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eBay Alternatives: The eCrater Express keeps a-rolling along
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Almost every day for the last 12 months I have looked at the auction site count list on the Power Sellers Unite forums and it seems every site has ups and downs randomly. There is no trend in most cases. Sites go up quickly and go down just as quickly by small and large counts.
Almost every site has benefitted to some degree since Black February in 2008 when eBay started its massive changes but one site has consistantly increased their count almost every every day. They dont have big spikes in the listing count as I have seen some sites have but they have been so steady. eCrater's number of listings grow between 2-3 thousand listings consistantly. I look at eCrater and in my head I hear Joe Perry's relentess and unstoppable guitar riffs, along with Stephen Tyler screaming "And the train kept a-rollin, all night long".
If eCrater (www.ecrater.com) was easier to use for buyers and sellers and nicer to look at then it would make some kind of sense but it is what it is and yet, they keep on rolling. They have doubled in size over the last 12 months.
It is certainly not a site set up with community in mind. All the the stores are compartmentalized. You can't do a site search if you went into someone's store. You can only see their items. You can only do a site search by locating a tiny link at the bottom of the page to get to eCrater's homepage and THEN do a site search.
It does benefit the sellers who work hard and to promote their stores and the buyers you bring to your store are unlikely to find another seller selling similar items on the site. You brought them onboard. They are your customers. Why should the person not promoting his/her site benefit from your hard work?
I am not being critical of eCrater. I just think the concept is interesting and I am suprised that it works better than any other.
There are many other good things about eCrater. Their Google feeds are some of the best out of the alternative sites for one. The site is set up to buyers to forsake Paypal in favor of Google Checkout. The admin is very active and very involved with the site. They are global and it works because the admin is involved. Did I mention eCrater is free? No selling fees and no Final Value Fees.
The real test was the last Christmas Holiday season. The sellers who worked hard at promoting their eCrater stores seemed to be very happy with the results.
The jury is still out but if eCrater keeps growing at it's current pace, within 2 years there will be a true fixed priced alternative to eBay.
We might still be using eBay for auction style listings because it could be a few years before a true "auction" competitor emerges to take on eBay. However, with sites like eCrater and Atomic Mall (www.atomicmall.com) around, sellers do not have to look far for fixed priced, storefront alternatives.
For more on eCrater click the following link. http://tinyurl.com/acommerce6
