also among the highest in its category. Secondly, the fee structure is far more friendly to sellers. There are no listing fees for putting your inventory on display as there are with eBay, and there is a 5 percent cap on the Final Value Fee that a seller would pay per transaction. That means that eBid charges a transactional fee of no more than 5 percent of the total selling price for a listing. For example, if you listed a pair of Batman pajamas for USD $10.00 on eBid, you would pay 35 cents to eBid upon that sale's completion. Compare that to the 10 percent fee you'd be paying on eBay in addition to your initial listing fee: It'll cut into your overhead very quickly. Finally, any products you list on eBid are also uploaded to Google Shopping. Though it doesn't completely make up for the difference in exposure with eBay, it does level the playing field somewhat.

The disadvantages are, of course, the fractional amount of traffic and activity it receives in comparison to eBay, and the resulting time lag in sales. On average, you can expect a listing on eBid to last much longer before completion than on eBay. Additionally, though they are an online auction site, people seem to prefer the buy-it-now options in large quantities. That means bidding wars are few and far between on their site. If you want full value for your inventory, it's better to list the starting price as your desired sale price, to begin with. Though the lower fees and Google Shopping uploads would seemingly do plenty to boost merchant confidence, there is a disturbing trend of declining interest in eBid. This trend is notably quantifiable in search volume and search ranking. You may find that this is more effective than all other online shopping outlets put together. If that ends up being the case, you should dedicate all of your inventory to your own online store so that you won't spread your resources too thin.