Basically, I will give $250 to anyone who re-designs our logo and we use it. I am a big believer in performance based work. So if you design for us a logo that we will use, then you will get rewarded big. Logos are going for about $50 here, so I am willing to pay more for something that we use, rather than paying little for something that we don't use. So the flip side is if we do not use it, you get nothing. If we do use it, you will need to release all rights to the newly re-designed logo and you get $250. So the pressure is to create a really WOW logo to replace our existing logo. This is not so easy, because we like our logo, but I think it is not perfect yet.

Our current logo can be seen at this site:
http;//www.epier.com
Yes, we compete against other marketplaces like ebay and craiglist. ePier stands for electronic pier, similar to e-bay I guess. We want to stick with the colors black and brown, but you can use any different shades of brown. We really like wikipedia's logo, located here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
We like it because it is very intricate and has the WOW factor. Plus, we are trying to look more and more similar to wikipedia in the sense we are going to have the layout more simplified and more just information based.
Some here are a few ideas for you to play-around with. The 'e' and the top part of the 'P' is sort of box shaped. So just an idea, if you can do something to incorporate the pier or shipping dock boxes into the 'P' and the 'i' is like a link to the second 'e' which is in a way like a board or pier.
If you want to try this first let us know and if you want to send any quick number of mockups we are happy to give you immediate feedback.
Anyways, if you want to take a crack at this, you really have to think long and say to yourself, what logo can wow people coming to this marketplace.