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Australian marketplace Quicksales is eliminating selling fees effective immediately as part of its strategy to compete with U.S.-owned eBay. Quicksales offers auction, fixed price and classified listings. The move to a free marketplace will be supported by an ad campaign to be launched in the new fiscal year, which starts on July 1st.

The company timed the announcement of its move to a free marketplace on the same day eBay is increasing seller fees and weeks after eBay-owned Gumtree introduced a fee to edit an ad.

Quicksales General Manager James Curtain told EcommerceBytes the site doesn't have the brand that eBay and Gumtree have, but can offer Australians a local alternative. "Unlike our overseas competitors, we want to help Australian online shoppers get the best deal possible. The removal of fees means savings for our sellers, which translates to cheaper, more affordable prices for local customers."

Those presumably cheaper prices for buyers will be the message to shoppers in the ad campaign that will include online, print, outdoor media - the focus of the campaign will be television ads. The campaign will also include the message that you can sell anything on Quicksales for free.

"As eBay moves away from mom and pop and garage sellers, we're happy to accept them on Quicksales," Curtain said. The Australian marketplace has been making aggressive moves since June of last year when it underwent a full redesign and relaunch, including site development, new features and the launch of the classified format six months ago. And more new features are coming, including a new search feature.

Quicksales has 550,000 members of which 25% are sellers, and the site signs up 10,000 new members/month. Users must be based in Australia to sell on the site. There are 2 million items for sale; only about 25,000 of those are in the classified format since it is relatively new on the site, Curtain explained. The rest are Buy It Now or Auction format.

Previously Quicksales charged sellers free listings with a 2% final value fee for auctions and fixed price listings. Classifieds had always been free.

Qshop owners will continue to pay a monthly subscription fee ranging from $5 - $165/month, with no commission fees.

Quicksales offers multiple payment methods and also offers escrow. Curtain said bank deposits and PayPal account for 80% of payments to its sellers. Some of the most popular categories on the site include automotive; clothing and accessories; household items; books and magazines; and hobby, enthusiast and craft items.

The marketplace was established in 2005 as OZtion and rebranded as Quicksales in February 2011 after being acquired in 2010 by Carsales.com, a publicly owned company and the self-reported largest online automotive, motorcycle and marine classifieds business in Australia.

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About the author:

Ina Steiner is co-founder and Editor of EcommerceBytes and has been reporting on ecommerce since 1999. She's a widely cited authority on marketplace selling and is author of "Turn eBay Data Into Dollars" (McGraw-Hill 2006). Her blog was featured in the book, "Blogging Heroes" (Wiley 2008). Follow her on Twitter at @ecommercebytes and send news tips to ina@ecommercebytes.com.

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