PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
Following on from a successful TV ad campaign last month, British online marketplace OnBuy.com has announced that it has listed its millionth product, reaching a major milestone in its rapid growth. The news comes shortly after the site saw an influx of new visitors, with a record 300,000 users in June.
The site, which launched last November as a British alternative to Amazon, has signed up several major retailers to sell through its platform. The latest is Vivo Technologies, Amazon’s seventh biggest seller, which trades as Electroworld and Thinkprice. Other large-scale sellers to sign up to OnBuy include World of Books Ltd – the largest Amazon bookseller in the UK and the fourth largest Amazon seller in Europe – and Chalky’s, a major UK seller of CDs, DVDs and Blu-Rays.
The main draw of OnBuy for potential sellers, says the company, is its reduced commission fees, which are significantly lower than rivals and give more favourable margins for sellers.
Cas Paton, managing director of OnBuy, said: “To reach a million live products is a real milestone for us and it comes just over six months since we launched. We started out with just a handful of items last autumn, but we were confident in the strength of our offer to both sellers and consumers.
“Hitting the million underlines just how far we have come in a relatively short space of time and reinforces the fact that there is a real appetite out there for an alternative to Amazon and eBay. The TV advertising has earned us fantastic credibility in lots of places and we want to now use this momentum to grow further.
“We are proud to be a British-born company putting our own stamp on online retail and supporting the economy. There are some exciting developments coming up that we can’t announce just yet, but watch this space.”
OnBuy’s growth has been boosted by several key partnerships, including recently signing a two-year partnership deal for hosting and support with leading online cloud services provider UKFast. The partnership ensures the stability, reliability and speed of the OnBuy platform.
OnBuy has also joined forces with ChannelAdvisor, the largest channel system in the world, and putting it what it believes to be a firm footing with Amazon and other big sites. For sellers using ChannelAdvisor, it means they can easily integrate their listings with OnBuy with minimal investment in time or resources through software they already use.
