Directory:Main Street Fair

Main Street Fair® (MainStreetFair.com) is an online auction and classified ads site at which individuals and businesses buy and sell a wide range of products. It also serves as a platform for school fundraising. Its motto is "You buy. You sell. We give."

School Fundraising

To provide supplemental funding to schools within the United States, Main Street Fair contributes 10% of its income from its listing fees to schools of the seller's choice, including public, private, and charter. Its listing categories range from free stuff to used electronics to cars to promotional coupons. The concept is the work of Lisa Porter, a single mother of an 11-year-old, who became frustrated by dismal education funding, but also acknowledged that people don't have the money to continually make school donations. Items selling for under $200 and book listings within its classified ads are free. Registration is free for everyone.

Auctions & Classified Ads

Main Street Fair offers four ways to sell and buy:

Online Auctions -- where the seller offers one or more items for sale for a specified time period. Main Street Fair's online auctions always include a reserve price, which is the least amount the seller is willing to accept.

Buy Now Online Auctions -- where the seller offers one or more items for sale at a fixed price and the buyer may purchase online using any of Main Street Fair's payment processing programs.

Dutch Auctions -- where the seller offers in the same auction, two or more items that are identical. Unlike a standard online auction, a Dutch Auction may have more than one winning bidder. To win against another bidder, a bid must simply have a higher total bid price per item than the other bids, regardless of the number of items bid on.

Classifieds Ads - Individuals and businesses may list items within Main Street Fair's classified ads in which the buying transaction is negotiated between buyer and seller. Items selling for $200 or less and books are free to list as classified ads.

Payment Methods

Google Checkout -- Allows buyers to pay for items easily and track all orders and shipping in one place. It has a fraud protection policy to cover buyers against unauthorized purchases made through Google Checkout. Google Checkout does not share purchase history or full credit card numbers with sellers. The payment method controls commercial spam by keeping email addresses confidential and offers a function for easy-to-turn-off unwanted emails from stores.

Google Merchant -- Allows listers to pay for listing fees using a leading fraud protection program.

PayPal - A leading fraud protection payment method widely used for online auctions and classified ads payments.

Credit Cards - Main Street Fair accepts most major credit cards including American Express, Mastercard, Visa, and Discover.

Security

Main Street Fair is secured via a COMODO SSL Certificate. COMODO secures and authenticates the online transactions and communications.

Banner Ads Program

Main Street Fair also provides promotional opportunity for companies via its banner ads program. The ads have linking capabilities. This in itself is designed to increase traffic to company's websites dramatically. Additionally, advertisers will have access to a detailed statistical report to monitor banner and text ads using real-time information. This comprehensive report includes the number of impressions, clicks and click through rate (CTR) to keep ads performing at their maximum potential.

Storefront Program

Main Street Fair offers people and businesses a chance to operate their own storefronts, with a variety of templates to choose from, a unique online address and logo upload capabilities. The Storefront offers individuals and business to have their own online auction and/or online classified ads site.

Feedback Ratings System

The feedback rating system allows the winning bidder and seller to rate each other on how well the seller represented and delivered his/her product, and the timeliness of the buyer's payment. At the auction's conclusion, the winning bidder and seller may log in to their My Account page and provide feedback on the transaction by rating it. Points are automatically totaled and a star icon will appear next to the seller's username indicating their status as a user of the site. A different color star will appear each time the seller passes to a different feedback rating level as indicated by the following chart: In addition to leaving a feedback rating, the winning bidder and seller may also leave a comment regarding the transaction. All comments are viewable by all site users. The feedback rating is intended to help future buyers and sellers feel confident in conducting business with a particular user.

Better Business Bureau

Main Street Fair is a member of the Better Business Bureau.