A former fruit and vegetable vendor, Franco Lagudi, is the creator and founder of the new “buy and sell,” website, The SOC (Superior Online Community) Exchange, found in both the U.S. and Australia.  The site challenges eBay by making it more user friendly and personal to its members, but specifically, “has the intention to go head-to-head with eBay.”  The site covers four of what Australia believes are the most important market segments: auctions buy and sell, real estate, automotive and careers.

They declare that eBay has forgotten about all the novice and individual sellers who are constantly participating in the website by selling their products.  One thing The SOC Exchange is striving to do is eliminate as many fees as possible and give their sellers and advertisers more options to customize and create a more personal selling or advertising campaign.

The SOC Exchange states they are, “offering flat rate membership fee of $10 a year, without further fees and no limits on the number of listings – covering consumer products, including household items, jewellery, electronics, furniture, clothing, toys and books.”

One thing the site takes pride in is giving their sellers a way to customize their own websites to include any personal information and even a company or personal blog.  This will give the customer the option of going directly to the sellers site or just simply browse the site for any items.  Viewers also have the capability to bookmark any of their favorite sites or items helping them keep tab of what they have found.  They want to give consumers their own piece of the web and not drown them in fees as eBay does.

Lagudi says, “In this down economy, we want to reward our loyal users by offering them extra cash to spend as they choose,” this is one of their advantages over eBay.

The SOC Exchange knows their consumers and sellers and want to make them feel that they are a huge part of the company and have a voice.  They are fully prepared to face eBay and prove to the world why they are going to so successful. The SOC Exchange knows that it is going to be an extremely costly process at the beginning, however they are convinced that the results will be well worth the multi-million dollar investment that was made.

Photo credit: The Australian