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The movie Field of Dreams gave us the famous line "if you build it, they will come." In the field of ecommerce, that phrase could describe the dream of entrepreneurs to carve out a thriving online auction business despite the looming shadow of the Really Big Gavel: eBay.
Mark Wilkinson was repeating a variation on the Field of Dreams mantra to himself back in 1998 when he started UK-based eBid (http://www.ebid.net). He and his partner, Gary Sewell, built their site backwards: instead of the typical approach of raising and spending huge amounts of capital to gain members and establish repeat business, they had faith that first building a high-performance auction site would attract and retain customers.
Of course Wilkinson admits that the concept of eBid.net initially began to take shape before he knew eBay was planning to expand into the UK. "When eBay, armed with an enormous marketing budget that we couldn't match, announced they were coming to the UK, we worked even harder behind the scenes to get the concept right. Once we were able to deliver quality at low cost, the members started to come," said the 42-year-old entrepreneur.
Wilkinson's interest in reaching out to global markets perhaps sprang from globetrotting in his early years. Born in Wakefield, England, in 1964, he spent large parts of his childhood and young manhood abroad as his father served in the Army. A stint with the Royal Corp of Signals then took him to Germany, the Netherlands, the Falkland Islands, and around the UK.
He found success as a stockbroker, working for a number of high-profile firms. But a lucrative and stable career wasn't enough for him. He became increasingly frustrated with working for other people, developing the desire to start his own business just at the time the Internet was booming. In late 1998 Wilkinson made the big leap: he quit his high-paying job and, without any form of income, began to develop eBid with Gary Sewell, who already had experience as a programmer and Web designer.
The first version of eBid went online in January 1999. Immediately, Wilkinson began facing serious challenges. Another giant auction site, QXL.com, had launched around the same time. An offer to purchase eBid fell through in late 1999 when the dot.com crash hit. But eBid survived, thanks to its move to a free listing policy, the development of its own escrow payment service and PPPay.com, as well as to a healthy financial approach to business.
"From day one eBid has always been self sufficient," explained Wilkinson. "We've never taken venture capital or investors on board. In the early years this didn't really include a marketing budget. For any extra hardware we needed, we had to put a little away each month. Nowadays we are able to push market ourselves a little more and have built a stable and speedy hardware infrastructure that can cope with a large influx of extra users when needed."
It's been difficult to win over eBay loyalists who are used to that site's auction system. eBid works differently, and the site lets customers know this up-front. But over the years, a group of repeat customers, primarily from the UK, has grown steadily. eBid now boasts a thriving user community in 14 (soon to be 17) countries.
"The site has grown year on year, but a much accelerated growth pattern has been noticeable in the past 12 months," he observed. "We are becoming much better known in the States as a viable alternative to eBay. We have daily visitors in the tens of thousands and have managed to maintain this level after the spurt we saw when eBay announced their latest set of changes in February."
Over the years, eBid has had its share of unusual sales. One of the most memorable wasn't a single piece of merchandise, but an entire company. "We had an auction competitor selling their company via auction at eBid.net, which was incredibly flattering," said Wilkinson.
Looking ahead, the site plans to add Windows-based listing software, code-named the "Ninja Lister," which will allow sellers to prepare auctions offline and upload them all at once, as well as a shipping calculator.
Wilkinson remains optimistic about the future, both for ecommerce in general and eBid in particular. "e-Commerce is still in its birth period and will continue to grow for centuries to come. The next year will be pretty similar to the last, with worldwide growth and continued encroachment into the realms of bricks and mortar stores. New ideas will come and new ideas will go, but I'm glad eBid is in a field that will always be at the heart of the profitable side of the web."
eBid has built its user base by offering not only free listings, but also the chance to pay a flat subscription fee instead of fees for each sale. eBid also prides itself on attentive service: most email inquiries are answered within one to three hours. Wilkinson counts himself as among eBid's long-term, satisfied customers. "Whenever I want to buy anything, I always do a search at eBid. Now that we have 14 countries interlinked, I am finding more and more items - most recently a mountain bike, some party invitations, and a PS3 game."
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