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Registration and Payment Method |
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| Since the success of web commerce is widely known and in particular,
online auction sitessuch as ebay have been so wildly popular, a plethora of online
auction sites have sprung up.Some are extensions of live auctions. Some are novices to auctions.
Some are devoted to just one type of item such as 'antique canes' while some sell
anything and everything.Whether you plan to buy or sell at auctions online, you will need
to know several things aboutonline auction sites. You will want to know how legitimate
the site is. At the bottom of each review I have given ratings of: Poor Fair Good Very Good or Excellent. Confidence is rated on the basis of how comfortable I would be buying or selling with a site. I considered several things in determining confidence in a site. What charges, if any, were involved? How confident would I be that anybody would buy my items on the site? How likely would I be to buy anything from the site? In several cases, auctions sites have just gotten started and have little activity going on. Though I would be less inclined to list an item to sell at such a site, I will continue to check it from time to time to see if it is growing in activity. In those cases I have added a 'P' after the rating to show that the site has future potential. Another important aspect of an online auction is how easy it is to navigate through the site. Can you find what you are looking for rather easily or must you click on every link on the home page to find the one you are looking for? Is it easy to search for an item? Is it easy to register and start bidding and selling right away? If an online auction is difficult to navigate and help is difficult to find, buyers get frustrated (or at least impatient) and shop elsewhere. Again, my grading scale consisted of Poor, Fair, Good, Very Good and Excellent. About registration fees: I don't register with any auction house that asks for upfront fees and unless you know the owners beforehand, I would recommend against paying to register at any online auction. Most online auction sites charge a commission to sellers and some to buyers. The seller fees are usually nominal and consist of a listing fee and or a final transaction or 'success' fee. The listing fee is usually between $0.25 and $2.00. The final transaction fee usually consists of a percentage of the final sale of the item. The percentage fees usually range from 1.25% to 7% depending on the amount of the final sale. I've listed fees in the reviews of the online auctions I visited if they seemed unusual. In cases where they fell into the average range, I stated so. In some high quality and upscale auctions such as Antiques and Fine Art, it is common for auctioneers to charge a buyer's premium. This is usually done partly as an incentive to sellers to consign better than average pieces, and partly as a relief to sellers. A buyer's premium is usually between 7% and 15%. Registration and Payment Method If you plan to buy or sell on online auctions, you will need to register as a user. Some online auctions require a credit card submission in order to register. They can then charge your card for any fees you accrue as a seller. For an auction house that I am not familiar with or have much confidence in, I prefer to pay the first time by cheque. I have registered with several sites and bought several items using my credit card and have no problems with security and the items I ordered arrived within two days. There are several things you need to know about credit card safety on the internet. MSNBC offers these tips: Never use a bank debit card online. Credit card owners are only liable for a capped amount if a credit card is used fraudulently. Bank debit cards do not offer such protection. Always keep a copy of the purchase order and confirmation in your records. If you have a printer, print it out and keep it in a safe location. Be extremely cautious when using small online retail sites, and newer sites as well, because they often don't offer the security that a larger, more well-established business can. Because there are many auction and other store software programs available, many small business owners have been able to start online auctions or storefronts without the benefit of protective encryption services and added security. If you have any doubts about using your credit card on any site, send an email to the site asking whether customers' credit card information is stored by the company in a database. You can ask the site to remove your credit card information from their database. If you use a site frequently enough to like the convenience of having your credit card information stored at the site, ask if the information is encrypted. If it is not, you will be much more secure shopping somewhere else. Never provide credit card information through solicitation. It is best to use only one credit card for online purchases so that if fraud does occur, it will be easier to discover and track down. And of course, check your credit card bills carefully each month. Should you discover fraudulent charges, notify your credit card company immediately and cancel the card at once.
One of the things that is apparent from the regular updates of this report is the speed that online auctions go out of business! Over 60% of the online auction sites have folded since the ‘boom time’ of the web in 2000, when there were so many online auction sites around that competition proved too much and now only the ‘big boys’ and specialist online auctions have survived. Even the likes of Yahoo and Lycos have given up the auction side of their sites and passed their trade to ebay. Go to our internet auction search facility
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