Need an eBay Alternative? Try This List.

Article updated on August 31, 2011. Original post date: February 17, 2010 When it comes to online selling, there is no denying that the industry giants, like eBay and Amazon are top notch. Everyone knows that it's hard to beat eBay in terms of traffic, but many online sellers do look elsewhere -- especially individuals and part-time sellers who use this as a way to boost an existing income. This eBay alternatives list looks at 18 of the online marketplaces we've covered in the Ecommerce-Guide.com weekly online selling column over the years. Atomic Mall Listings:  fixed-price, make an offer, Web stores Cost: final sale fees (range from 10 cents to 1 percent) Blujay Listings: classified ad Cost: free Bonanzale (Formerly called Bonanzle) Listings:  fixed-price, make an offer, Bonanza Booths (similar to a Web shop) Cost: final sale fee (ranges from 50 cents to $10) BikerBids.com Listings: auction, swap, Web stores Cost: final sale fee (3 percent up to a maximum of $35) Craigslist Listings: classified Ads Cost: all ads except job postings, apartment rentals and adult services are free Etsy Listing: Web shop for handmade and vintage items Cost: 20 cents per listing plus a final value fee of 3.5 percent Facebook Marketplace Listing: List items for buy, sell, free or trade on Facebook's Marketplace (powered by Oodle) Cost: free HiBidder   Listings: auction, fixed-price, Web stores Cost: final value fees (max $2.50) Hoobly Listings: classified ads (local transactions) Cost:  Most categories are free Ebay Classifieds (Kijiji)   Listing: classified ads (local transactions) Cost: free, some listing upgrades My Auction Planet Listings: auction, fixed price, Web store Cost: free to list, some listing features have fees OLX Listings: classified ads (local transactions) Cost:  Most categories are free OnlineAuction.com (OLA) Listings: auction, Web store Cost:  yearly membership fees PlunderHere Listings: auction, fixed-price, Web stores Cost:  final value fees (max 5 percent), Verification fee $2.50 ProStores Listings:  Web store, integration with eBay Cost:  monthly subscription fees starting at $29.95 Shopify Listings: fixed-price, Web store Cost: monthly subscription fees starting at $29 WeBidz Auctions Listings: auction, fixed-price, Web stores Cost: free basic listings, $5 verification fee, some paid listing options Wensy Listings: auction, fixed price, Web store Cost:  free More Tools and Tips for Online Sellers From beginner guides to expert tips, our selection of eBay and Web shop articles can help you to better manage your ecommerce business. 12 Tips for Selling on Kijiji & eBay Classifieds E-Commerce Tools: Five Ways to Sell Digital Goods Online 5 Market Research Tools for EBay Sellers Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.

