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Atomic Mall: A review of a rising star

Posted by SaleHoo

Atomic MallIts mission, as stated in its “About Us” page, is plain and simple: “To make online shopping fun again!” And judging from its steady growth, vibrant activity, and glowing reviews, it appears that Atomic Mall is succeeding.

Started only in July 2008, the eBay alternative now has close to 6,500 sellers, and nearly 120,000 active listings. Part of this startup’s early success is probably because it has learned from eBay’s mistakes, and is committed to avoid these oversights. Atomic Mall’s features include:

* Free signup and membershipFree listings
* Free submission to search engines and shopping comparison sites
* Competitive completion fees charged only when you make a sale, starting from a fixed price of 10 cents for each transaction worth USD 2.50 or below, then calculated as a percentage of the transaction amount for transactions costing above this minimum amount. The percentage charged depends on the type of account you hold, and the transaction amount itself. You can check on the relevant FAQ for the complete listing of fees.
* Bulk uploader to speed up listings
* Single shopping cart, even when purchasing from multiple sellers
* Free storefront with search tools and categories
* Multiple payment options, including Google Checkout, Paypal, Money Orders/Cashier’s Checks, and Personal Checks. A Seller can opt to include any one of these pay methods, or all of them.
* Built-in site-wide chat system

Recently, Atomic Mall has partnered with Repatoo.com, an online repository of buyer and seller feedback from various sources. Other innovations are planned, such as allowing buyers to haggle or negotiate with sellers. But perhaps the defining feature is the stated assurance that buyers and sellers are treated as 100% equals.

But as the proof is in the pudding, the best indicator of Atomic Mall’s success ought to be in happy, satisfied buyers and sellers. A look at the Atomic Mall community boards shows overwhelming positive feedback thus far, and it seems sellers are both happy and optimistic. And if that still doesn’t convince you, then check out these positive responses on the Amazon sellers’ forum .

Atomic Mall has served notice! And its star is rising on the ecommerce horizon. What are your experiences with this emerging eBay competitor?

 

Comment by Jeff Smith

January 30, 2009 @ 2:06 am

I feel Atomic Malls time has arrived. After selling on eBay for 8 years with a 100% feedback it feels good to be wanted instead of disposable. eBay is so used to being the only game in town it didn’t matter how good a seller you were. They figured you were a drop in the bucket with thousands to take your place. Listing rates kept going up and sellers fees increased as they got bigger. Instead of going down. PayPal who eBay owns was no easier to deal with. I sold a toner cartridge which listed for well over $100 for a 85% discount to a person who wanted it shipped to a non-verified address using someone else’s account. I shipped it to the account holder at a commercial address. 30 days after receiving it they filed a complaint with PayPal saying the toner was out of ink. It was Black toner and I included the weight of all toner I sold and asked for it back to confirm. In the meantime PayPal refunded the account holder his money after I had faxed all sale documents showing different buyer,shipping address and commercial account holder. When I received the toner only 2 ozs. had been used. It had been inserted in the Magenta toner slot and had Magenta toner all over the right side so if it was put in the Black tomer slot it would print Magenta along the right side. I reported my findings to PayPal said it was full of Black toner and ruined by Magenta toner and was garbage. They didn’t refund my money. I opened a new case and 2 weeks later they said I had to ship the toner to them and gave me case #’s and address. Luckily I hadn’t thrown the toner out. For about $7 I shipped it Priorty Mail to Texas. They denied my case saying I failed to ship the toner. I faxed them USPS proof of mailing and they re-opened the case. They lost the toner and I was out an additional $7. This is not an isolated case with PayPal or eBay. As I’ve mentioned I have a lifetime 100% feedback and just over 4.85 DSR rating and lost cases to people with multiple complaints against them. What good is a rating system for except to attract buyers? When eBay and PayPal don’t take you seriously! Monopolies are never fair. Fresh blood benefits everyone and equalizes the marketplace. Jeff Smith

Comment by Simply Fabulous

January 30, 2009 @ 10:09 am

I’m with the user above me. I too felt disrespected from eBay and have been looking for a new “home” for YEARS! After being scammed by so many buyers, and all the unfair policies from eBay, I knew it was time for a chance. I cancelled my account for good, and opened one at Atomic Mall! The staff is friendly and so are the users! The site is truely a blessing and I would recommend anyone to use it! No competitors trying to run your business rep into the ground either! You will get many views and sales! You can transfer your feedback as well! Their right, selling is FUN again instead of a WAR! :) Thanks Atomic Mall for treating us like human beings with respect! :)

Comment by Alison

January 30, 2009 @ 12:16 pm

Atomic Mall sure has put the fun back into online selling. But I didn’t come to Atomic Mall for the fun. I am there because, when I finally took the time to check the site out last September, I recognized that it is a uniquely powerful site backed by an outstanding owner who is most definitely going to take it far. The site is impressive. The search engine exposure is extremely impressive. The owner’s combination of intelligence, computer skills, problem-solving abilities, ecommerce insight, and hard-working dedication is unmatched in any other site that I have ever come across (and I’ve evaluated many over the last three years).

