The Saga Continues .........Search For Superior Alternative To Ebay

The next site I stumbled upon in my search for somewhere to sell my stuff was AuctionBytes. I did not realise that they were not actually a selling platform, but more a place for sellers to gather and discuss selling issues.

I joined the forum, and read the posts. There did not seem to be huge activity there, and some of the threads had never been answered. I read the information provided about the owners of the site and liked what I saw. They seemed dedicated, helpful and professional. I added them to my favourites list.

Since then I have looked occasionally at the Forums there, particularly the collectables, but they are rather static. There does not seem to be a huge amount of input there and what is there is very sporadic. I've tried posting and seeing whether I can speed things up for them, and got one or two answers eventually, but generally not much activity.

I was reminded of this recently when one of the owners of this site commissioned a writer to write a piece on Specialist Auctions. It is a good read, and really sums up the ethos behind Specialist Auctions. Here is a link to it if you would like to read it :

www.auctionbytes.com/

The author was lucky in interviewing one of the founding owners of Specialist Auctions and one of the wisest people I know. Not many people these days still follow the traditional 'My word is my bond' moral. Integrity seems to be getting more and more scarce to find in people today. So it is a pleasure to deal with this gentleman, who is head of the team in control of the day to day running of Specialist Auctions.

But I am getting ahead of myself, just after the New Jersey Earthquake I tried again.

Another Sunday evening was looming, and I was again determined to spend a couple of hours Googling my eyes out searching for an online selling platform. My DH (Dear Husband) had built a brand new website for me, but what with working long hours, and my lack of knowledge, it was outdated and languishing incomplete and not updated after only a month or two online. And as females do, I kept changing my mind: about the format, about the categories, even about the colour scheme. It is a shame I did not keep it up to date, since I deliberated over the new name for days, if not weeks.

On one of my way out 'deep in the depths of the web' trawls that Sunday, I found a list of online selling venues. I eyed them cynically - I recognised most of them, since they were mostly already 'has beens' from my point of view. I had already 'road tested' more than three quarters of them on the list.

Then I spotted Specialist Auctions. Sounding more like one of those posh online antique malls (the kind which charge the earth, give only one picture and ten words per UK£500 item), I clicked on the link, fully expecting to be disappointed. But I was not.

Specialist Auctions gave a very good first impression. The first thing I noticed was something missing - something quite amazing and very unexpected - those hideously gaudy epilepsy-inducing nightmares of flickering, jumping flashing neon red and green adverts, usually for the American green card lottery, or an online casino.

Delightful not to be bombarded with that. Already I was grateful and I hadn't even read a word yet................