ePier Reviewer's Comments

ePier’s simple, yet descriptive navigation and category options make it easy to buy, sell and search. ePeir’s search features allow you to search for items through categories, keywords, username and item number. We found searching for items to be adequate; unfortunately, we had a few problems when using the keyword search. Most of our keyword searches produced relevant results except when we typed in “laptops.” No results were found. Although we were able to find laptops if we went the long way through the category and sub–category searches.

All ePier registration and listing is free. However, there is a fee if you complete a sale. The price and percentage depends on how much the item sold for. For example, if your DVD sold for $10 then ePier would charge you a 2.5 percent commission for your auction. Items sold for more than $1000 are charged $15.25 plus .5 percent of the balance over $1000. Enhancing your items with bold, photo gallery, homepage feature or category features cost extra.

Users can create their own storefront to showcase items they are selling. They can also connect their ePier account to their My Space account for extra exposure. Unfortunately, ePier does not have as many user options as some of the higher ranked services like eBay. They lack features like favorites and preference customization.

One feature we found useful is the live countdown clock on each auction item. ePier does not require you to refresh your page every few moments to get an accurate time reading. It is continuously counting down like a stopwatch.

ePier includes a FAQ where many common questions are answered in sections for buyers, sellers and new users. An interesting addition to ePier’s help section is the community forum. Members can leave messages for other members or tech support on message boards.