Free listing day boosts listings and sellers at Overstock’s new auctions
A free listing day offered to sellers last week on Overstock’s new auction site more than quintupled the number of items listed on the site in a single day and doubled the number of sellers listing on the site, Overstock vice president of auctions Holly MacDonald-Korth tells Internet Retailer.
The site, launched in September and accessible through a link on shopping site Overstock.com, had been averaging about 25,000 items listed at any given time. Overstock differentiates its auctions from eBay’s, among other ways, with listing fees it says are 30% lower and a price break on listing fees to volume sellers. The free listing day, aided by increased holiday shopping activity, raised the total number of items listed on the site to about 165,000 in one day, MacDonald-Korth says.
“We were getting as many items listed in one hour as we usually did per day,” she says. Currently, items listed on the site are averaging about 120,000, a threshold she aims to maintain as Overstock boosts marketing support for the auction site. It’s critical that the growth of listings on offer keeps pace with the growth of traffic to the site, she adds.
“With an auction site you need to drive a lot of traffic because you want the sellers to sell their items, but if you drive a lot of traffic to the site and there are not a lot of products there, the people you drive there are going to leave and not come back,” she says. “If you have a lot of products but don’t drive a lot of traffic, then the sellers aren’t going to list their products there again.”
MacDonald-Korth adds that about 15% of Overstock.com’s visitors also view Overstock Auctions. Sellers include those new to online auctions as well as those looking for either an alternative to or an add-on to their selling efforts on eBay, where MacDonald-Korth says some sellers are finding growth has plateaued as eBay’s rate of growth slows. “They are looking for additional outlets to move their products and grow their business and they are agnostic as to which outlet that is,” she says. “Our goal is not to get people to leave eBay, but to look at us too. Our other goal is to get people who haven`t been auction customers to become auction customers.” MacDonald-Korth adds that another free listing day for Overstock Auctions is planned.
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