Another eBay competitor enters the ring

The decision by eBay to require its vendors to use its PayPal payment system appears to have triggered something of a new spring for online trading sites.

First Melbourne-based online auction site OZtion reported that new listings on its site have exploded since the unpopular eBay announcement, and now a new internet trading site has announced its plan to take on the market leader.

OfferMe.com.au, which will launch in August, works like a kind of eBay in reverse. Buyers will list what they want to buy on the site, and then sellers lob in bids to meet the demand. The clever thing about the system is that it can allow unrelated individuals to make bulk purchases by looking to see if there are any other people with a similar buy listing on the site.

OfferMe chief Albert Yang says he decided to found the company after being frustrated with the likes of eBay.

“For a long time I was searching for an alternative website that actually made buying online simple and was easy and fun to use. As a time-poor consumer I found there were no websites that championed buyers and allowed me to tell retailers exactly what I wanted and how much I was willing to realistically pay. So I devised OfferMe which makes connecting buyers and sellers incredibly fast and efficient,” Yang says.