While traditional auctions can be a bit intimidating, online auctions have opened the doors for people of every socioeconomic status to jump into the bidding action. Star Reviews definitely had to look at Ebid and we were pretty impressed with them, as they offer online auctions in several countries. We liked the website interface in the US Ebid site, and were eager to get shopping! What could be better than a site that offers Happy Hour autions?! See what we discovered below.
What’s New?
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Happy Hour auctions from 6 to 10 pm – you can find great deals with auctions that end quickly.
- Auctions using “Buddy Points” – you earn points for referring other users and can use the points towards purchases.
Star Reviews Favorite Feature:
‘Wanted’- Users can let the rest of the community know what products they’re eyeing. Through this service, buyers and sellers can have a more effective relationship, which can heighten productivity. Other auction sites do offer similar features, but none promote it as heavily as Ebid does.
Ebid Features:
- Ability to set up Ebid virtual stores
- 60- minute-auctions which have no reserve and end in just an hour
- Ebid communities in five different countries
- BuyNow option to end auctions and sell products for a set price
- Escrow option through PPPay.com
- Member forums
- My eBid
Navigating the eBid website:
If you have placed bids in any other online auctions, eBid’s interface won’t be foreign to you. From the main page, you can either choose to browse through dozens of product categories or conduct a search. You can narrow the sections of the site search using a pull-down category menu.
When your results appear, they’ll be listed in order of bid time remaining, but you can change that order to reflect bid prices or product names, too. If a particular product grabs your attention, click on it to learn the details and to find out more about the seller, including their feedback from other users. There are useful tabs like ‘Sell,’ ‘Want,’ and ‘News’ for easy access to information, as well.
Buying on eBid:
If you decide you want the item, select “Place Bid,” sign in or register, then enter the maximum dollar amount you are willing to pay. When you’re outbid or the auction closes, you’ll be notified by email. We enjoyed how easy it was to see items up for bid, as they were arranged in neat graphs complete with seller information, starting bids, payment options and closing times.
Selling on eBid:
Once you decide to sell an item through this online auction, just click on the ‘Sell’ tab and choose an auction category you’d like to put your prized possession up for purchase under. Then, if you aren’t registered, complete the quick signup process and you may enter data such as bid pricing, image, starting bid price, reserve price, and description. Your listing will be up in hardly any time at all.
Selection:
Judging from the numbers listed on the sidebar of Ebid’s main page, it seems they have a large selection, especially compared to the other non-eBay auction sites. Arts and collectibles seem to be the primary products the online auctions focus on. Searches for the Wii console and for diamond jewelry turned up over 14,000 and more than 40,000 results respectively at eBay, but only brought up a combined 40 possible auctions through Ebid. However, we noticed how many individual auctions were going on at any given time for each category.
Buyer Protection:
Ebid includes a user feedback system much like eBay’s and similar auction sites. Additionally, sellers must complete a credit card verification process before they are allowed to list any items for sell.
Pricing:
Pricing is very complicated on Ebid. First, there are three levels of security subscription. The bronze level is free, but only allows you to bid and buy products through the site. To sell, you need to upgrade to silver or platinum, which includes the fees discussed below:
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Silver – Upgrade by verifying your credit card – Pay 3% fee on the final bid amount for auctions.
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Platinum – Upgrade by paying from $1.99 for 7 days to $60 for one year – no fees on the final bid amount for auctions.
In addition, you will be charged different fees for participating in different types of auctions, such as the Happy Hour auctions, if you are a seller. While listings are free, you may have to pay extra for a gallery auction or for listing upgrades such as an extra photo or bold text. The upgrade fees range from $0.05 to $0.18.
Customer Support:
eBid does offer a fairly detailed FAQ’s section which is well organized and provides clear answers for most of the questions buyers and sellers may have. They also have forums where users can post questions in order to find answers. Additionally, eBid supposedly provides support through a contact form on the site.
However, before you can submit your question via the form, you receive the following message: “. . . we will not reply to any emails that are already answered within our Forums or FAQ. Please read our Forums and FAQ pages first before sending us a message using the form at the bottom of the page.” To test this theory, we submitted such a question and received an automated response promising an answer within one day. We never heard from them again. No phone support is offered, possibly because the company is based in the United Kingdom.
Upside:
Escrow payments allowed. Good selection in some categories.
Downside:
Awful customer service. Somewhat confusing fee structure. Limited buyer protection.
Summary:
Ebid's online auction just left us with a middle of the road feel after browsing through their site. We really liked their auction categories and the number of products listed, as they were quite extensive. However, we didn’t really think their pricing scheme and membership fees were that understandable and the novice buyer or seller may run into some problems. Signing up for an account and placing/listing a bid are easy enough, so that shouldn’t pose too much of a burden on visitors. We appreciated features like the Happy Hour auctions, which keeps things entertaining, but their lack of customer support left a sour taste in our mouth. We thought their online auctions were simply mediocre at best.