Top eBay Alternatives 2011 - eBay Vs. iOffer

eBay Vs. iOffer

When I was first researching this site I came across some forums claiming that the site was a scam. The truth is the site is not a scam but many of the sellers there are in fact scam artist. The site is just that a site it doesn't guarantee any transaction or do mediation in the way that eBay does between buyer and seller. Because of this many many have used the site to scam others listing big ticket items and never delivering the goods. Beyond that though iOffer has some interesting features not found on eBay: Item listings are free with photos and even video. You can use a wide range of payments including AlertPay, PayPal, Google Checkout & Amazon Payments You get a customizable store with categories that you can promote. They show you how to get listed on Google Products. You can transfer items directly from eBay along with your feedback rating. Allows you to negotiate a price with buyers or mark items "Make An Offer". So it's great for those items that you are just not sure are going sell like say an attic of old comic books. Another good thing about this site is that you can upload tons of pics and even video for free. You can also give your buyers many options for checkout PayPal, Google Checkout, Amazon Payments and many more. They used to charge 7% for final value fees but have now switched to tiered fee structure. Lower price items get charged more percent wise than higher priced items. Also the price is the total price including shipping. Your items go into your own store that you can then promote in any way you like. The site does have some problems though: Not as many buyers as eBay. Search function doesn't work well because of the use of tags. Fees are charged when the buyer marks the item paid leaving the seller filing many NPB claims. You have to pay $20 up front to open your account which is then used to pay fees. eBay Vs iOffer Head to Head Auction Fees Listing Fees Final Value Fees Payments Accepted Monthly Fees Alexa Site Ranking* Promotional Tools eBay First 50 Free Monthly $0.99=$0.10 $9.99=$0.25 $24.99$0.50 $49.99=$0.75 $199.99=$1.00  $200+= $2.00   Buy It Now $0.50 Media $0.05  9% Of Total Payment Includes Shipping PayPal** Merchant Accounts None   21  eBay Site Traffic eBay Basic Same as above   BIN  $0.20 Media $0.05  7.5% Auction Style BIN 7%-13%  Same as above $14.95   21 Custom Logos E-mail Marketing Cross Promotions  eBay Premium Same as above     BIN $0.05 Media $0.05 Same as above Same as above $49.95   21  Same as above eBay Anchor Same as above    BIN $0.03 Media $0.03 Same as above  Same as above $299.95   21  Same as above iOffer None      None     $4.99=$0.50 $9.99=$0.75 $24.99$1.25 $99.99=5%   AlertPay Amazon Payments PayPal Google Checkout None 1,421  1 Custom Store Front Google Products Store Widgets *Alexa is a service that ranks websites according to popularity that is by views and unique visitors. The lower the rank the higher the traffic, currently Google.com is ranked #1. **PayPal  also charges 2.9% for each transaction through eBay. So let's do a little hypothetical comparison shall we. Let's say that we list 300 items on eBay for  $9.99 each. We list them as Buy It Now and we have a Basic eBay Store. We are expecting about a 60% sell through rate. Basic Store Fee $14.95 Listing Fee 300 * $0.20 = $60 FVF (180 * $9.99) * 11% = $198 All in all then you would have made 1798 in gross sales then you have to take away the fees. The total fees add up to 273 or about 15% of sales. Leaving $1525 in net sales. Now let's try the same with iOffer FVFs 180 * $0.75 = $135 You would make $1663 net paying only 7.5% in fees sounds great right. There is a flaw though in this example namely that iOffer would have the same sell through rate as eBay which is unrealistic. To be more realistic we could set the iOffer sell through rate to say 15%. You would still only be paying 7.5% but your net sales would only be: Total sales 45 * $9.99 = $450 FVFs 45 * $0.75 = $34 This would leave you with net sales of $416. Not quite as good as eBay however this is only an example and your sell through rate could be higher. Plus it is quite easy to list on both eBay and iOffer since you can always import your items. Each extra sale you receive would be effectively reducing your overall fees. Check Out iOffer