NAXCOM Taking on eBay

NAXCOM has spent over five years creating a busy marketplace for buyers and sellers of sports cards. Now, the company is branching out into the auction business, promising fees that beat eBay.

The jets that thunder over NAXCOM's corporate headquarters near Los Angeles International Airport travel at speeds of hundreds of miles per hour. Over the last several months, NAXCOM's staff has felt they, too, have been going at a high rate of speed.

The sports card marketplace announced a partnership with Major League Baseball earlier this year, a project that the company had been working on for some time. NAXCOM followed with the recent release of its Multi-Market Lister program, allowing sellers to place cards for sale on several major shopping sites at once from its own launch portal. Now, the company is creating a sibling for its fixed price site. NAXCOM Auctions will launch in September, giving sports card buyers and sellers a new alternative to auction sites like eBay.

"We like to listen to our users and implement things that we think are good ideas that will help the industry," Vice President Bill Elder told Sports Collectors Daily. "They liked our fixed price marketplace but said there is a lot of stuff that just has to be in an auction format and we'd love it if you offered that as an alternative." One year's worth of technology work later, NAXCOM is nearly ready to roll out the auction platform.

While any card can be sold in an auction, the format will likely lend itself to rare and highly popular items. "Generally, it's one-of-a-kind stuff where they realize if they can get a couple of bidders going against each other, they'll get a better price," Elder said.

One enticement for NAXCOM sellers will be the absence of listing fees. eBay currently charges a minimum of 35 cents per listing. NAXCOM also promises lower fees for completed auction transactions.

Account holders will not have to do much of anything different to begin selling via the auction format. Once a listing is created, the seller will decide whether to offer it to the traditional NAXCOM marketplace or in an auction. NAXCOM's current marketplace offers over 9,000,000 items for sale with over 400,000 buy offers.

In addition to lower fees to sell cards of players from Alex Rodriguez to LeBron James to Mickey Mantle, NAXCOM is banking on an adherence to reasonable shipping costs to entice buyers and sellers. Some eBay sellers will charge well over and above the actual cost to ship an item to cover listing and final price fees they pay on eBay. Elder said NAXCOM Auctions will also offer its standard shipping policy that is designed to keep post-auction surprises to a minimum.

"We developed an automated shipping system with a price based on the weight of the item, where it's shipped from and where it's shipped to via the US Postal Service rates. It's all automated so the seller can't gouge the buyer after the sale. The shipping price will always be fair."

NAXCOM will also offer buyers the security of a buyer protection guarantee. When a buyer purchases something from the auction, the money goes into a holding account until the item is delivered to the buyer. Elder also says NAXCOM plans to avoid charging additional fees for "add-on" auction features such as multiple images, subtitles, a buy-it-now feature and longer run times for auctions.