There's a new player in online marketplaces! OK, so they're 4 years old now ... but eCRATER is setting its sights on the top-tier of online markets. As of now, the beginning of September 2007, their rating exceeds virtually every other market site on the Wild Whacky Web. Only the bigguns are above - like Amazon, Overstock and eBay.
This new market has ties with Google, by far the most used search engine, and (get this!) is totally free to setup and operate a store in! Your store, my store, any store costs absolutely zero to be created in and hosted at eCRATER. My store is called Big Tex Surplus. Please remember, though, this is my live store. Don't click any "Buy Now" buttons unless you really want to buy 'cause I'll hold you to the purchase committment! We still have a store on eBay, and will for quite a while ... its name is Big Tex Surplus, too. If you go there, you can see how well we've treated customers along the way (hint: we have 100% positive feedback!)
The old man of the web, eBay, seems to be suffering senile dementia. They have made selling arduous and dreadfully expensive. They nickel-and-dime your every sale, while sacrificing your premium store's exposure to try to save their stinking pile called eBay eXpress. Hey, did you know the CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman, just dumped a chunk of her stock? $44 million worth just recently; you can read a short article about this on Seeking Alpha. You have to wonder why, if eBay is truly sustainable, knew where they were headed and actually has a bright future, why in the world would she would be cashing in now.
While eCRATER is the new kid on the block, their growth seems to indicate their doing someting right ... the number of products listed has grown from 500,000 to 750,000 in only the last 3 months (numbers approximate and drawn from eCRATER forum postings of statistics hounds thereon).
There's much more to all this, caveats and details and such, but I get a good feeling from this upstart. Unlike eBay, they're not too big for their britches. They know shoppers start at search engines, specifically Google mostly, and that selling one item shouldn't be subject to a dozen half-hidden fees that run small sellers into the red each month. I recommend that, if you want to abandon your feeBay ways, then create and load up a storefront at eCRATER!
P.S. If you have an eCRATER store, please let us know! Let's see if we're compatible - maybe we can manage a mutual promotion of both of our stores, ok?
1 comment:
Hi, My name is Sharon and I live in Columbus, Ohio. I just started an ecrater shop a few days ago. I am a silk artist who makes hand painted scarves and other accessories for women. I never tried ebay, but I have an online site with etsy and have not made much sales on etsy. Etsy also charges to list and advertise. Most of the stuff on Etsy is supposed to be hand made but I see a lot of mass produced and vintage items sold on etsy. I will be closing my etsy shop in spring of 2008. I am going to give ecrate a try. I find that it is easy to list your items on ecrater, and you dont have to go through a lot of pages like etsy. I also think that ecrater's website is better designed. my store on ecrater is called colorsofsilk.ecrater.com
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