User Base:  

Overstock has tons of items for sale through their shopping venue, but the dedicated auction site is somewhat limited. While we were reviewing the service, Overstock had an average of 15,000 auctions running.

Fees:  

Overstock’s listing fees are technically lower than eBay, but not by much. Registration is free and listing costs range from 10¢ to $3.15. Final value fees are also less expensive than eBay, only 3% for items sold under $25. If your items don’t sell, you can relist your items for free as many times as it takes to sell them.

Upgrading your listing and adding attention getters to Overstock listings costs about the same as eBay, $1 for bold and $5 for highlighting. Having your auction featured costs $13.17. The first picture you upload is free, but you can add up to 6 more for 10¢ each.

Overstock also has subscription plans for frequent and concurrent users. Plans start at $6.95 a month for 25 simultaneous listings. Or you can open a store and cross promote your items on the details page.

Selling:  

Selling on Overstock is easy, though they are missing some advanced features that make selling even easier. Sellers can’t list multiple items under a Dutch auction, nor can they have a private auction listing. Sellers are also not allowed to block bidders for any reason and can’t cancel bids.

Sellers can add a subtitle to their auction listings and offer their items at fixed prices if they wish. A page counter is located at the bottom of each listing page so you can see how many times your item has been viewed.

Buying:  

Looking for auction items and bidding on them is simple on Overstock.com. Advanced search functions make looking for specifics even easier. You can also easily change how your search results are sorted and listed. You can change how many search results are displayed per page (10,20,50,80,100), and sort the listings in a number of different ways, including time remaining, number of bids, and price.

Overstock also includes a live time clock on every page that continuously counts down the auction without having to repeatedly refresh your page. However, you must remember to refresh occasionally to update other bids.

Reliability/Security:  

Overstock relies on the typical feedback program, allowing both buyers and sellers to leave comments and ratings about other members. Buyers and sellers are then encouraged to review other members’ feedback to determine if they can be trusted based on previous transactions and other members’ experiences.

To deter sniping, all Overstock auctions are placed on “soft closes”, which means if there is any bidding activity within the last ten minutes of the auction, the auction is extended for another 10 minutes, after which, bidding closes.

High priced items require bidders to place credit card deposits as earnest money on the product they are bidding on. All deposits will be refunded when the auction closes.

Help/Support:  

Getting help with Overstock is easy. Overstock has email support, and a comprehensive FAQs section. You can even search specifically in the help department. The Overstock community includes an auctions message board where users can ask questions and receive answers on a variety of topics. Each department (e.g. art, consumer electronics) even has its own department forum.

Overstock.com is a good online auction venue and a decent alternative to eBay. It includes many of the same features and provides you with the safety of using a well-known company to host or buy at online auction.

For the best online auction site, see our review of eBay. Or if you're looking for an eBay alternative, see our reviews of eBid and Online Auction.