As of today, Atomic Mall has 123,835 active listings and 7,681 active members. Atomic Mall sellers can also now accept online payments through Amazon Payments in addition to Google Checkout and PayPal. Sellers can also now sell Gift Certificates for their storefronts in any amount from $5. to $500.! It is rare for a few days to pass without some notable upgrades and/or new features being added to the site. :)

Comment by drquinn

January 31, 2009 @ 12:21 pm

Atomic Mall looks like a good alternative to eBay. One drawback to Atomic Mall that will be a barrier for merchants like myself is that while Atomic Mall takes payment by credit card, they do not seem to allow sellers to take payment via their own credit card processing systems, requiring instead that you take payments through PayPal, Google and Amazon. At least that is all that is offered when you want to ‘upgrade’ to Gold membership and I assume the same limitation exists for Silver. That unfortunately amounts to additional cost and effort for established merchants. Buyers also have better remedies for purchase issues via MasterCard and VISA.

Comment by Eileen

February 3, 2009 @ 7:34 am

atomic is the best site I have seen since I quit Greedbay one year ago. The customer service is outstanding – I can contact the owner personally and get a reply. Unimaginable on that other site. AM is evolving rapidly and will go far. I have heartily recommended it to many Greedbay sellers since I landed here in September. Upgrades are constant, however sales for me personally are not great (I sell high end clothing and we ARE in a depression) but I have faith, the sellers are helpful and IMO honest, and Mike, well, I can not exalt him enough. Try atomic – you will be impressed.

Comment by Wood Splitter

February 4, 2009 @ 9:39 pm

Interesting. As a silver powerseller on eBay I get ate up on fees. Thanks for the info

Comment by SUE LEE

February 5, 2009 @ 6:10 pm

I can relate so much to Jeff about EBay and Pay Pal and thought it was just me. I am a Powerseller for EBay andit seems to be one problem after another . . . and they are not on the side of the sellers at all. All they care about is the buyers and forget without us, there would not be any buyers. And the same with Pay Pal. I had a case I did with a package that supposedly was not delivered overseas, there is no USPS tracking overseas but no matter what I did and I provided to prove I shipped this item to this UNVERIFIED BUYER, I was still WRONG, they refunded the buyer and I am sure they are going to get their package. So in essence they got their purchase for free and I am out the $55 plus fees!! I am looking to build my business but it appears EBay and Pay Pal is obviously not going to be my big break. I have not tried this Atomic Mall yet and wonder if this would be a good route to opening and building my store and business. Thanks to anyone that can help.

Comment by neil holbrook

February 8, 2009 @ 8:17 pm

This is a great site. I just opened a store and the wizard for google base is wonderful and am looking forward to posting more products and photos there. This site is more, I feel, than a simple ebay alternative. Salehoo has chinavashion on its list as a drop shipper and they are an aggressive drop shipper and have a geat list of ebay alternatives listed on their site. I readf McGriff’s newsletter but do not like ebay but find his newsletter informative to say-the-least. Atomic Mall also allows Google Checkout and I do hope it someday soon will let individual sellers use authorize.net which I already have an active merchant account with. Sue Lee. give the mall a good try, you haver a listing fees and you set the time limit when your listing expires and you can customize your storefront to a limited degree you can display more than one photo at no charge. The more sellers simply means more visitors and this helps all of us. My store, pardon the advert. is theponymansdeals and feel free to check it out. I also recommend to sellers to buy Bling It for easy transformation of product photos from the ugly white (which also means slower loading) to better backgrounds and are also resized to the proper pixel size for use on the web. I enjoy Salehoo myself and all of Jimmy’s enthusiasm. It’s catching.

Comment by SUE LEE

February 11, 2009 @ 7:48 pm

I am having problems with listings as I cannot figure how to down load my photos but I do want to give this a shot for my store. I am just scared to transfer totally from EBay at this point. Thanks for any advice.

Comment by SaleHoo

February 11, 2009 @ 7:58 pm

Hi Sue,

Do you mean you are having trouble uploading your photos to your Atomic Mall listings?

Hope we can help you out :)

Comment by SUE LEE

February 12, 2009 @ 6:29 am

YES – THAT IS IT

Comment by SaleHoo

February 12, 2009 @ 5:36 pm

Hi again Sue,

You might find this information helpful: http://www.atomicmall.com/uploaderhelp.php

Looks like your images have to be hosted, so you could try uploading them to somewhere like http://photobucket.com/ and then copying and pasting in the image URLs.

Comment by Janine

February 17, 2009 @ 8:00 pm

I’ve read a few different articles on Atomic Mall and do agree that it does look like a great alternative to Ebay. I am equally fed up with Ebay but it becomes equally annoying when you realize that the facts are what they are. Ebay has something close to 84 million members. How do you compete with that? At the very least, it does take courage and I applaud anyone who makes an attempt to take on the beast and do a stomping dance on the monopoly that Ebay has become.

