Consumers are increasingly feeling more comfortable in buyingproducts through the Internet. According to a report releasedrecently by the Department of Commerce first-quarter retail sales rose 23.8 percent to US$ 19.8 billion in the United States fromUS$ 16 billion a year ago. E-commerce sales during the firstquarter of 2005 rose 6.4 percent from the fourth quarter of lastyear. Forrester Research estimated that 2005 online retail saleswill increase at a pace of 22 percent. Today, a third of allhouseholds in US make at least one purchase online within a year, a figure which will grow to almost 40 percent by 2009, predictsForrester. As a seller, this strong growth of online sales meansthat you have to put considerable stress on your Internet salesendeavor if you are not doing this as yet.

According to statistics compiled for the Internet Retailer Top400 Guide, the top retailers in 2004 garnered combined onlinesales of more than US$ 51 billion, which accounts for 58.3percent of all US Internet sales. The growth in online sales isquite impressive for large retailers. J.C. Penny Co. Inc., forexample, reported a 35 percent year-over-year rise of onlinesales in May, 2005. Can new online ventures boast same type ofsignificant growth? Unfortunately, not!

Each day, there are thousands of new companies are setting upshops on the Internet trying to sell every conceivable type ofproducts and services. Most of these websites do not attractenough visitors to make them profitable. Competition on theInternet is fierce! Internet marketing campaigns are becomingincreasing expensive. Many small companies can't afford to spendmoney required to promote their sites. So, what are the optionsavailable for a small company with modest product range to thrive on the Internet? One of the best sales channels, in my opinion,on the Internet by far is auction marketplaces. Of course, nomatter what, you will still need to promote your website with all the methods you can master. However, selling your products andservices through established auction marketplaces has its ownadvantage.

eBay

With 63.8 million unique visitors hitting the auction site onlyin April of this year, eBay has established itself as the largest marketplace on earth. In 2004 alone US$ 34.2 billion worth ofmerchandize exchange hands on eBay. Presently, the site hasaround 135 million registered users in 32 markets worldwide.

With such a vast community of buyers and sellers, eBay should beyour number one choice for selling your products or servicesonline. On the eBay you can sell any kind of item. The varietiesof stuffs people are selling through eBay are mind boggling! Atany given time there are over 29 million items displayed on eBay. The number of new items added each day exceeds 3.5 million.However, still many offline sellers perceive eBay as an auctionsite for mainly collectible items. They can't be more wrong! Thelargest selling category on the eBay is, believe it or not,automobile and accessories, which comprises of almost 22 percentof all sales. I have, personally, bought three luxury cars overthe course of last two years through eBay and I have nothing tocomplain about.

As a seller on the eBay, the biggest advantage that you gain isthe possibility of becoming from a local merchant to aninternational player over night. If you are already sellingmerchandize to consumers online or offline, eBay gives you anadditional sales channel without any extra cost. If you areplanning to begin selling goods or services through the Internet, eBay allows you to start your business online quickly and withminimum expenses.

Yahoo

You may have difficulty in imagining the biggest portal on ourplanet as a marketplace, in some countries, like Japan andCanada, Yahoo auction is, actually, doing better than eBay. Inthe US market Yahoo has just announced its intention to eliminate fees charged for using its auction site. This is a good news foreven many eBay power sellers. Some of them will definitely moveto Yahoo in a bid to save on high fees charged by eBay. The goodthing about Yahoo is slowly it is becoming a major hub for manysmall business web stores. As a matter of fact, according toYahoo, every eighth online store is now hosted by Yahoo.

Amazon

Amazon, may be is not as popular as eBay or Yahoo as far asauction marketplace is concerned, however, many auctioneers claim that some of the products sell better on Amazon than any otherauction marketplace.

Why should you consider selling through auction marketplaces?

Here are some reasons, why auction marketplaces are viable saleschannel for businesses:

? The auction marketplaces are very popular and each ofthem has huge community of buyers and sellers.

? There is virtually no start-up cost involved.

? No extra overhead is required.

? You really don't have to set up a website to startselling.

? Easy to learn.

While determining what to sell through auction marketplaces,choose your products very carefully. Don't try to sell productslike DVD, cellular phones and similar common items. There are way too many people are trying to sell those products. Do yourresearch before jumping into online auctions. Go through thecategories of your choice. See how your competitors are doing.Check out the listings of sold items. For how much the productsyou intend to list are getting sold for? What keywords yourprospective competitors are using to market these products? Onwhich auction site these products are selling better?

Go with the trend! Travel, cosmetics and jewelry sales areexpected to do better than other categories of e-commerce incoming years. In every category of goods and services you willfind a niche, which is doing fairly well. All you have to do isfind that niche by making extensive and thorough research!

Selling through auction marketplaces like any other businessprocess requires sound judgment and careful planning. Be sure touse them before starting your online sales.

Nowshade Kabir, is the founder, primary developer and presentCEO of Rusbiz.com - a Global B2B Exchange with solutions tocreate e-catalog, Web store, business process management andother features to run a business online. You can read variousarticles written by Nowshade Kabir at http://ezine.rusbiz.com.