Auction Site eBid to Launch Haggle Feature for Shoppers

Auction site eBid.net will launch a "Make an Offer" system this month, - a major enhancement that will bring with it a "whole new dimension to selling online." Features that give sellers the option to offer negotiated pricing have become popular on many marketplaces such as eBay. Sellers on eBid.net will be able offer the Make an Offer feature on their fixed-price (BuyNow) listings, and eBid.net founder Mark Wilkinson said they are hoping to have the new feature live within 2 weeks.

"We think it will bring a missing ingredient to eBid," he said. "We have auctions but BuyNow sales are most popular and up until now buyers might have been scared off by a BuyNow price being too high but were unaware that the seller would be prepared to sell for a few dollars less, there was no way of communicating this."

eBid.net, based in the UK, has an established presence in Europe, but Wilkinson said the U.S. operations now account for the majority of every aspect of the site, with 53% of sales made by U.S. sellers and most new members originating from the U.S.

The company sent a newsletter informing sellers about new features, including the ability to import feedback from other sites without having to pay a fee to another company - previously sellers had to pay fees to Repatoo.

eBid.net currently has 5.4 million live auctions and almost 23 thousand stores. Sell through rates were at an all time high in March, according to Wilkinson.

It recently added the ability to login to its site with Facebook, Google and Yahoo, part of the company's quest to "un-complicate" the purchasing process. "Before, new users would have to click BuyNow, view the login form, fill out their email address, submit, be taken to our registration form to add all their details including choosing a username, password, address, etc., submit, check their email, click the validation link in the email and be returned to eBid on a page that was not the item they wanted to buy, find their item again, click BuyNow again then off to payment company.

"Now they can click BuyNow, click Google/Facebook/Yahoo button, click authorize, add their address and straight off to payment company."

In addition, he said eBid.net would try to eliminate the address filling in stage soon by using addresses supplied by the payment processor. "It also allows current users to associate a third-party account to their eBid account to enable a simple login process."

Wilkinson said eBid.net is also building a mobile app for iOS and Android - "it will allow buying, bidding and offering from the word go and will have an ultra-simplistic listing system to allow items to be placed up for sale in a flash and onto Google Shopping within a (matter) of minutes."