UTeM A6 3B

uBid.com is an unusual system (see Figure 28-4). It’s a business-to-consumer auction site, selling brand-name products—around a billion dollars’ worth so far—to four-and-a-half million buyers. Every merchant is vetted, transactions are processed by uBid itself, and a 250-person customer- service department aims to ensure that every transaction goes smoothly.

Products sold on uBid.com generally have no reserve and a $1—or very low—minimum bid price. Auctions are generally multiple-item auctions—sometimes hundreds of items. As with eBay, there’s a “buy it now” function that allows people to bypass the auction process and buy a product immediately.

Figure The uBid system, perhaps the only business-to-consumer auction site

uBid provides three ways to work with them: you can manage your own auctions, have them manage the auctions but send you the orders, or have them manage the entire process, from sale to shipping. There’s no automatic signup, of course, because uBid wants to know who you are and ensure that you have a reliable supply of items to sell on their site.