QXL closes site & withdraws from UK
6/05/2008 at 16:39
The online auction site QXL have announced that they are to close and withdraw from the UK marketplace. qxl.co.uk will close for business this month, with final date to list an item being Friday this week.
Final bids/buys will take place on the 19th May, and trading will cease on the 30th May at which point all accounts will be closed.
QXL have traded in the UK for as long as eBay have opened in 1997. Their name was changed to Tradus with QLX as an operating brand and were acquired by Naspers in a deal finalised in March this year.
QXL are the dominant auction platform in Poland, Switzerland, Norway and Denmark, but hasn’t been a serious contender to eBay in the UK for the last six years or so.
With the purchasers of QXL deciding to shut the platform down it’s likely to give a boost to the remaining eBay competitors – eBid, Tazbar and Cqout. The question remains how long they too can continue profitable operations in the UK?
Sue Bailey says
4:57 pm on 06/05/2008
whirly says
5:02 pm on 06/05/2008
Never heard of Cqout until today
Dan Wilson says
5:41 pm on 06/05/2008
“never been a serious contender to eBay in the UK”
Didn’t seem like that back in 1999/2000, when eBay was the new kid on the block and QXL were getting all the advertising on the Tube and PR coverage and pretty good traction.
I think there are two reasons QXL failed: they didn’t have America and they muddied the water. QXL did actually sell stuff itself and, I believe, offer bulk discounts and deals to big retailers which wasn’t popular with those core small time sellers.
It’s interesting to view the buy.com deal in that light.
Mark Classic says
6:43 pm on 06/05/2008
But you do not have to be popular with the core small time sellers Dan…
Or do you?
Mark
Uncle Sam says
9:33 am on 07/05/2008
We listed a few things on there back in ’02 or ’03 due to a free listings promo. Didn’t sell much, though.
The main thing I remember is they brought in a very curious listing format for expensive items where they would go for the lowest unrepeated bid. Buyers could bid anything within a fixed range (eg any amount between £100 & £1,000) but if 2 or more people bid £101, for instance, then their bids cancelled each other out. But if someone bid, say, £102 & no-one else did, then they’d win it for £102. The catch was it cost money to bid, so people could spend a fortune by bidding 20 or so times for the same item & still not win it. Seemed like a curious mix of online auctions & gambling imho.
vzaar Jamie says
9:34 am on 07/05/2008
So they have finally bitten the dust here in the UK! What a fight we had back in the early days! All good fun as I’d actively try and poach sellers from QXL and bring them on to eBay with the promise of a truly global customer base.
Great days. I remember meeting my rival in the Sports Category at some swanky awards do and she snubbed me.
northumbrian says
10:16 am on 07/05/2008
I remember when we used to be needed to
qxl would email us regularly with tempters and offers
and ebay uk would offer free listing enhancements and upgrades,
[so the level playing field has never really existed]
northumbrian says
10:19 am on 07/05/2008
I also remembered that ebay uk once credited our account
£200 rather than £20 for some freebie upgrades
and wrote it off as their error
AH those were the DAYS
Eddie StClare says
11:45 am on 07/05/2008
Nostalgia is a marvleous thing Northy, even I remember the day when the Paypal exchange rate was 1 USD = 1 GBP (or near enuff)
Sue Bailey says
2:18 pm on 07/05/2008
Well I never knew this… according to The Guardian, the website I thought was called “Queue Ex Ell” is really called “Quick Sell”
Gill says
7:54 pm on 07/05/2008
I always thought that too, Sue – oops!
Josordoni says
8:43 pm on 07/05/2008
I must have read it somewhere ages ago.. I have always called it quicksell…
oh, and while we are at it – I presume it IS tame-bay and not Tam – ebay? If the latter, what the ‘eck is the tam for LOL and if the former, who told you you could tame them!!!