For most people looking to buy and sell something in an auction format on the internet, eBay is usually their first, and only stop. While it is true that eBay is the largest online auction site, there are plenty of sites like eBay that can actually work better for you, and can both get you a higher price, and get you better deals if you know where to look. There are many reasons why you, as a buyer or a seller, may not want to use eBay, chief among them seems to be the fees that the site charges, but some people are also concerned about overseas buyers and sellers, as well as the level of support they want in an auction site.
People who sell a lot of products online, either as a side gig or as part of a store, often complain of the extremely high fees the eBay charges. These fees can range anywhere from between 8.75%-13.75%, which are far and away the highest auction fees on the web. Many sites like eBay have maximum fees that range from 0%-12%, with most of them being on the lower end of the scale. These lower fees leave plenty of margin for a profit to be made, while at the same time the amount of traffic on other sites is enough that if you have an in-demand product, it will sell for pretty much the same amount as you would get on eBay. Not only that, but you won't have nearly as much competition on a smaller site, since so many big wholesalers are concentrated on the eBay market.
A few of the sites like eBay that charge very low fees include WebStore, OnlineAuction, and WeBidz. In the case of WebStore, they work by charging absolutely nothing to either buy or sell. This makes them one of the largest sites like eBay, especially with sellers. Because of their complete lack of fees, they have a huge inventory and tens of thousands of auctions running at any point in time. This is a great opportunity for buyers because you may be able to get things cheaper on a site like this since the seller doesn't have to worry about marking up the cost which would usually be eaten up by listing fees. OnlineAuction and WeBidz work on a sign-up fee system that takes care of both insertion fees and selling fees. Though OnlineAuction offers a monthly membership fee of $8, it is pretty easy to recoup all of that by just adding a few listings on there as opposed to eBay. WeBidz charges just $5 to sell, and that lasts you a lifetime!
As a seller, when someone from a foreign country wins an auction, it can be a hassle. Though most transactions will go smoothly, there are some who may try to initiate a chargeback since they can easily move between accounts without anybody really noticing because they could literally be 4000 miles away. Because eBay is the largest online auction website, and since they own Paypal, which is what the vast majority of all online sellers and buyers use for auctions, untrustworthy people will concentrate their efforts on there as opposed to smaller sites like eBay because there are just too many people for eBay to handle efficiently. By the time they are found out, they have already withdrawn all their money and are on to their next account. Worse yet, since eBay and Paypal have extensive buyer protections, and relatively few seller protection procedures in place, it doesn't take much for someone to say a seller never shipped an item, and you end up out of the item and the money.
With a smaller site, this is negated because security teams can more effectively single out buyers from countries which are known to have a large number of scam artists, and act decisively before much damage is done.
As a buyer, you want to make sure your item is going to get to you, and in the way in which it was described. With eBay, sellers who misrepresent items from other countries are often not doing anything specifically illegal in their country, which makes taking any action against them extremely difficult. All you can really do is leave a negative feedback and accept your loss. If over time, a certain user would get massive amounts of negative feedback, they may be banned from using the site, but they would probably just make another account and start again anyway. Sites that are like eBay, but smaller, are able to use the same tracking of foreign users to make sure that buyers are protected against people not sending items, or misrepresenting what they do send. eBay may have 1000 users a day from a country like Estonia sign up, while the vast majority of them are probably going to be just fine, it would be simple for someone from the country who was previously banned to get a new account. Smaller online auction websites might only have a handful of members from Estonia, which means if someone from there gets banned, then another signup from the same country comes in 3 hours later, it sets off a huge red flag, and can get the scammer busted before they even have time to set up an auction.
Being able to get quality customer support is also an issue that many people don't like about eBay. You can't simply pick up the phone and call them up to discuss a problem. Generally, you have to submit a support ticket or a support email, and wait possibly up to 3 days just to hear a response. Some smaller sites actually give you a phone number which will connect you to someone directly who works for the site so they can help you with whatever you need. In addition to that, since there are fewer users on these sites, when you do email a question to support, they can usually answer it a lot faster, sometimes within hours.
Choosing an alternative auction site to eBay would be a great business decision if you are selling a lot of items purely because of the fees. If you are a buyer, supporting a smaller site can help them grow and can sometimes land you a great deal since you don't have to deal with snipers nearly as much. There are plenty of options out there, you just have to know where to look. Thanks to Dennis Avila for the information.
