Ebay opinion....

[General Atarian]

I personally don't like Ebay, What is your opinion?

[Intrepid]

I see it as one more option that is out there. It's a personal choice as to whether to use it, and you can never have too many options.

 

I browse often, buy rarely. I've got a rating of 12 (all positive) and I've been there for years.

[Rick Weis]

 

think that says it all!!

 

Take care,

 

Rick

[JCroniger]

I agree with Rick. I love it. If it wasn't for Ebay, my collection would be pathetic. Where else could I get rare games? I also like the fact that I can use Pay Pal or Bid Pay for a lot of the auctions. It gives me a little more security. Just my two cents.

[Philflound]

Ebay has its faults and I've complained about them many times, but when it boils down to it, look at the following.

 

1. The percentage that they get is less than if you went to a major auction house. Even with paypal or other online payment, % is still less.

 

2. Your audience is MILLIONS of people. Advertising your stuff to hit this many people is almost impossible unless you have considerable money.

 

3. Easy to use, for the most part. Even with the picture option that may complicate things for some people.

 

4. You can BUY almost anything that isn't illegal. Shit in a bag and you can sell it on ebay. In fact I know someone who sold his gf's panties, so there is technically a market for almost anything.

 

5. They offer a store. Another great option if you don't care to pay to have a website done. You create a store, pay $9.95 per month which is cheaper than a website, and put merchandise on it up to 120 days. And no matter what the quantity is, it only costs 5 cents to put up and their small percentage upon sale.

 

Of course it has a few problems that I won't get into. But out of all online auctions, it's the most used, so you'll be able to buy or sell with the most chance of finding the right item or getting the sale.

 

Phil

[StanJr]

ebay is a severely flawed system that falsely calls itself an auction service. There are many crucial problems with it, the main one being that its caretakers are money-hungry profiteers who care little (if at all) for those who use and abuse their service. The system is EASILY and often abused by shady characters who share in ebay's blind profiteering agenda (perhaps that's why they don't do much to prevent such behavior). There are numerous smaller flaws in the system, but because they are the prominent service of their kind, they get away with MURDER, because they are still the best show in town and not enough people are brave enough to stand up against them to force any kind of real change. (I am Mr. Run-on Sentence)

 

The system should be taken offline, totally retooled, and those who currently run it should be run out of town on a rail (if they still do that sort of thing) and replaced with responsible considerate business people (if such a thing exists)

 

I do not like ebay, on RARE occasion I have used it, and used it to my advantage, but I do not like it. I've seen it abused FAR too much. The magnitude of the BAD greatly outweighs the good in my mind.

 

Ebay promises to be a wonderful system, but under its current conditions it cannot be that to which it aspires.

 

I do not like it Stan I am.

 

[Andrew]

So, eBay is only in this whole thing to make money aka "blind profiteering"? How is that any different than regular businesses?

eBay, like many auction houses whom deal in mass volume, doesn't have the time or resources to validate every auction on their system. All they do is provide a service.

 

And because of that, there will always be people trying to take advantage of the system. But what the real shame of that is, that people only act like that because they are taught that it is the American way. And it's a real shame too -- I've never found any more greedy people in the world than those that feel that the world truly owes them something. But I will say that eBay has drastically improved since it first started -- when they went live years ago -- there were literally thousands of more fradulent auctions than now. I'm not saying that they've all gone away, but eBay has taken the best steps that they can to prevent it.

 

I'm not trying to be an eBay cheerleader here at all, I dig the service and have probably waste more time on it than I should -- but I leave it as tool to fuel my hobbies and nothing more than that. And in an especially wintery economical climate as we have now, it's especially useful for people to pawn off some of their goods so they can pay their bills.

[Hank]

I personally like Ebay very much - but it is buyer (and seller sometimes) beware. If people don't like it, it's simple: Don't use it. It cracks me up to see all of the people (here and other places) that bash Ebay, Bill Gates, Henry Ford and who-the-hell-ever else for making money. We live in America. We are capitalists. If you offer a service and its costs exceed its value you will go out of business. If you offer a service and it is perceived by most to be reasonable, you will make money. If aLOT (me and tons of people who use Ebay) of people think it's a good deal - you'll make aLOT of money. Then you will become rich and everyone who is pissed that they didn't come up with it will complain about how greedy you are and say you should be regulated yadayada etc. I see this all the time and it really sorta bugs me. In my HO - good job eBay, good job PayPal. They're making s**tloads of money because they offer a service that people want and are willing to pay for. Just my $.02...

[Philflound]

Again, I have to put through an argument. There is one thing that the whole "auction" thing entails that Ebay doesn't follow through with. An auction keeps "GOING" until someone decides not to bid. I think there should be no time limit on an auction once it gets to the "going going gone" stage. This is a major flaw and if it was eliminated, will prevent the "sniper" from coming in and stealing the auction out from under you. I think if there is a bid at the last minute, there should be a 30 second or 1 minute increment to allow other bids. This would be the "going going gone" stage. Any real auction keeps accepting bids till no one wants to bid anymore. If I had the knowledge and manpower (and of course money), I would create an online auction that would blow ebay away.

