What is eCRATER?
eCRATER was launched by Dimitar Slavov. His driving force was to create a “clean and simple” eCommerce platform where buying and selling is easy. Given his background in programming, Dimitar got to work in early 2004; and in September of that year, eCRATER was born, hosted in Irvine, California.
eCRATER advertises as a “free web store builder and an online marketplace”. This means that eCRATER serves two distinct functions. The first function of eCRATER is that it is an “online store builder”. This means that it gives people who have products to sell the opportunity to create an online store to list and sell their products. The online store comes complete with a unique URL.
The second function that eCRATER serves is that it is an online marketplace. That is, it shows every item listed by Sellers in a generic place, where Buyers can browse items to make a purchase. In this regards, eCRATER simply connects Sellers and Buyer for selling and buying.
Features
When selling through this online auction store, you don't have to worry about paying a bunch of fees. There are no monthly fees to open a store and no costs to verify you as a seller. You also don't have to pay any final value fees unless eCRATER helps you receive a sale through the main marketplace. If this is the case, you will be charged a 2.9 percent fee. This fee is calculated from the final cost the buyer pays for your product. You can choose to opt out of selling through the main marketplace, but this makes you less likely to be noticed by buyers.
There are more than 65,000 users of this service. This definitely isn't the biggest online auction site we evaluated, but it certainly is not the smallest. For a bigger online buying audience, we recommend you sell through eBay which has millions of registered users. When you set up a store using this service, you can have your products fed to Google Shopping to bring in additional traffic and help you sell your products. You can also integrate with Google Analytics to view your traffic and improve your store.
However, there are some limitations to eCRATER. You cannot ship internationally with this service; you must ship within the United States, limiting your potential buyers. eCRATER also does not support HTML or other coding, so customization of your store is minimal. This is a drawback, as customization can help you draw in customers and keep them coming.
Setting up your store is simple. There are icons to help you add products and change your settings. A side menu helps you choose your features and settings, making it easy to set up and get your store rolling. You can also import eBay products into your eCRATER store to save you the time of manually adding products you've already listed there. However, you cannot import your feedback into the store to show buyers you are a trusted seller. If you're selling products across multiple auction sites, or considering doing so, we recommend that you sell through Bonanza because the site makes it easy to manage inventory across multiple sites.
Payment options and support
Numerous payment options are available through this online auction service. You can accept money from PayPal, direct credit card processing through Stripe, money orders, cashier's and personal checks, and Collect on Delivery, also known as COD.
There are few customer support options available with this service. You can contact representatives via email, but there are no telephone or live chat options. There is a FAQs page on the company website that can answer some of your questions, but it is relatively short.
Pricing
An important consideration is pricing. You’ll want to know what it will cost to use the platform. eCRATER shines in this regards. It is absolutely free to use the platform. You can create your online store, and add your item, all for free.
However, it should be said that the eCRATER shining light (in terms of service pricing), while still shining blindingly in comparison to other platforms, has dimmed somewhat in recent times. This is because, in times past, it was completely free to use eCRATER. Many “free” online marketplaces, are free until your item sells.
When a sale is made, you’ll then have to pay the marketplace a commission (called the Final Value Fee). Formerly, eCRATER was free all the way. That is, even after a sale is made, you keep the payment 100%.
Currently, eCRATER is free for sales that you bring to your store yourself; while there’s a small commission for sales that eCRATER brings to your store. Thus, if you simply use eCRATER to create your store, and then proceed to exclusively drive your own sales, you’ll get to keep all that you make.
Thus, while exclusively driving your own sales, eCRATER is 100% free. But when Buyers come to the marketplace, then get to your products, and make a purchase, eCRATER will charge you a 2.9% marketplace fee.
On the whole, eCRATER’s pricing is arguably the best you’ll find. Not only is it free to create your online store and list your items, but when your products sell, you’ll not have to pay commissions on some of those sales (sales your bring yourself).
Where you have to pay commissions (sales brought to you by eCRATER), the required commission is relatively small (only 2.9% of items price).
Another important consideration is when fees are dues, as no Seller will want a platform that always bangs on the door for its fees. eCRATER also does well in this regards. For sales, it sends to you in any given month, eCRATER will generate and send you an invoice 15 days after that month ends.
