Amazon.co.uk Auctions

Advantages: Cheap, easy to use

Disadvantages: few users, few sellers, few items, small business compared 2 ebay

Amazon.co.uk is huge and is one of the most visited sites in the world so this is great from a sellers perspective.
However Amazon auctions is a different story altogether.#

Amazon auctions is really simple and easy to use, its pretty similar to ebay except paying to list the item is easier as it charges you through your amazon account (safer payment than direct bank - like ebay usually want);

listing an item----
listing is great, you can select your own picture for your item (obviously) (though you cannot do this in marketplace) and you are not charged to do so. The cost of listing is not that much, however you do get charged to put a starting price etc. I payed 81p to list my item so that is very little, HOWEVER had i listed on marketplace it would have been free BUT they would have taken a lot of amazon taxes (like £1.00/£2.00) but if the item doesnt sell on marketplace you dont get charged, however on auctions you would, (but you can re-list for free (once more) (that was the rule when i listed my item)

Another thing is I could not list on ebay as my bank account was an under 18's but I could on Amazon, having sold loads and made loads from amazon.co.uk marketplace i thought id try selling on auction.

Unfortunately I did not get the result I was hoping for or near what I was expecting. I was selling two ps2 games worth maybe £20 in total (socom us navy seals) I got the games for around a fiver (from ebay) and they eventually sold for about that much, on top of that I got negative feedback from a very fussy buyer.
I know for a fact I would have got more selling the items individually on Amazon.co.uk marketplace. Since that bad experience I have never used marketplace again, though I am tempted to...I feel that not enough people visit the amazon auctions, its not as common and obvious as marketplace.

From a buyers perspective---

I have searched through marketplace on several occasions looking for good deals - things I may use like playstation 2 games, or things I may sell, cheap pc games. I know that amazon.co.uk originally started off as a book seller - this is evident in the auctions as most items are either books or very old DVD's. There are often collectible figures and DVDs of television series. I have never bought anything from auctions as I have never found anything that interests me.
Compared to ebay a much larger auctioning website amazon auctions is just not as good there are much fewer sellers and much fewer items.
Just to make sure things have not changed I just went on to s1.amazon.co.uk - amazon auctions website and looked for ALL Playstation 2 games, there was only one some NFL game going for a fiver with 0 bids.


However the way amazon auctions is built is great, its really easy to use to list items and buy items, the amazon account for sending and receiving payments is great as its secure and all transactions go through amazon so you cannot be scammed and you will receive the money. I think if amazon effectively advertised their amazon auctions and more people payed attention and used it then it could be a great success.

S1.amazon.co.uk is the website for amazon auctions (in the UK) otherwise auctions.amazon.com for amazon.com's auctions.

Summary: Stick to ebay for auctions, but use amazon for selling. The audience is too small for auctions !