By selling to consumers via online auctions, businesses can boost sales, liquidate excess inventory, gain new customers without investing a ton of advertising or marketing money, and raise their Web visibility. For small businesses, online auctions have become another sales technique, albeit an offbeat one. Major auction sites provide some of those tools, and most try to attract high-volume sellers. According to the sellers we talked to, online auctions work wonders. He wants to be a major player in his business, and with other online auctioneers now buying stock from him, he's well on his way.
Online auctions bring substantial benefits besides increased sales to the small-business table.
Years of experience with traditional techniques of selling might not help you if the closest you've come to an auction is PBS's The Antiques Roadshow. To find the best road to selling online, we picked the brains of several auction experts and four experienced high-volume sellers. At each site, we evaluated the tools available for high-volume sellers, compared pricing structures, and gauged buyer traffic. We found that, while auction sites overlap in some features, they have individual differences that might make particular ones work better for some businesses than for others.