Evaluation Criteria for auction sites

The best way to know where to sell your goods is to evaluate auction sites.

Use the following criteria to evaluate the two sites as a practice run. Continue
to add to your criteria as you gain experience. You want to locate the best
auction sites for your product or service.
1) Degree of professionalism -- Many auction sites are so amateurish that
they are an immediate turn-off. This does not mean that unless the site owner
has spent $10,000 creating a site we should ignore it. Sound business
practices, however, do need to prevail.
2) Ease of use -- Net research has proved again and again that site owners
have a few critical seconds to either entice a visitor to stay, or turn her off
entirely. And causing confusion in potential customers is a great way to send
them screaming away.
3) Targeted traffic -- Starting a general site and successfully competing with
huge, well-financed, already established giants may be possible -- but it’s
unlikely. However, smaller niche sites (who specialize in a field that is too
small for the giants to bother with) have a chance for success. Attracting
targeted traffic is their only reason for being.
4) Site promotion -- One of the ways that eBay grew to be so gigantic, so
quickly, is because it has spent a fortune advertising itself. Not only has it paid for advertisements but eBay has also created an affiliate program, developed
strategic alliances and has skillfully used press releases. In short, eBay has
followed all the rules of sound Internet business practices.
If you are going to ally yourself with an auction site, you need to make sure that
the owner is actively promoting the site in as many ways as possible. As a
potential customer you have the right to ask. If their response isn’t satisfactory,
then carefully consider whether you should spend time with them.
5) Site owner interest and enthusiasm -- The last, and most subjective,
criterion is whether the site seems lively and interesting. Do you have a feeling
that the owners are excited about what they are doing? Keeping any auction
site alive is intense work, and if the owner isn’t interested in doing it, forget it
and go elsewhere.