 

You may laugh at that statement, but you have to think of it this way. Computer programmers designed ebay, not business people. So they don't know how the business world really runs. Though I don't pat myself on the back too often, I have a Computer Engineering degree, plus when I graduated, I couldn't get a job back in 1993 and thus opened my own comic book/toy/collectible store. I had the store for 3 years, then went to become manager at my friend's store for the next 4. After that, I "retired" working at the store and have been doing Ebay full time for him, myself, my other friend who gets some really nice expensive comic books, and a few other smaller jobs here and there for other people. Though I do not have website design, I plan on either training myself or possibly taking a course in it to create both my own and my friend's websites and run complete retail from there in addition to doing Ebay.

 

There are a lot of things I have planned over the next 5 months to push my life forward. At 32, people tell me my life is beginning, but always running tight with money has never helped since it always seems to be a beginning. Also, now I am engaged and need to start thinking of health insurance, the wedding itself, and a child since my fiancee is going to be 38 in a few months. Time's not on my side and I'm not in college anymore. Ebay is here and looks like it will stay here. I only wish that maybe I was on the west coast and then I could possibly get a job with them.

 

Oh, for those of you who don't know, Ebay has now bought paypal and will incorporate the company into Ebay by the end of the year. So far they claim that both companies will remain seperate, but it seems like Ebay is picking up steam again. Maybe a good time to buy the stock.

 

Phil

[King Atari]

I like ebay, wouldn't have Xenophobe without it. Except for the occasional bad egg, it's usually been pretty reliable.

[Hank]

Philflound - I've never really thought about the timed auction aspect of Ebay. I suppose that doesn't make it a real auction but how could it be done any other way? You have a market of 100's of millions of people. Who's to say when "noone wants to bid anymore". Most people probably only look for items now and again so you're never, ever going to know when the bidding has truly topped out. A real auction is so different - you have a room full of people - no matter how big the room is you know when the bidding has topped out because you have a captive audience. The only way you could do it online would be to have a specified start time and bidding runs until you don't receive bids for XX number of seconds. Maybe people would have to register for it or something. I think by doing this you would not get the audience you get now. I guess the way it works now works for me but it'd be fun to have some alternatives.

 

My main point was not about the way the auctions work but about the capitalist bashers. It's near and dear to my heart. I'm a 33 year old Mech. Engr. and I own my own company http://www.dakotaautomation.com. I know the risks involved with starting a co - putting your house and everything you own on the line. Living with the stress and getting through the crappy economic times (read now). I truly believe that there must be reward or it's not worth taking risks. Everyone who's made their own fortune deserves it (other than pimps and drug lords I by no means have made a fortune... maybe some day with another 25 years of hard work and stress....

 

Again.. my $.02

[PackratVG]

I think that eBay has its place for Atari collectors. However, I'm in the middle of a problem with a seller that wants to charge me three times as much as it should cost to send me an Odyssey 2 that I bid on. It's frankly ridiculous. I've always been very careful, but there's always going to be a bad egg or two.

[StanJr]

How to do ebay sans time limit, EASY. Each auction could end if a new bid has not been placed on a item within a certain time frame. ie No news bids after 3 days, then going(day 1), going(day 2), gone(day3). A real auction works the same way.

 

Capitalism is fine, but capitalism AT ANY COST is wrong. People who make money by deception or cheating or at any expense to others are scum. Scum, scum, scum. This is what I mean by "blind" profiteering. Seeing only the $$$$ and nothing else. People who care NOTHING for other people or have any consideration for them, people who only want the profit. This is the UGLY side of capitalism that tends to dominate the system right now and will eventually cause its collapse. I don't bash capitalism, but I'm not too blind to critisize a flawed or corrupted system.

 

[bcprs1]

I personally like Ebay. Without it, there would be a ton of games I would never have been able to buy. I agree that there are flaws, but I guess you have to take what you can get.

[StanJr]

But SEE that's the thing!

 

YOU DON'T have to take what you can get. You have the right and the responsibility to stand up and DEMAND a better system. You don't have to be pushed around by ebay. Too many peopl take the attitude you have and that's why EBAY gets away with all of the crap they do. DEMAND something better. Don't be taken advantage of, and don't let it happen to others!

[Rick Weis]

Hey Stan jr,

 

well...i will agree with you that i wish the system was better!!

how do we make the system better? how do you keep some as*hole from selling something he don't have? and yet still make it easy to have/make an auction! i really don't see any way of doing that!! any ideas anyone???

 

Stan if you really want to roll with this you start a list!! i'll sign it! (rick63) maybe if you get a million sigs ebay will do something! not sure what they can do to stop it though!!

