eBay alternatives: Ecrater
19 February 2008I’m not entirely sure that Ecrater really qualifies as a true alternative to eBay. It isn’t an auction site. What it is, however, is a really great, cheap way to get yourself an online presence. And best of all, it’s 100% free.
So, what do you get for your $0.00? Just about all you could ask for. You get a full featured web site with a storefront, all the listings you can list, and integration with Google Checkout. Top that off with free, automatic submission to the shopping search site, Froogle and you’ve got a pretty good deal. If you’d like, they do have a pay feature where you can pay for “featured” positioning on the onsite search.
The downsides, while few could be significant eventually. First, it’s not your site. Ecrater still owns it, so if they decide to stop offering the service, your site goes away. Nor do you own the URL, so if you decide to open a store elsewhere (come back later this week for a little on DIY stores) you can’t just forward your customers on to the new site. They do allow you to forward a domain to your Ecrater store, however, so that could be one way around that.
If all your looking for is a good replacement for an eBay store, Ecrater is well worth taking a look at. It gives you a very good engine for listing your items and customizing your storefront to be inline with a brand if you have one. The added feature of froogle submission is very useful also. The onsite search is fairly powerful and does a great job of finding what the buyer is looking for. One downside, I couldn’t find a way to browse just the stores. There isn’t an easy way to browse a store if you don’t know the direct URL for the site.
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