eBay Talk

Do you have a Facebook account? If you don't, better go get one today. If you do, there's a good news for you, you can now start selling on Facebook already. Buy.com announced a new Facebook application on August 7, letting Facebook users to buy or sell their stuff on Facebook.

For those who do not know what Facebook is all about, Facebook is a free social networking website that connects your network of friends. By creating your profile on Facebook, you can exchange private or public messages and join groups of friends. However, the viewing of detailed profile data is restricted to users from the same group of friends. Facebook also provides a platform allowing anyone to create applications that interact with Facebook core features, and Garage Sale is the latest application launched by Buy.com to provide a new era of buying and selling online. Facebook users can now directly post their personal items for sale on their profile page and buy items from friends that you already know and trust. To help users get their hands on, Garage Sale provides two online video tutorials showing you how to buy and sell using Garage Sale, check out the tutorials here.

Garage Sale will gradually become one of the best eBay alternatives, as they only charge 5% commission for every completed sale, considering eBay fees are the biggest challenge to selling on eBay. However, critics say eBay will not be endangered by this new service, simply because sellers on Garage Sale can't access to big base of buyers like eBay do. Only their friends are able to view the listings and buyers are still likely to hop on to eBay to do a quick search on prices.

Nevertheless, Buy.com has provided us, eBay Sellers, a new eBay alternative. If eBay continues to hike the fees, Garage Sale will be our new home.

Today, with eBay’s doubled fees, you have to give half of your profits to eBay in terms of fees. Not only that, Paypal’s fees also eat up a significant amount of your profit. Most eBay Stores Sellers also feel the chain wrapped around their throats, and to beat the competition – or simply to survive – they often lower their prices, they have to get some sales rather than none. eBay’s continuously fee hikes have significantly pushed away its users and united sellers to make a big move somewhere else. eCrater.com has been building up a pretty strong following and it has become one of the best alternatives for eBay sellers especially eBay Stores sellers, even some of the PowerSellers can be found on eCrater.

Although eCrater is not an online auction site like eBay, the core factor is there are no fees on eCrater. eCrater is a 100% free online marketplace and web store builder. It definitely comes in handy for those who don’t like the fees from eBay. Buyers can easily browse and compare between thousands of products from all the stores available. On the other hand, eCrater allows sellers to easily create their own free online storefront in minutes. Sellers get free website hosting, a free subdomain and a powerful administration control panel to customise their free online storefronts integrated with Google Checkout – which is free for sellers too.

All products are posted to the world's most famous product search engine – like Froogle - as well. Best of all, your eCrater web store supports unlimited number of products. However, it’s not advisable to completely migrate your store from eBay to eCrater at one go, this way, you’re hanging your business to death. Diversify your business, and slowly redirect your customer base to your new eCrater Stores.