Will eBay eventually go away?

[Callipygous]

How? Well, I was just thinking about Napster and music. Napster was essentially a service used to connect two people. One of whom had the music that the other person was looking for. Just like eBay, someone has the goods that someone else is looking for. Of course, it was ruled illegal for Napster to actually store the files on their server. Now people have written software that connects people without Napster as the go-between. The music files simply reside on your harddisk or personal web space.

Why can't this work with auctions? You merely list your stuff in a particular format. The software searches all registered users of the program and viola! , no eBay, no fees.

 

What do you think?

[maximebeauvais]

It's a really good idea

 

but ebay is on of the biggest site on earth right now so how can you do this

[Pie]

Its a good idea on the face of it, but I expect it could be abused more easily than Bbay. What would happen with things like feedback? Would people only be able to see your auction while you were connected to the internet?

[CPUWIZ]

Errm, no it won't go away unless the internet goes away or they get busted for inside trading or fraud of some kind (ENRON comes to mind).

[Callipygous]

Pie, there are all those "20megfree" kind of sites that anyone can use. Also, more and more people will be on wideband (cable, DSL etc) and simply be online all the time. This is one reason why I said "eventually". I guess if you sell software, a server might be provided for a list. This kind of emulates eBay though, and not really what I had in mind.

 

Maxime, suppose this free service was available. A week before putting an item on eBay, you decide to try out the free service. Bam! Somebody buys it right off. Not bad, and then it works again and again. Pretty soon...

[bloatedmonkey]

Yahoo Auctions was (and still is?) totally free, and it pretty much sucked. I think Ebay really has to screw up to lose it's market share. From what I've seen, it's a very well run business.

[munkyxtc]

I think eBay is here to stay whether you like it or not...most of us game junkies will all agree that the site should remain because where else would you be able to find rare titles? (even if they are overpriced)...

 

On another note...producing a program that would mimic eBay would be very difficult to create, and I also agree that it would quite easily be abused...Napster disappeared, and all these smaller programs appeared which allows transferring of files of all kinds, what happened? It was abuse, viruses spread like wildfires...the same would happen with a program mimicing eBay... So to speak at least...not necessarily viruses, but people being scammed in epidemic proportions.

 

Also, you have to keep in mind, that when eBay first appeared on the WWW it was at the perfect time, Global Economy (not just US econ) was stellar, PC sales were insane!, everyone, and everyone was getting on the 'net, I personally don't think it could have been more perfect in timing. Now granted eBay at the beginning was people paying fees by sending directly to the dudes house (forget his name), "It started out as a nickel or a dime in an envelope, then turned to a couple bucks, and within 4 months turned into a mail truck just for my mail delivering $10,000 a week." That's was from fortune mag on the beginnings of eBay. The reason I mention this, is because even eBay didn't have a huge release party etc etc, and it started as just a pipe-dream, so yes anything is possible, but I don't think currently it would be feasable. That's just my 2 cents...let's hear some feedback good/bad/indifferent I wanna hear.

 

Dave

"M"

[munkyxtc]

Yahoo Auctions was (and still is?) totally free, and it pretty much sucked.  I think Ebay really has to screw up to lose it's market share.  From what I've seen, it's a very well run business.

 

Yes, your absolutely right, eBay is very well run as a business, which is completely dog-eat-dog, however, as a seller (as of late), they seriously lack in some areas that I would use to determine if a business is SUCCESSFUL...they would be:

 

1) Back sellers from deadbeats...I still have to pay sellers fees even if I never receive payment...granted it may only be $.35-$.50, but that adds up, especially if your not a huge profiteering "Power Seller

 

2) Don't interogate us like we are criminals just to sign up as sellers...Yes, there are dishonest sellers, but there are dishonest buyers just the same

Just make it level playing ground, make everyone go through the same verification process when signing up.

 

3) STOP RAISING FEES, it's killing the small seller (not just myself), but if this is a continual trend, it will kill all small business, and eBay will be just like shopping at the mall...a bunch of chain stores that could give 2 shits about your satisfaction.

