I read around 100 bad reviews before placing a single bid, and my assumption then is my conclusion now -- i-bidder is great, a lot of people just don't do their due diligence.Auction houses I've had personal experience with so far are Kingsland Auction Services, International Auctions (Huddersfield location), and Castlers Auctions. I had absolutely no issue with any of them and would happily buy from them again. I researched as much as I could about them before bidding, and felt the most confident with Kingsland as they have plenty of Google reviews. They were brilliant. With International, I'd heard that their Accrington location has issues but their Huddersfield one was a lot better. I ordered from their Huddersfield location and can confirm this! Lastly, I'd seen nothing about Castlers but decided that, based on their detailed photographing of lots, the risk was worth it to me. And it was very much worth it! I received everything from them the quickest of the three houses as well.I've also seen a few auction houses use AI listings, and whilst I've not dealt with any seller that does this, they do make me suspicious. Why wouldn't they just show a real photo if they had the stock? Use your common sense and read reviews where possible. Within TrustPilot you can search by keywords -- use this to your advantage, especially if there's nothing else available to you e.g. a separate website or Google reviews.Now, to address the common complaint of being charged more after bidding: on literally every single lot there's an underlined piece of text right under where you place a bid that says "Additional fees apply." If you click that, it shows you the commission and VAT that that auction house takes. It doesn't even open a new tab, that's how easy it is. (By the way - if an auction house has their own website, the commission is usually lower than on i-bidder as i-bidder takes a chunk of commission to keep itself running.) The fact that people miss this is astonishing, and it is *not* a reason to criticise i-bidder whatsoever. It's like if you bid on one of the auction houses in Guernsey for example, and then got mad that you had to pay extra VAT on importing it to the mainland UK when those houses state it very clearly in their terms.Now for the condition/functionality of items. The *vast* majority of stuff on i-bidder is customer returns, liquidation items, etc. With those lots, that means there's a pretty reasonable chance that the item was returned for a good reason, including non-functionality. The auction houses simply can't test every item though. On one of the auctions I bid on, there were 3700 items. Ensuring each of them works, on top of taking detailed photos and writing the listings, would be a huge task, especially when they do multiple lots that size a week, and are literally selling them as untested returns. The reason you can get stuff for so cheap is because of this fact -- the fact it might be broken and just a hunk of plastic and metal.You also need to consider that, historically, you would go in person to the auction house to inspect each item before buying it. The fact that we can browse items and bid from our phone at home is really, truly wonderful, but it does also bring up this barrier of potentially misleading listings. So, if anything isn't fully detailed (i.e. shows everything from every angle and isn't a stock photo), you need to decide if the risk is worth it to you personally. Or you just straight up need to visit in person, especially for higher value items like cars.Anyway, to my point. i-bidder is great. I got a ton of good quality stock, and a few things for myself as well, at a really great price. About 5% of the items I received were either incomplete or non-functioning, but I knew that was a risk when I placed my bids and I still made a few quid selling as spares/repairs so I'm not too upset. Especially considering the ROI with everything else, which more than makes up for a couple of duds.As far as criticisms go, I just wish there was an in-site vetting system for sellers. I think reviews would be the best system but, as is evidenced here, people give negative reviews over their own mistakes. It would really help consumers feel more comfortable with their choices though, in my opinion.TLDR -- 10/10.
Claim your business profile now and gain access to all features and respond to customer reviews.
Branded surplus stock direct from major retailers with up to 85% off RRP.
The UK's largest digital auction marketplace for retail returns and surplus consumer product.
