The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and well in the online-auction industry. This week I spoke to two different ventures that have launched in the last few months: online auction site Bidfields and auction-management software site AuctionMagnet.

Both sites have been in development for some time (14 months for Bidfields and two years for AuctionMagnet). They both have asked Power Sellers what they need, and designed their services around these real seller concerns. And they both claim their services are easy to use and easy to navigate.

Bidfields http://www.bidfields.com told me that they will never allow large commercial retail stores on their site. "Our business model became simple to construct. To design and implement an online auction site that could be much like some of the larger sites were when they first started and to have ours stay that way."

Here's how Bidfields describes their site:

Chris Kilpatrick founded the site. Chris has owned and operated computer hardware sales firms in Manitoba, Canada. The company has a current staff of five, which will grow as the company becomes more successful. The site was launched February 1st and has already received 7 million hits. As of March 1st, the site has had well over 5,000 items posted. In a genuine effort to reward those who have used the site during the first month we have decided not to charge any enhancement fees whatsoever. Additionally, we will be offering all of our posting enhancements for free for the month of March as well. There are no listing or final valuation fees. Anyone can post items on the auction for free without enhancements. We allow URL's and e-mail addresses in all postings.

AuctionMagnet http://www.auctionmagnet.com was started by two eBay PowerSellers. Auction Magnet is an auction management service for eBay sellers. Delinda Burger and Dana Michaelis met while consulting with the same startup in Silicon Valley. They quickly became friends and started a company devoted to teaching others about how to operate a business online and market through the online auction venue. They met the CEO of Catalog.com, an early entrant in the Web-hosting business. The two companies joined forces to create AuctionMagnet.com.

Here's what AuctionMagnet says about their service:

AuctionMagnet incorporates all the tools eBay Powersellers demand: Image hosting and attractive ad templates, an efficient checkout process, accounting and inventory management, ad history, post sale record keeping, bulk relist, auto emails and financial reports. Where AuctionMagnet.com outshines its competitors is its ability to integrate auction selling with Web site selling.

If you’ve had any experience with these two services, or have any other Sites you’d like to recommend, post them in the AuctionBytes Forums – there's one just for specialty auction sites at http://www.auctionbytes.com/forum/phpBB/viewforum.php?forum=2&134!