What’s the best Ebay alternative?

Have you asked that question?

Let me tell you this: there are probably hundreds of Ebay Alternative websites!

Unless you have an incredible amount of resources, you can’t list on all of them and still expect that to be manageable.

So what should you do?

I wrote about eBay alternative sites before and touched Amazon and ebid.net.

Here I talk about Ecrater and bonanza.

After reading these two posts, you should decide (after more research if you wanted to) which ones to utilize as eBay replacement or eBay complement because these 4 ecommerce websites are the major eBay alternatives (unless you sell arts and crafts so in that case Etsy will come into play too).

eCRATER

ecrater.com is one of the biggest eBay rivals in terms of number of listings. It used to be number 1 but as of now, ebid.net took the first place!

The best thing about ecrater is that it’s 100% FREE…absolutely no fee whatsoever! However, they don’t give you a fancy interface. It’s all text based.

But…you can have unlimited listings in any category in unlimited number of stores (as long as you don’t sell the same items in more than 1 store).

There are not a lot of regulations but they do enforce their policies so make sure you follow their policies.

You can accept Google Checkout (preferred), paypal, and offline payments (such as checks). ecrater recently opened their UK and Australia marketplaces and they upload listings to Google Shopping 3 times/week.

I let you explore ecrater as you wish and if you have any questions such as how to set up your store, feel free to ask.

Cons:

• ecrater traffic is greatly less than eBay.

• ecrater doesn’t offer a capable interface (only text is allowed).

• ecrater has only 3 marketplaces: US, UK, and AU (hopefully they open more).

• In order to accept Google Checkout from UK and Australian buyers, US sellers have to have Google Checkout account in UK and AU currency (ebid doesn’t have that problem).

• US sellers have to accept PayPal so their listings get uploaded to UK and AU Google Shopping. That’s because online payment is required for that and Google Checkout isn’t considered a payment option when the seller doesn’t have it in UK and/or AU currency.

Pros:

• ecrater is 100% Free marketplace (big plus!).

• Confusing policies and pressure on sellers don’t exist in ecrater.

• Sellers are able to set up Google Analytics for US, UK, and AU ecrater stores separately.

• ecrater offers great customer service for a free marketplace. They actually reply to your emails within 48 hours.

• ecrater sellers can open unlimited stores as long as they don’t sell the same items in different stores and they can list unlimited number of items.

• ecrater shares a portion of the revenue of AdSense ads that appear on the seller’s listings with the seller.

Bonanza

Bonanza.com that was used to be called bonanzle is another eBay alternative. Bonanza is not free; they do charge fees when you sell but listing is free.

Traffic is highly less than ebid or ecrater but it might be me because I sell electronics. Bonanza put a huge emphasis on fashion although they do allow all kind of items. If you sell fashion stuff or even arts and crafts, you might get more traffic.

Recently some surveyed Sellers gave a ranking to bonanza much higher than ebid which I don’t understand why. Maybe they were mainly fashion sellers and had better luck with bonanza than with ebid.

You would have a booth in bonanza like a store in ebid or ecrater then you would list your items in the booth.

Bonanza uploads your listings to Google Shopping if you give them the minimum required parameters. However, they don’t let you set up Google Analytics unless you pay for it.

If you have time to kill, bonanza offers games to play! Also, for different activities (for example, signing to your account each day) you can collect tokens which you would claim for seller fee credit.

Cons:

• Selling in bonanza is not free (they charge a fee after the item is sold).

• Bonanza traffic is a lot less than eBay.

• Sellers have to pay monthly fee to get some perks like ability to set up Google Analytics.

• Bonanza put too much emphasis on fashion. I think it would be better for them and sellers and buyers to promote other categories too.

Pros:

• Listing items in Bonanza is free.

• Bonanza sellers can add coupons and discounts to each of their items.

• In Bonanza there’s “Rush” where sellers can participate to promote their booths.

• There are different ways like quick message to contact other Bonanza members.

So, in this post and the previous part about eBay alternatives, I gave you insight about marketplaces as eBay rivals. Of course, what I said was an introductory passage and there’s a whole lot more to discover when you actually sell in each of them.

Let’s hear from you

Is there any other eBay rival in which you sell your items? If so, what are the positive and negative points of it?

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