PriceMinister Responds to Increasing Market Share

Number 2 to eBay in France, PriceMinister, has invested in new technology from Speedera Networks Inc. to reduce download times as its market share increases.

PriceMinister has more than 10 million members and is benefiting from rapid growth in France and a recent launch in the UK. With PriceMinister`s traffic tripling last year, the new content delivery system is vital in enabling it to stay ahead of eBay and Amazon in France’s online used-goods market, says vice president and CTO Justin Ziegler.

Says Ziegler, “In the highly competitive market for the online sales of used goods, having a fast and reliable site that customers trust is a make-or-break issue. The new content delivery system is key to PriceMinister’s success by enabling visitors to find things fast while relieving the retailer from stress on its servers due to spikes in network consumption”, he added.

PriceMinister’s specialisation is in selling used items like books, clothing, digital cameras, DVDs, laptops and CDs, although new items are also for sale.

Whilst PriceMinister is a major competitor to eBay, it also differs significantly because there are no auctions, only fixed prices, similar to the Amazon approach.

To list an item, the seller enters the title or barcode of the item they wish to sell, as well as the price at which they wish to sell the product. Listing the item is free of charge.

PriceMinister provides secure online payment and when the buyer chooses the item they wish to purchase, they pay PriceMinister directly with their credit or debit card rather than the eBay practice of payment being made via PayPal direct to the seller.

PriceMinister informs the seller that their item has been sold and lets them know where to send the product. The seller must then send the item directly to the buyer.

Once the buyer confirms they have received the order, PriceMinister transfers the value of the sale minus the PriceMinister commission to the sellers bank account.