21 Places to Sell Your Products Online

10 Easy, Hosted Storefronts and Shopping Carts Hosted storefronts are an easy way to set-up your own Web store and a good option for small or individual sellers who aren't quite ready to invest in a large ecommerce website. Storefronts -- a managed service -- make it easy to create and manage a store because you don't need any HTML or programming skills, and you can customize the storefronts to suite your business needs. 1.  BigCommerce.  A storefront solution that lets you create your own Web shop -- plus you can sell on Facebook and eBay with BigCommerce.  Extra features include multi-channel retailing, mobile commerce, SEO and easy upselling. 2.  E-Junkie. A shopping cart and digital delivery system for publishers who want to include buy-now buttons to sell digital goods. You store the files on E-Junkie's servers, and buyers receive an email with instructions to download the product after making a purchase. 3.   GoEmerchant. Use it to build an ecommerce store, or you can purchase the Buy-Me Button plan to add payment options to an existing website. 4.  Mercantec E-Commerce Express. An entry-level storefront and shopping-cart service that lets you sell in a number of places including your own site and on eBay. 5.  Miva Merchant offers full ecommerce hosting and just about everything you need to start an online store – all in one package. You can upgrade accounts as your business grows. 6.  Payvment. This Facebook-wide shopping cart system offers an admin area built directly into Facebook to manage your storefront, inventory and sales. You can customize the Facebook Shopping Tab for your Facebook Business Page. 7.  ProStores. An online ecommerce platform that lets you design a storefront that fully integrates with eBay. 8.  Shopify. This hosted service lets sellers accept credit card payments, use their own domain and customize their store design. It also features built-in analytics that helps sellers track progress. 9.  TabJuice. A social commerce platform that you can use to bring products to Facebook. This storefront application adds a customizable shopping tab to your Facebook Business Page. 10.  Volusion. An all-in-one ecommerce solution that lets you design and manage your online storefront; plus it provides tools for marketing, merchandising and CRM. 4 Online Auction Sites and General Marketplaces 11.  Atomic Mall. An online marketplace that features fixed-price, make-an-offer and Web store listings. 12.  Bonanza. Sellers create booths of items (similar to a Web shop) and list products at a fixed-price. Buyers can also submit an offer to purchase. 13.  Ebay. The world’s largest online marketplace with more than 94 million active users. On eBay you can list items via auction or buy-now format, and you can also manage your own eBay-hosted storefront. 14.  Etsy. An online marketplace offering Web shops for handmade and vintage items and also supplies for making handcrafted items.  7 Free-to-List Classified-Ad Sites Free local classified-ad sites are a good choice for online sellers who have larger items that are difficult to ship. Most general categories on classified sites don't charge a fee to list, but special categories (such as adult services) are usually fee-based.  Classified-ad sites take no responsibility for the transactions and you deal with local customers face-to-face to complete a sale. 15.  Backpage. Covers more than 400 cities and regions from the United States, Canada and Mexico. Backpage is free for posting ads; the adult entertainment and personals categories are fee-based. 16.  Craigslist. Choose a location site from cities located in the United States, Canada, Asia, Americas, Europe, and other International cities. Most classified ads on Craigslist don't cost anything to place, but some specific sections for some cities do carry a fee, such as job postings, brokered apartment rentals, and adult services. 17.  eBay Classifieds (Kijiji). eBay Classifieds in the United States (and Kijiji in Canada) is an eBay-owned network of classified sites for specific countries including the United States, Canada, China, Taiwan, Germany, India and others.  18.  Facebook Marketplace. On Facebook, Marketplace, which is operated by Oodle, helps people buy and sell items in a trusted environment (e.g. within your network of friends). 19.  Hoobly. Integrates a local classifieds market into a national marketplace. This lets consumers look for general ads and then be more specific about location. Ads placed on Hoobly are free; however you may opt to place a Premium Ad, which is posted to a paid area. 20.  OLX. An established online classified site available in more than 96 countries in 40 languages. Ads are free, but the site offers paid options that appear at the top of search results. 21.  Oodle. Pulls millions of listings from all over the Web. Consumers can place an Oodle ad for free, by creating an online account. When you post to Oodle, your classified ad may also be posted to hundreds of other sites. More Tools and Tips for Online Sellers From beginner guides to expert tips, our selection of eBay and Web shop articles can help you to better manage your ecommerce business. 12 Tips for Selling on Kijiji & eBay Classifieds 15 EBay Listing Tools to Make Selling Online Easier, Faster 5 Market Research Tools for EBay Sellers Need an eBay Alternative? Try This List. Shopping Cart Software Tips and Reviews E-Commerce Tools: Five Ways to Sell Digital Goods Online Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.

Email Marketing Tips: Segment Lists for Targeted Campaigns

From building customer loyalty to acquiring customers and communicating promotional offers, email marketing has changed the way small business ecommerce site owners do business today. Most companies realize there is much more to email marketing than just scoring a customer's email address and sending content every couple weeks. Email marketing requires practice and dedication to be a successful marketing and communication tool for your small business.   What Is Email Segmenting? There are a number of tactics that small business owners can use to boost email marketing efforts. One technique that will help you send relevant communications to specific people in your list is called email list segmentation. Email segmentation is basically when you segment (or split) your subscriber list, based on any number of conditions -- including purchase history, age, geographic location, or previous email campaign interactions. The point of segmented email campaigns is to drive response to your email marketing messages by sending relevant and targeted messages to specific people in the list. One example of when you might want to use email list segmentation is if you own a retail store and have a special promotion event that isn’t going to be available through your online store. If you headline this event in your weekly newsletter to all subscribers you will have customers who would note the “local aspect” and delete the email knowing it wasn’t at all relevant to them.  In this scenario you could use list segmentation based on the subscriber’s location to send that known target group (or “segment”) of your list a special email -- and avoid sending to those who would not be interested in the details. Getting Started: How to Segment Your Email List Paul Turnbull, product manager for Campaigner said that the more information about a subscriber you have in your email marketing software, the more options you have for segmenting your list. The email address is the one piece of data you must have, but even a history of subscriber actions -- something you easily obtain through campaign reporting -- can be the basis for segmentation. “If you import nothing but email addresses you still have some data to work with,” said Turnbull. “If you previously sent email to these contacts, and they opened or clicked a link in the email, [it] gives you behavioral data and you can do quite a bit with that.” He noted that in the Campaigner platform automatically tracks this type of data, but you can also provide the email system with information you acquire through Web forms or customer sales records by importing standard spreadsheets and attaching it to an email address in the system. A great way to obtain data about subscribers is to capture secondary data (that is data other than a name and email address) when they sign-up to receive email communications from your business.  “The sign-up form capabilities we include with Campaigner allow you to request both optional and required information from customers,” Turnbull said. “By default the email address and the user’s first and last name is required, but you can customize this kind of form to obtain additional information,” he added. 5 Email Segmentation Tips to Get You Started Requesting information from customers can be tricky. You want customer data but you don’t want to discourage them from opting in to your email list by asking for too much. Turnbull offered the following tips to help small businesses get started with collecting data so you can segment your subscriber list for highly targeted campaigns: 1.  When customers fill in these forms they are aware that the information is being collected and used in some capacity. Business owners need to cover all the bases through privacy policies with their customers. 2.  Think about the questions you ask from the customer’s perspective: it’s a matter of asking yourself what information you absolutely need. You can build the customer story out over time with follow-up campaigns after a relationship with your business has been established. 3.  Customize sign-up forms and have different versions hosted in different places. This allows you to ask questions in places where it makes sense to do so. For example, customers may feel more comfortable answering more personal question on a blog or a Facebook sign-up form compared to your business website form. Remember that tracking where the customer signed up with you is another piece of data you can use for segmenting. 4.  A person’s location data is useful for segmenting for regional campaigns.  You can capture zip codes through sign-up forms or at a store kiosk. You can do a lot with just a zip code, so asking for a full mailing address isn’t always necessary. 5.  Reporting is your friend. Pay attention to the results of your marketing campaigns and look at those reports as opportunities for segmenting.  For example, as you drill down into your last campaign report and see that a number of people clicked a specific link, this is an opportunity to follow up with that segment of list subscribers with a related special offer. Learn More About Email Marketing From beginner guides to expert tips, our selection of ecommerce marketing articles can help you to better manage your email marketing campaigns. Ecommerce Conversion, Email and Other Marketing Words to Know Email Marketing Tips: Add Visual Imagery Grow Your Email Marketing List Using QR Codes Review: Campaigner Offers Free Email Marketing Service Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.

