• Auction alert daily or weekly newsletter
• uBid Certified Merchant program to prevent seller fraud
• Search by brands, including Sony, Dell, and Apple

Express auctions - Unique auctions lasting only 30 minutes with bids starting at $1, so if you love the feeling of beating out other bidders, but don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a purchase, this would be perfect for you.

• Warranties on most products sold
• Ubuyitnow option - skip the online auction process by paying a set price determined by the seller.
• Certified Merchant Program-Products sold by approved sellers, not just your average Joe.

We thought their website was fairly easy to navigate, with most important links displayed in neat tabs. However, there were a lot of ads and images, so if you’re easily distracted by a busy site feel, you might want to look elsewhere. To find a product at Ubid, you can start by entering the name of the product in the search box on the main page.  You can further narrow down your results by searching only in one category using the pull-down menu.  If you’re only window shopping, you can browse the categories listed in the left hand margin.

Buying on uBid:

Placing your bid on this online auction can be a little more complicated than at some of their competitions’ websites.  You’ll need to select a quantity (if more than one particular item is available), then hit “Continue” on the item page.  After that, you’ll have more choices to make, including where to have the item shipped if you win or whether you want to purchase an extended warranty on the merchandise. Once you’ve placed a bid, you’ll be notified if you’ve been outbid on an auction.  If that happens within the last ten minutes of the auction, the closing time can be extended for up to 10 minutes to allow additional bidding.  Auction winners are notified via email.

Selling on uBid:

If you choose to sell through this online auction, you must first sign up through their Certified Merchants Program. Although this may seem a bit drastic, it is only to protect uBid’s online community from fraud and scandal. Simply click on ‘Sell on uBid’ and you will be asked to fill out a fairly self explanatory application. Be sure to include and have information like social security number, business references, a valid credit card and bank account information close by.

Selection:

uBid offers products in almost a dozen different categories, including a miscellaneous “Everything else” category.  In comparison to Ebay’s selection, uBid’s options are pretty limited.  A search for the hard to find Wii video game console turned up 29 results, but only one was for the console and that auction was closed five days before it was supposed to end.  Ebay, on the other hand, offered more than 14,000 results and over 1,000 of those results were for console auctions still in progress.  In comparison, a search for “diamond jewelry” turned up just under 1,100 results while it generated over 40,000 results on Ebay. Still, we feel you have a good chance of finding some great and even obscure objects through the uBid online auction.

Buyer Protection:

uBid is dedicated to providing buyers with a safe shopping experience.  As part of their no-fraud guarantee, uBid has an extensive screening process they use for all of their sellers, in order to prevent criminal activity and con’s from staking claim on your cash.  They also provide warranties on most of their products and have a clear return policy that is not merchant-dependent.

Pricing:

Buyers can register, bid, and purchase items through uBid for free.  Sellers can register, become certified merchants, and even list items on the site to sell without paying a single penny. However, sellers do pay a percentage of the final selling price to uBid as a fee, which is normal for online auctions.  The percentage is determined by the final cost. 

• Final price up to $25 – 12.5%
• Final price between $26 and $250 – 10%
• Final price between $251 and $500 – 7.5%
• Final price between $501 and $1000 – 5%
• Final price over $1000 – 2.5%

Customer Support:

uBid provides customer support through a FAQ’s section, online contact form, and by telephone.  The FAQ’s do provide good answers and are fairly plentiful.  They address most of the common questions buyers and sellers would have about the site.  Email support was not effective, however.  We did receive an answer to our inquiry within 24 hours, but the answer did not address our questions.  Instead, it was simply a cut and paste sales pitch promoting their seller services.  When we contacted uBid by phone, we were placed on hold for five minutes, and still had some wait time before our we were “helped” by an unfriendly representative. Our team was thoroughly disappointed in their customer support experience.

Upside:

Certified Merchants program for fraud-free auctions.  Reasonable seller fees. 

Downside:

Disappointing customer service by phone and by email.  Limited selection. 

Summary:

All in all, we thought that uBid was a pretty good online auction. Despite having some of the worst customer service we’ve encountered in our online auction reviews, we feel their actual service is decent. You shouldn’t run into too many issues when navigating the intuitive website, as its interface was organized in a succinct manner. We liked the search results we were provided and enjoyed how current winning bid lists and product descriptions were neatly arranged. The Certified Merchants program was definitely a bonus, as no one likes to order from a seller that doesn’t have a proven track record. For those of you who don’t want to bid in an auction, you can participate in ‘Ubuyitnow’ and directly purchase an item you can’t live without. We recommend this online auction to novice and experienced buyers and sellers.