Sold! How to Win at Web Auctions

Jumping Into the Auction

Nearly all Web auction sites (and their number is rapidly expanding) fall into one of two categories: merchant or person-to-person. Merchant auctions, such as Egghead Auctions, First Auction, Onsale, and UBid, deal largely in manufacturers' overstock and refurbished items. Except for the bidding, the purchase process works much as it does at any other e-commerce site. The transaction is highly automated, you pay with a credit card over a secured line, and you can choose from a number of shipping options, including overnight delivery.

Last Year's Model

At their most lackluster, merchant auctions are technology graveyards--stuff winds up there because it can't easily be sold by traditional means. Some items are new but a tad outdated, others have been returned by their original buyers and spruced up for resale, and still others are just plain used. During our bidding spree, for example, Egghead Auctions offered Epson's original Stylus Photo printer, released in 1997, and UBid had last year's Stylus Photo 700--both refurbished. But no auction had the Epson printer we really coveted, the new-and-improved Stylus Photo 750.

In contrast to merchant auctions, person-to-person sites such as Amazon.com Auctions, EBay, and Yahoo Auctions simply act as venues to bring buyers and sellers together. Most sellers are individuals, though small businesses also hawk their wares. You'll find some new merchandise on these sites, but primarily they offer used items and collectibles--almost everything imaginable, really. (In the market for a Geiger counter? EBay had more than 30 of them when we checked.) Bidding is similar to the process on reseller sites, but you and the individual seller arrange the method of payment and delivery. The site takes a small cut of the seller's proceeds but isn't otherwise involved. (Buyers pay nothing to the site.)

As we've said, the product selection at every Web auction is in constant flux. But it's not completely unpredictable. Onsale, for instance, had a stellar selection of desktop computers each time we dropped in--around 120 models, including lots of brand-name equipment (from Acer, Hewlett-Packard, and IBM, for instance) and up-to-date technology (Pentium III chips). By contrast, First Auction stocked only 40 desktops, chiefly from obscure vendors like Gazelle and QualityClick (who?). On the other hand, First Auction came close to being a virtual department store--we ran across Weber grills, Body by Jake hip and thigh sculptors, fancy Mickey Mouse watches, leather love seats, electric pet-fences, and tins of gourmet popcorn (just the sort of fare that you would expect from the online arm of TV's Home Shopping Network).

Among the person-to-person sites, there was no competing with EBay's ridiculously vast offerings--nearly 2 million items in every conceivable category were up for auction when we visited. About a tenth as many auctions were under way at Yahoo--still a formidable selection. Amazon.com Auctions was brand-new when we shopped there, so choices were noticeably sparser. Given the site's inviting design and Amazon's millions of book-buying customers, we'd expect the selection to grow rapidly.