Bidding in South Africa is not new but Cape Town-based LiveBids Auctions aims to change the traditional bidding process by using social media to give buyers and sellers a choice of interests, ability to follow friend’s, search hundreds of products while buying items for a fraction of the cost and selling them to make real profits.
According to the founders of LiveBids, Rory Vollmer and Paul Hoft, “the idea was to create an online marketplace that was simple, interactive and social, helping buyers and sellers connect and trade. The marketplace is completely people driven.”
LiveBids aims to help buyers and sellers fully connect in trade with seamless transactions. It is an online marketplace that is simple, interactive and social. It allows users to experience a real-time marketplace, buy products lower than the market value and socially follow buyers and sellers.
Two formats are used, namely online auctions and pay-per-bid. The first of these is the traditional online auction model, where items are sold to the highest bidder. The second is a pay-per-bid model, where would-be buyers purchase credits to bid on items. These credits go to the seller, which is how it is possible to purchase big-ticket items for nominal amounts.
Livebids’s major competition at the moment will be BidorBuy.
