Life Beyond ebay - Is there a viable alternative auction site?

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For years if you wanted to sell your unwanted stuff online, ebay was the only viable option. For a long time this was OK It was a fun site to use with a great community. Problem was , it got too big and lost sight of it"s customers needs, (which often happens when companies get too corporate). For the buyers, the bargains weren"t so much bargains anymore. This was due to sellers having to pay ever increasing fees, feedback changes & being forced to use Paypal.-- not to mention the scam buyers as well as sellers - a fact that paypal (when used in conjunction with ebay) doesn"t seem to recognise This is surely a recipe for decline. Predictably, the final quarter of 2008 saw a big drop in revenue for them. Whether this is due to the recesion, sellers starting their own web sites or even listing on other auction sites, I suspect it"s a bit of all three.
One site which is doing very well is Bonanzle started in June 2008 from Seattle, in the US. Initially it served the USA only but I understand that it will (or already is) available to international buyers and sellers. The best items to list Bonanzle says is not your shiny new and highly mass-produced stuff, Amazon caters for that area very well. It"s everything else and the rarer stuff, collectibles etc Does it get a lot of traffic? Well according to Bonanzle, in Sept 2008 they had over 10.000 items listed. Now (feb 2009) they have over 1.200.000 listed - more than a ten fold increase. This suggests that they must be getting a lot of buyers as well as sellers. This could be the answer to the prayers to of many sellers and even buyers.
Bonanzle at first glance looks very simple and in use it"s as simple as it looks. You can choose to show items you"ve searched for as listed or gallery which will be very familiar to those who"ve used ebay. You can use Paypal if you like but you aren"t forced to. They are also planning to add Google cart. You can also pay by postal order, check etc.as well as cash. How much does it cost? For Paypal, money order or Google checkout the fees are as follows:
First of all, any cash-based transaction is and will continue to be free on Bonanzle. For transactions on Bonanzle that are closed through other forms of payment, such as Paypal, Money Order, and Google Checkout, here is their pricing - which, they guarantee will not increase through to 2010.
Price to list items for sale FREE. which includes four photos -- now beat that ebay.

You can visit Bonanzle Here