Milo Bridges Gap between Online Shoppers and Local Retail

In the ecommerce world, the numbers look great -- online retail sales are up and expected to reach $248.7 billion by 2014. Reports indicate consumers are more comfortable with shopping online and retailers are investing more in their online operations. When put in perspective of the retail industry as a whole, according to this TechCrunch report, a study released by Forrester Research indicates that Web sales account for only 8 percent of total retail sales. Forrester also estimates that "Web-influenced" offline (in-store) sales accounted for 42 percent of total retail sales in the preceding year and that percentage will grow to 53 percent by 2014. Milo Puts Your Local Inventory Online For merchants who have a physical retail store -- but do not sell products online -- this type of market research clearly shows there is good reason to present your inventory to online consumers. That is where Milo, a local shopping company, pitches its service as a bridge to connect local retail inventory with online shoppers.  Acquired last year by eBay Inc., Milo claims its technology can take every product on every shelf at every local store and put it online to help shoppers find the best prices and availability. On the consumer side of shopping, Milo basically shows online shoppers what's in-stock, where to buy it and what the best price is. Jack Abraham, Milo.com founder and CEO, said that now customers turn to the Web to search for products and to help them decide what they want to buy -- and where they want to buy it. Shoppers are using the Internet as a tool that actually drives sales in the real world. "The old way used to be to call a store or drive around in the hopes of finding a product or just looking in stores to see if product is available," said Abraham. "Our team had the ambition to bring this local inventory online so all that you can find the products available right now on the shelf at your local stores -- online." The Milo Fetch Beta for Small Business Retailers The technology driving Milo is a local search engine. When eBay acquired the company, it started integrating local products on eBay -- largely consisting of product inventory from big box retailers. Milo recently opened up the local search to bring small businesses online with its Milo Fetch Beta, allowing retailers of all sizes to show their inventory on Milo's local search results and on other high-traffic partner sites including RedLaser, eBay, PriceGrabber and Yellowbook.com. Currently Milo Fetch supports integration with Intuit’s QuickBooks Point of Sale (POS) systems, and it's a quick, three-step process to start using Milo Fetch. Retailers go to the Milo Fetch website and download and install the software. During installation you’ll need to provide a little information about your store and then sync Milo with your inventory. After that you don’t have to do anything.  Abraham said that the installation process leaves a small icon in the task bar that, when you mouse-over it, shows the real-time sync details. "It’s a free, easy way for small businesses to get exposure to their customers on the Web and ultimately drive more sales," said Abraham.  "A lot of small businesses have just a basic page with a photo, address and store hours.  This allows them to create a full, dynamic ecommerce experience without having to do anything. You don’t need to hire a developer, get technical support or invest financially. Just install the software, and you’re done." Abraham also said that Milo is currently working on other inventory types of systems for future releases in addition to adding tools that will help a small business manage its online presence.  The Milo Fetch Beta is free for any retailer to use. While there may be a subscription fee or per-referral transaction fee charged in the future in the future, Abraham said the service will be "free for quite some time yet." A note on the Milo Fetch website claims that retailers who join the Milo Fetch beta will receive a free subscription for 12 additional months after the service launches out of beta. Vangie Beal is a veteran online seller and frequent contributor to ECommerce-Guide.com. She is also managing editor of Webopedia.com. You can tweet with her online @AuroraGG.