An Ebay Alternative

[Phathugo2467]

An Alternative to Ebay
By: Phathugo2467

For sellers using the ebay marketplace to sell cards, the current fee structure can decimate earnings made on lower priced sales. In light of many “failed” ebay sales (in the sense that the fees killed my earnings), I set out to find another auction venue that would allow me to sell my lower end cards without sacrificing much of the sale price. After completing my searching, I stumbled upon sportlots auctions, which was appealing to both buyers and sellers in several ways.

As a seller, sportlots auctions are appealing due to low sales fees (this is separate from sportlots stores, which I will mention later). For each auction listing you create, you are only charged $0.15. Additionally, rather than being forced to pay the $0.15 fee upfront, the fee is deducted from your final sales. Likewise, if you item failed to sell, the listing fee would be deducted from your future sales. The 15-cent listing includes one photo for free. Most sellers only need one photo to show a card, although many sellers have used links to a photo-hosting site to show more scans. Sportlots offers a fixed price store as well, but the fees for this service are a percentage of your monthly sales. The rates are very high for low sales and don’t become reasonable until hundreds to thousands of dollars in sales are made (use the auctions lol).

Buyers benefit from sportlots in two ways. First, sportlots uses the 123-auction format. All auction items stay live until the have gone three days without a bid. This is a great feature for buyers who are tired of being sniped at the last minute. All bidders have a fair chance to place a bid regardless of circumstances (lack of computer, time zone, work, etc). The Second way in which buyers benefit from using sportlots is through combined shipping prices. Sportlots prompts sellers to list shipping rates to both US and Canada as well as a combined shipping rate to be applied if the item is won in conjunction with another item from the same seller. If a buyer wins two items on sportlots, sportlots will take the single item shipping rate of the highest priced item and combine it with the combined rate of the other item. For example if shipping for a single card is $2.50 and the combined shipping rate is $0.25, then the final shipping rate would only be $2.75 instead of $5.00. Buyers can also make purchases from sportlots fixed price stores. This is a great place to find low priced set fillers, but Game Used and the like tend to be overpriced in the fixed price area.

However the biggest difference in Ebay and Sportlots is those who use the site. Unlike ebay, sportlots consists of people who are knowledgible about sports cards. In other words you won’t find estate sales or ex spouses asking way too much for early 90’s base. Safeguards in the form of a feedback system exist in order for buyers to stay informed about the quality of a seller. Just like ebay, most transactions from sellers with good feedback occur without trouble.

The bottom line is that sportlots is a fine alternative to ebay. Ebay gets more traffic overall due to its various departments of other non card listings, but sportlots is a hidden gem that is worth checking out. There is a broad selection of auction listings from all four major sports on a daily basis.

[gmoney168]

An eBay Alternative

By Nick Long aka Phathugo2467

For sellers using the eBay marketplace to sell cards, the current fee structure can decimate earnings made on lower priced sales. In light of many “failed” eBay sales (in the sense that the fees killed my earnings), I set out to find another auction venue that would allow me to sell my lower end cards without sacrificing much of the sale price. After completing my searching I stumbled upon Sportlots auctions, which was appealing to both buyers and sellers in several ways.

As a seller, Sportlots auctions are appealing due to low sales fees (this is separate from Sportlots stores). For each auction listing you create you are only charged $0.15. Additionally, rather than being forced to pay the $0.15 fee upfront, the fee is deducted from your final sales. Likewise, if your item failed to sell, the listing fee would be deducted from your future sales. The 15-cent listing includes one photo for free. This is nice because most sellers only need one photo to show a card, although many sellers have used links to a photo-hosting site to show more scans. Sportlots offers a fixed price store as well, but the fees for this service are a percentage of your monthly sales. The rates are very high for low sales and don’t become reasonable until hundreds to thousands of dollars in sales are made. This makes the auctions the smarter option.

Buyers benefit from Sportlots in two ways. First, Sportlots uses the One, Two, Three-auction format. All auction items stay live until the have gone three days without a bid. This is a great feature for buyers who are tired of being sniped at the last minute. All bidders have a fair chance to place a bid regardless of circumstances (lack of computer, time zone, work, etc). The second way in which buyers benefit from using Sportlots is through combined shipping prices. Sportlots prompts sellers to list shipping rates to both US and Canada as well as a combined shipping rate to be applied if the item is won in conjunction with another item from the same seller. If a buyer wins two items on Sportlots, the site will take the single item-shipping rate of the highest priced item and combine it with the combined rate of the other item. For example if shipping for a single card is $2.50 and the combined shipping rate is $0.25, then the final shipping rate would only be $2.75 instead of $5.00. Buyers can also make purchases from Sportlots fixed price stores. This is a great place to find low priced set fillers, but game used and the like tend to be overpriced in the fixed price area though.

However the biggest difference between eBay and Sportlots is those who use the site. Unlike eBay, Sportlots consists of people who are knowledgeable about sports cards. In other words you won’t find estate sales or ex-spouses asking way too much for early ‘90s base. Safeguards in the form of a feedback system exist in order for buyers to stay informed about the quality of a seller. Just like eBay most transactions from sellers with good feedback occur without trouble.

The bottom line is that Sportlots is a fine alternative to eBay. eBay gets more traffic overall due to its various departments of other non card listings but Sportlots is a hidden gem that is worth checking out. There is a broad selection of auction listings from all four major sports on a daily basis.

[gmoney168]

Articles: https://www.sportscardforum.com/articles/?p=704
Digg: http://digg.com/baseball/An_eBay_Alt...Forum_Articles
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Buzz: http://buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:0433...ernative?usc=1

[paradigm81]

Sportlots really needs to be fine tuned. I like the concept but it's tough to navigate.