OnlineAuction.com Review

Editor’s Note: OnlineAuction.com is no longer available but you can still read the original review below from our last round of testing.

Top Ten Reviews Verdict

OnlineAuction.com stands out with its cost-effective fee system and numerous features that enhance your listings and help you sell your items.

Pros

  • +

    Rather than charge listing and final value fees, OnlineAuction.com charges a small monthly fee to sell items on its site.

Cons

  • -

    This service does not offer a third-party resolution center, so you have to resolve your own conflicts with buyers.

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Editor’s Note: OnlineAuction.com is no longer available but you can still read the original review below from our last round of testing.

On OnlineAuction.com, you can sell your products without paying a listing or final value fee. Instead, the service charges a small monthly fee to sellers. Although this online auction site has a relatively small membership base, it offers several different categories and fewer selling restrictions than other sites.

OnlineAuction.com has four different types of membership. You can become a basic buyer, verified buyer, seller or founding member for a monthly fee. Buyer memberships allow you to bid on anything, with the basic buyer membership restricting how much you can spend a day. The seller and founding memberships allow you to sell on the site, with the founding membership offering the most features. The only other fees the site charges are for auction enhancements. You can add photos, list identical items or feature your auction listing on the homepage.

With only 100,000 members, this online auction site is small compared to others. If you want a larger buying audience, we recommend that you sell through eBay because it has millions of registered users. However, it offers several different features that promote your items to help them sell. For a small fee, you can advertise your products with a featured listing. If you want to advertise outside of the site, the service submits your items to various search engines, and you can link to your own website on each of your listings.

This bidding site does not keep traffic reports of your items to help you pinpoint your audience. However, each listing has a page view counter that shows you how many people have visited your page. In addition, users can give feedback about one another. Sellers and buyers can both share past transaction experiences, which affect their buyer and seller feedback scores.

The service has several different features to help you attract buyers and make the selling and buying processes easy. You can include buy-now buttons on each listing so that buyers have a way to purchase an item without bidding. Buyers can search for you by username and save your information so that they can view your pages regularly. Similarly, you can block any buyers you do not want viewing or bidding on your products.

Unfortunately, the auction site does not have a third-party resolution center. Instead, it has buyers and sellers resolve their own conflicts, which can be difficult when someone doesn't pay or deliver.

The auction website offers several different payment methods for you to take from buyers. You can accept payment in the form of checks, cash, credit cards, money orders, Xcoin, Google Checkout and PayPal. However, using a third-party service ensures a safe transaction experience for both you and the buyer. After the auction, you can send an invoice by email or using the service's O-Mail to the buyer. However, the site does not alert you when your account has new messages. If you are operating a web store and selling products across multiple auction sites, we recommend that you sign up for an account with Bonanza because it lets you manage inventory across multiple sites.

The company offers strong support options. You can contact representatives by email or phone, and you can communicate with other members on the community forum. If you cannot find answers in the forum, you can search the extensive FAQs page.

OnlineAuction.com offers a safe environment for buyers and sellers to come together. With only a small monthly membership fee, you can keep all of the profits from your sales. While this auction site has a small membership base, it offers advertising options both on and off the site that help your items receive more traffic.

Aaron McCarter

Aaron McCarter has written extensively about senior care and mobility for Top Ten Reviews, but he no longer works for the site. He's also a fan of travel, and has dipped his toe into assessing hotel sites too. Aaron holds an MBA from Utah Valley University and currently works as a writer for a Marketing firm in Utah.