PC Magazine Top 100 Websites

Shopping: Person-to-Person
April 26, 2000

Andale

Did you know that some people have built entirely new careers out of online auctioneering? The challenge: how to manage dozens or even hundreds of auctions simultaneously? Andale provides a tool for aggregating all your auction activity into one interface, helping you automate your buying and selling and generating useful reports along the way. Sellers can even use the site to pool resources by having other sellers with more established online reputations sell their merchandise for them.

AuctionRover.com

Can you really make a living as a full-time seller at online auctions? Perhaps, if you use a site like AuctionRover.com to help you handle the grunt work of listing your merchandise at multiple sites, uploading hundreds of photos and descriptions, and posting schedules. Buyers, too, will appreciate this site's ability to search across multiple auction sites for that one special item. With 50 recent improvements to the site, AuctionRover.com is hard to beat in the auction category.

auctions.com

Formerly known as Auction Universe, auctions.com is a slightly more calm and coherent buying and selling venue than eBay. Though the market may be smaller, the site is no less well equipped: It offers escrow service from BidSafe, pager notification, and most of the other bells and whistles that you'd expect from a fully evolved auction house. The site is organized into 19 main categories, one of which is real estate. Sell your Beanie Baby, or sell your house. It's your call.

eBay

The Editors' Choice – winning eBay, which also received a grade of A in our survey of Web site satisfaction has become a cultural phenomenon, as millions have raced into their attics to dig up "precious collectibles" to sell. eBay's business model has been so successful that virtually every shopping site worth its salt now offers some sort of auction sales, suggesting that we're headed for a future where fixed prices for anything have become but a distant memory.

eWanted.com

At eWanted.com, you describe exactly what you're looking for and how much you'll pay. Those requests are then read by registered dealers, stores, and individual sellers who have an expertise in a particular category of merchandise. If they have a match, they contact you (usually by e-mail that's rerouted anonymously through the site itself), and you can decide whether to buy. The site is actually an "upside-down auction," where several sellers can haggle in public to bid down their selling price to you. It's a whole new way to shop.