 

Take Care,

 

Rick

[Rick Weis]

Hey Stan jr,

 

well...i will agree with you that i wish the system was better!!

how do we make the system better? how do you keep some as*hole from selling something he don't have? and yet still make it easy to have/make an auction! i really don't see any way of doing that!! any ideas anyone???

 

Stan if you really want to roll with this you start a list!! i'll sign it! (rick63) maybe if you get a million sigs ebay will do something! not sure what they can do to stop it though!!

 

Take Care,

 

Rick

[Philflound]

Ok, this was my idea. Say you run an auction for 7 days. Your auction is supposed to end at 10pm EST. at 9:59:45 your auction gets a bid. So now your auction is extended 30 seconds, so your end time would be 10:00:15. At 10:00:03 it gets another bid, so now your new end time is 10:00:33. And so on. So it only gets extended 30 seconds past the last bid towards the last minute of your auction. So anyone can bid on it for 7 days and not worry about the last few seconds until it actually reaches it. For some reason I keep thinking that Yahoo or another auction site I've been on actually has implemented this tool. Though if it wasn't Yahoo, then the site probably didn't so well enough to even be in existance anymore. It's tough to advertise your site to get the numbers that Ebay gets to participate even if your site may be better.

 

Phil

[fmctm1sw]

eBay is a member of the "Axis of Evil."

[Mayhem]

@Philflound... I know the Yahoo Japan auction site does it. If you bid in the last minute, the time limit is extended by another 10 mins...

[StanJr]

Stan if you really want to roll with this you start a list!! i'll sign it! (rick63) maybe if you get a million sigs ebay will do something! not sure what they can do to stop it though!!

 

Take Care,

 

Rick

 

Yeah, sadly, I don't know how to fix it either, but I'd like to see at least SOME effort from EBAY in trying to resolve their problems. At this time, I see NO EFFORT at all. They appear VERY blaise.

 

If I thought a petition would have any effect, I'd have done it long ago. But I doubt it will. In America, your dollar is your vote. The only way to send EBAY a CLEAR message is to withdraw funding. Use other auction services, notify ebay that you are leaving them and tell them why. Do your best to promote the services that are superior to ebay. These seem to be the best ways to effect change.

 

I'm open to anything that will cause reform. I'd love for ebay to be a better system.

 

Thanks for the interest.

 

Stan

[Hank]

I like the idea of extending the auction by a minute each time there is a bid. I really don't understand the benefit for the buyer that much though. I never understood people's complaints about snipers either. After all, it is proxy bidding - if you're willing to spend $10, bid $10 and don't look at it again. I think changing to the other format would bring prices up as noone would wait to try and snipe. I snipe occasionally, but when I don't I just bid my top dollar and don't worry about it.

[StanJr]

I understand the proxy bid theory as well, but if my limit is $10, I may still be willing to go 10.50 or $11 if I get outbid at the last minute. I may not intend to pay that amount, but if all it takes in another 50 cents, I may go ahead, so I'd like a little more time to consider it and go for it.

 

Extensions would definitely kill the sniper. And I doubt prices would go up, the whole system is still based on what people are willing to pay for something, the seller does not determine the price of the item, only the least they are willing to take for it. If no one bids on an inflated item, then the seller can just keep it, or try again with a lower, more reasonable price. You don't have to bid.

[legeek]

I mean, I like ebay. It's a "legal" black market, like in Raiders with the raving loonie...

 

 

 

Cheers,

le geek

[Philflound]

Well, there are a few things to consider. I personally place a bid and usually that will be the highest bid I want. But if the auction is a few days away and I get outbid, I may consider upping my bid. As for last minute bidders, you sometimes get the impulse bidder. The person will get mad that they get outbid, so they bid higher, either to spite the other person, or just for ego and they wind up overpaying for something. I know several people who do this. They adrenalin kicks in and they have this urge to up the bid.

 

If you add an extension feature towards the very end of the auction, the adrenalin between 2 or more bidders may kick in and it will feel more like a real auction. And you don't have to worry about it being an itchy nose where the auctioneer thinks you are bidding higher but you are scratching instead.

 

Actually a Buy It Now feature isn't a part of an auction. A true auction doesn't have a buy it now feature. I guess it's still cool with the idea of having someone purchase something and getting the transaction over with, and the buyer can sometimes get a good deal, but if you eliminate the buy it now feature, then you get the true auction thing going again. BIN ruins a chance that I may want to bid on an auction and wasn't on during the posting of the auction and may lose out on something I really wanted. Auctions are usually put in catelogs or on websites for viewing purposes days in advance for buyers to peruse. But if you throw in a BIN, the buyer may never get the chance to peruse the auction. Also, the seller may never realize the full value of what they have. Though sometimes this works for the seller because someone may take the BIN and pay more than if they bid on the item. But again, it's not a true part of the word auction.

 

Ok, sorry for rambling. I'm on painkillers at the moment and the brain is just making me type.

 

Phil