Wigix adds Storefronts, seeking to lure away eBay sellers

Poor eBay hasn’t had much luck lately. Even as its PayPal arm has done fairly well, the auction business that it’s known for has suffered, leading to a smoldering rebellion among sellers and a recent 10 percent work force cut. A new rival called Wigix wants to capitalize on those troubles, with a newly added feature intended to steal sellers directly away from eBay.

Wigix emerged in April offering standardized listings for common items and lower fees than eBay, which they openly compare themselves to. However, the site didn’t focus immediately on bringing in as many auctions as possible. Because it essentially has an online catalog of common items like electronics and cars, it first had to work on filling out its listings. With the help of 400 “category experts” who hope to make a tiny cut of sales, the site now has 1.5 million listing pages.

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Its next big step is “Storefronts,” a way for power sellers, who have many items to sell and often make a living from online sales, to set up a virtual store listing all their items. Because listings for mass-produced items like popular DVDs or cell phones already exist, it’s fast and easy for sellers to create their store. Wigix also provides tools to track inventory and, perhaps most importantly, directly migrate listings on eBay, further cutting down the barrier to switching.

In a way, the early strategy Wigix has adopted is almost the opposite of what eBay is doing right now. The focus at eBay seems to be on satisfying buyers — to the detriment of sellers, who have had to deal with cumbersome rules and raised fees. Wigix, in response, is working hard to satisfy sellers’ complaints, and even its slogan is a direct dig at eBay: “Keeping Fees at Bay.”

That’s probably a smart strategy, because without listings, buyers will never arrive. If Wigix does manage to pull in a significant number of sellers, prices for common items will drop due to competition, and buyers will begin to take an interest in the site. Of course, luring either buyers or sellers is a chicken-and-egg problem, which is why the company is working so hard on making the site as easy to use — and switch to — as possible.

There’s also one more notable prong in Wigix’s strategy: search engine optimization. Because its listings are structured and standardized, and include a decent amount of useful information, they’re starting to show up high in Google searches. So people doing product research may well begin stumbling across the site, and potentially becoming clients.

Look out a few months from now to see whether the company is having any success. For now, it only has about 12,000 registered users, according to chief executive James Chong, and not many item sales. Of course, the company also has a potential recession to worry about, but that might turn into an asset, allowing the venture-funded outfit to slowly build awareness, sneaking in under eBay’s radar and coming out of the downturn as a strong rival.