Image by vaXzine via Flickr

I mentioned in a previous post that one  of the holy grails of the Net is to manage to get user generated content.   In other words, you, the owner, are not having to produce the content or pay someone else or a team of people to produce the content.  Your users do it for you.  Squidoo was the model for that. The other  holy grail is having a transaction site where something….. goods or money, possibly information… is exchanged between users and you just provide the platform, stand in the middle, and collect on every transaction.  Ebay is a transaction site.  So is Paypal.  They are a great thing to have if you can figure out how to build on and get people to come.

If you already have a website, or a blog, then you might consider selling items from that same niche. Let’s say you have a website about antique dolls, you might also start an auction for trading antique dolls on your site.  Look for a niche that’s not overly crowded. eBay no longer allows its sellers to sell digital goods on their site. So,  a new site has sprung up as a marketplace to sell your digital goods:  DigitalBidz. Digital Point Forums, a very robust forum, has a lot of traffic on a portion of their site devoted to buying and selling websites. If you have a website that deals with technology, digital goods or the web, that niche might be a good fit for a website auction.

Here are some niche or specialty auction sites which appeal to a very select audience of collectors and enthusiasts.  Some of them probably have room for competition, so take a close look:

WineBid – for wines

Penbid.com – for antique pens, pencils and books about them

LabX – for lab equipment, medical equipment, analytical instruments

Just Beads! – for beads, jewelry, stones, beaded bags

Pottery Auction – for pottery

Sedo – for domain names

IronPlanet – for heavy machinery, asphalt, trucks

Playle – for vintage postcards

Bid4Assets – for high ticket items such as real estate, cars, jewelries

If you decide you’d like to implement your own auction site, you don’t have to pay $1,000 for the software. Go to The CGI Resource for scripts.  If you aren’t sure how to install it, get a virtual assistant to do it for you; it will still be a fraction of the cost of paying for the packaged software.

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