how do online companies make money??

[loula]

PLEASE HELP!
I've tried other forums iwth not much success.

Can anyone tell me how fairly large websites (e.g. a swap site) makes its money. I have looked at some that do not appear to carry any advertising, do not charge to post items like Ebay, do not charge to register etc. EVERYTHING is free, yet these are not run as hobbies, they are actual companies that obviously make money somewhere.
Any help/ hints very gratefully received!!

[Peter Cornstalk]

They don't spend their time posting here. :)

I have seen big online auction sites that nobody ever hard of look busy busy busy, but a little looking around and you can tell they are being fed by a listing service and they have fake sellers. It is possible they were investing in the feed thinking they would become popular by just looking active with the plan to start charging later down the road.

Maybe some of the sites you see are the same?

[loula]

Mmmm... I wonder. It must cost them a lot of money to run with no income coming in. And what if someone wanted to buy/ swap an item and it was fake and not really available. Isn't that illegal?
Thanks for your reply!

[abbeydguru]

i suggest a research should be made thoroughly on this subject.

[ImBae.net]

If things are free on a site, and it is interesting, people will come, and there will be an increase in traffic. Increase in traffic means the site is getting more visibility. This is when advertisers come into play. They want to expose themselves to a crowd of people, and they can do that by advertising their banners or text links on a high traffic site like yours. You don't make money from your site, but those advertisers will pay you to get their site or business exposed on your site. It can be extremely profitable.

[brian.mark]

I set one up like this. Basically, the guy that hired me to set it up wanted to sell off a lot of his excess inventory but didn't want to pay eBay listing fees. It's been working for him, he pays a few bucks per month to host it and can sell a lot of his excess inventory off, making his money that way.

Brian.

[southplatte]

If they are wanting to advertise with some larger sites, say msn.com or something, then they need to have a high amount of traffic and memebers - why not offer it free, get the requirement met, get some venture capital or loans and invest heavily in marketing at that point, gain triple the users, and then you start getting to sell your own ad space - rather than join an ad network.