OnBuy now a rival to eBay?

[groovyjon]

When they were last posting in the thread at http://www.ukbusinessforums.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=304417 they were talking about their launch on Nov 1st.

Perhaps they can come back on here now and tell us how it's going and whether we should all be switching from ebay?

 

[fisicx]

Probably not. The 5 searches I've just made returned zero results. The alternatives offered bore no relationship to the item I was looking for. For example: external HDD results included silicone sealant.

In any case they haven't launched yet. And I found stuff cheaper on ebay. And it just looks like a standard ecommerce site. And it's nothing new - there are loads of sites doing the same sort of thing.

 

[johndon68]

I just don't see how it's ever going to work - a search on eBay for a particular manufacturer from one of my hobbies returns over 12,500 results with a big fat zero returned on OnBuy (even ebid.co.uk returns 154 results)...

John

 

[groovyjon]

Well those were my findings too. They were good at coming on here and explaining what they were up to on the previous thread, so I'm waiting......

 

[zigojacko]

I don't think anyone can rival eBay or is going to come even close for many years unless a giant such as Google, Facebook or Microsoft tap into the auction market...

Many start-ups have tried and failed.

 

[TPH1]

Ambitious but surely foolish.

 

[Tech4Homes]

onbuy looks good but most categories appear to be empty.

Thing with eBay is I don't think anyone will ever compete as a one-stop marketplace that eBay now is, however I feel eBay is rubbish for selling second hand stuff now. (just my opinion anyway!) and to be fair, even selling new stuff is quite difficult!

I'd welcome a rival to eBay for second hand stuff only with lower fees etc etc. Will we ever see one? Doubt it. People don't want to go on a great looking site and get 0 results on their searches, how do you keep people coming back in the early days when they can still try their luck on eBay?

Maybe eBay should rethink their second hand market place and drop fees for private sellers to encourage some more second hand selling.

 

[OnBuy Team]

Hello everyone,

We hope all of you are well.

We're certainly are launching at the moment - we're working with sellers to help them get integrated into OnBuy - a huge task, as I'm sure you've all heard the buzz about the amount of sellers who have signed up.

We're not a bidding site, so do not usually refer to eBay often as a main competitor, however we understand your doubts about a company competing with the likes of eBay or Amazon, as it seems an impossible task to many.

The truth is we're not here with a view of immediately being as big, or turnover as much, as Amazon. We're not here to replace any marketplace platform either. Everything we do here at OnBuy is to challenge the status quo of what is currently present for online sellers, and is seen as 'the norm', even though it may be detrimental to retail business.

We believe in thinking differently to the marketplace giants that currently dominate the system. We visualised a better way for people to sell online. We've turned that idea into something real over the past 5 years. We want to invite those, who want to join us, in creating something we all want to be a part of - a fair and transparent place to trade.

Since November we've began our launch, which will last over a three month period. We will be pushing through our launch milestones (you can view this milestone time-line on OnBuy.co.uk, in the 'About' section). The next two weeks will see a dramatic increase in sellers being plugged in to OnBuy, we'll open the check out in the weeks to follow. You'll start to see the results of our efforts to provide the first UK marketplace to reflect the values we stand for very soon - we hope you'll be there to join us.

Best Regards,
The OnBuy Team

 

[fisicx]

Please fix the search.

And I'm still not sure what your USP is. Just about all the products I looked can be found cheaper elsewhere. All I can see is a bog standard ecommerce site.

Sorry for the negative comments but I just don't get it.

 

[etrades]

I believe what other forum members have said is correct.... the biggest issue is getting customers. when consumers are already pinned in with ebay and amazon so much they dont need a third... or else someone like google would have done it long time ago

several have tried and failed... infact look at Play... after play stopped selling themselves hardy anyone makes sale apart from few tech lines...

i would have been more happy then anyone if there was a new competitor like google doing something like that but dont see that happening :-(

 

[antropy]

No facebook page yet other than the wikipedia article?

One to watch though!