jonlee.ca

I think many of you will agree that receiving a package in the mail is one of the best feelings in the world. The only thing that can make it better is knowing you bought the package at a great deal. This is what Lastminute-Auction is all about — finding great bargains online!

The idea is simple, they display all auctions (sorted by category) that meet these two criteria:

1. The auction ends in 1 hour.
2. The price is currently 1 dollar or less.

Although this is not a strict definition of bargain, it is a very effective interpretation since it means you will be buying things that end soon (higher chance of winning) for a dollar or less. However, one should keep in mind that not everything under a dollar is a bargain. There are many things on the site that aren’t worth a dollar but then again, there are things that are worth much more — this is what you want to find.

Interface and Features
The entire service is basically an extension on eBay’s existing search. With eBay search, you are able to sort auctions by time or by price but you are not able to sort by both. This service does that for you in addition to conveniently organizing everything into quick access categories.

The site itself is simple and straightforward enough to use. One very important feature is the ability to keep a list of up to 10 favorite categories. If you make a habit of checking the site every once in a while, it is extremely helpful to have a list of all the categories that you wish to keep an eye on. In my favorites, I have mostly computer and electronic categories. I think it’ll be hard to find good deals in these categories since they are undoubtedly the most popular amongst other eBay bargain hunters.

Beware the Shipping Costs
As all avid eBayers know, even though you may have found the best deal in the world it may no longer be a deal once you factor in extravagant shipping and handling costs. This is why Lastminute-Auction had enough foresight to add a column that indicates the shipping and handling cost. One feature that they appear to be missing is a “Total” column and the ability to filter out items that have a combined total of over a certain amount. This would eliminate the eBay sellers that try to attract users with low priced item that are offset by a high shipping cost (although eBay has taken certain measures to prevent this).

Another great feature that I feel would be useful is the ability to filter by location. This way you could find items that are available for local pickup (saving on shipping charges) for a dollar or less. Most of the best bargains I have found on eBay are dealt locally to save on shipping and handling fees.

International Support – but not Canada!
Lastminute-Auctions also has support for several countries around the world including Germany, the UK, Australia and Spain. These will get auctions from their respective eBay sites so it is guaranteed that the item will ship to the desired country. However, I’m very surprised that there is no support for Canada. Since there is an eBay.ca I suspect it wouldn’t be too hard to implement. It’s frustrating when I find the perfect deal only to find out that it either doesn’t ship to Canada or the increase in shipping charges completely wrecks the deal. From the FAQ, they claim to be working on support for more countries so I hope to see it available soon!

RSS Feeds
Currently there is no support for RSS feeds. Now I’m not sure if this was a design decision or an oversight but I can think of reasons both for and against having RSS feeds on their site. By having category-specific RSS feeds, users are provided with a very handy way to keep on top of bargains. On the other hand, if users are not checking their RSS feed every hour, their RSS reader may be filled with information about expired auctions. I don’t think it would hurt to give users the option though, no affiliate income will be lost either since the RSS feed themselves can contain the affiliate links.

Conclusion
Lastminute-Auction is built on an excellent concept and executed very well. Although it works seemingly flawlessly as is, I think a fuller feature set would help its growth in the future. As for myself, I have the site bookmarked so I can check it a couple times a day just to see if I can find the much sought after and elusive “ultimate deal“. Until they provide support for Canada though, it is sad to see that many of the auctions on the site are not available to me.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 10:54 pm and is filed under Reviews, Sponsored. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.