There are lots of us sellers out here who are fed up with the money-hungry monster that Ebay has become. However, one of the main reasons why Ebay is successful is for the way in which their policies protect the buyer. Like it or not. And the buyers know it. Like it or not.

Buyer confidence, no matter which online auction site you run, needs to be one of a company’s main priorities and the policies need to reflect that. How can you possible grow if buyer confidence is lacking? And, if any of these new online auction sites are successful, it only stands to reason that the site’s policies will change. Take Ebay as an example. They grew into a mega-beast first by going after sellers and building a market, and now everything over there is geared at retaining the buyers and spoon-feeding their trust so they stick around. And you have to keep in mind that deadbeat sellers booted off Ebay will be going to other venues as these ebay-alternatives appear in the online marketplace. As the numbers grow, and they will, these deadbeats will have a direct affect on a company’s policies, at some point. These challenges are not exclusive to Ebay.

There needs to be some kind of policy right from the get-go on how deadbeat sellers are dealt with so that not every seller has to suffer the same consequences across the board—like what Ebay’s policies have turned into. Ebay is all about building buyer confidence and buyer retention because they have way more than enough sellers to go around—coupled with the fact (a more important fact) that these ebay-alternatives have made it to the park and are ready to play ball.

No matter what your feelings might be about Ebay, their policies, and how the site is run, we all owe them a round of applause as (hopefully) someone out here is learning from them and will be able to get it right—not just short-term, but for the long haul.

Comment by phil

February 18, 2009 @ 3:13 am

Atomic Mall is a good alternative to eBay. While I applaud eBay’s measures to protect buyers, as all sellers should, I do feel unwanted by eBay. I am a powerseller and feel that the changes to eBay have been too thick and too fast. Add to that the sheer number of subsidiaries that eBay now own and I fear that they have lost focus.

My main concern for Atomic Mall is whether it is possible for a new player to gain enough footfall for it to be a really viable alternative to ebay and Amazon. I would not give up selling on eBay at this point, but will sell on Atomic Mall and watch its progress with interest.

Comment by Erin

March 3, 2009 @ 8:26 pm

Just a question. I was searching for Christian Louboutin shoes on sale and came across atomicmall.com where they are being sold. If this is a legit site how is it that shoes that are sold for $600, $700 or $800 in stores can be sold for just $200 or $300?

I really don’t want to get scammed and have money stolen from me because of my weakness for designer shoes.

Comment by SaleHoo

March 3, 2009 @ 10:53 pm

Auction marketplaces aren’t under any obligation to check the authenticity of the product being sold there. They just provide the platform – although some like eBay do go to lengths to remove sellers of fakes. It may be that these items are genuine, but liquidation. However, to be safe, you need to ask the seller for the chain of title and documentation proving authenticity. Also take a good look at their feedback and see what other customers are saying. Good luck!

Comment by Francisco Batista Jr

June 6, 2009 @ 9:16 pm

Selling at Atomic Mall Has been Fantastic – eBay Should Be Shot Dead , the buyers here are very friendly.

Comment by Darian

August 3, 2009 @ 7:13 pm

To Erin,

I’ve also been interested in buying some Louboutins off of Atomic Mall, but most of the listings make a point to tell you that they are mirror quality reproductions, NOT authentic Louboutin’s. That is why they are so much cheaper.

Comment by David Gibson

January 16, 2010 @ 10:55 am

eBay is outright unethical and should be shut down as fraud, immoral, and incompetent business doings are their standard method of operations.

I was a seller with 2000 things at all time.

I got kicked off including all 2000 of my things at least 7 times. All with NO VIOLATIONS on my part.

Once, I sold scrimshaw whales teeth figurines, CLEARLY DESCRIBED IN LARGE CAPS THAT THEY WERE RESIN AND NOT REAL WHALE’S TEETH. All my items gone. My income destroyed for a month as getting eBay to respond took over a week. Relisting 2000 items took a couple weeks.

This getting a response from eBay and relisting process occurred each time I got kicked off, causing financial devastation to my family.

Three separate times I got kicked off for selling official government license plates. These were officially licensed sports team plates. eBay admitted there was no violation each time, yet I repeatedly got kicked off for the items.

An R rated movie got me kicked off for posting X rated material in the normal section. The movie was called “Boob Tube” and had people like Bill Murray in it.

And Paypal is another absolute fraud. Look-up the testimony of the former employee that tells that they purposefully freeze accounts on purposefully dubious criteria because Paypal has gotten taken by so many fraudsters that the management feels that it is ok for them to protect their profits in this manner.

I am signing up for Atomic-Mall. I don’t have any experience with them. I hope they are an ethical alternative as well as growing enough to be profitable.

Hopefully, the praise I find is true.

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