 

PHEEWWW...ok, I'm done, I just had to rant about my beef's w/ eBay.

 

Later

[Joystick Jolter]

Well, for my 2 cents worth, and I'll make it 2 cents worth short.

EBay is well run as you can find on the internet. We all have our

moments of discontent, but they don't usually last too long. EBay's

major problem is with throwing out the garbage. They have been

very slow in throwing out some real frauds. Quite a few of them

had been selling magazine subscriptions and getting tons of bad

feedback. There are other cases were frauds have continued to

be allowed to sell for a long time. But, as a buyer, who does not

pay eBay, they'll throw you off in a flash. With all that said I think

eBay is GREAT. Were else can you sell things like you can on eBay?

Try Yahoo. Their auction should be named HaHoo. Your lucky if on

some types of auctions a couple of people see your auction, were

as on eBay hundreds see many auctions. My auction for the 5200

Meteorites eprom has had over 300 hits. On yahoo I'd have maybe

10. Give my vote to eBay. Keep the Napster version of auctions in

your mind. Then think of all the crooks you'd have with almost no

recourse ever. Who would tell you that they have frauded 1000

people last week selling something they never had. By the time the

police would get involved they would be long gone.

 

Well as usual my 2 cents landed up being 20 dollars worth. I am

very long winded when ever I jump up on a bandstand. Comes from

my many days of filling time on a cable access show.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...1369356465&rd=1

 

Anthony

[Hank]

I haven't thought of a good solution for fraudulent sellers, but here's a possible solution for non-paying bidders: This might increase fees again, but why not make everyone who bids have a credit card on account with Ebay. When you place a bid you must have that much credit available. When the auction closes it is charged to your card, then ebay (via paypal of course) takes care of the transfer of funds to the sellers account. Buyers would then be able to charge back if they didn't get their stuff. Just a thought... Now.. how do we fix the problem of fraudulent sellers.

[Xanadu]

Correction to the Yahoo post:

 

Yahoo WAS free and they were on a roll. Then one day they decided to start charging fees, and pretty high fees at that. They had a "live chat" with one of their top execs, which is all B.S. because those live chats are moderated so only certain people can ask questions and the person chatting never sees the box where the "peons" type their questions. We begged and begged and begged to hold off on fees because the site was starting to get traffic but wasn't at the point where they should have started charging yet.

 

Eventually the site lost all its traffic, because why go to a site charging fees the same as Ebay, but with 1/10 the traffic? Now I hear they dropped their fees down to a nickle to list, and a percentage of the sale.

 

A new site sprung up I'm throwing my support behind. It's only 2 or 3 weeks old, but it's getting users at a decent pace. BidBunny.com Not QUITE ready for prime-time, but it's totally free and it's getting hits.

[Callipygous]

My thought is that eBay or any other online "auction" is not necessary from a technological point of view They don't buy or sell anything. Your main fraud protection is your credit card. Feedback could be incorporated into a new program as well.

 

A lot of other features would be possible too. How about publishing your want list? The seller could search for and contact people who want his item. For Joystick Jolter, a search for the "big spenders" on Atari. Alert all the big time collectors immediately that you have a hot item. No hit or miss if they just happen to be busy that week. These features will never be on eBay because it does them out of fees when people contact each other one on one.

 

Just a few musings ,

[bjybjy]

1) Back sellers from deadbeats...I still have to pay sellers fees even if I never receive payment...granted it may only be $.35-$.50, but that adds up, especially if your not a huge profiteering "Power Seller

 

Actually there is a form somewhere under seller services that has eBay refund your money from deadbeat buyer auctions. Law & Order is on so you'll have to find it yourself.

 

Tad

[munkyxtc]

No, that is for final listing fees, if you want to prove me wrong, please direct me to the link, and I'll more than happily retract my statement...but as far as I know, initial listing fees are non refundable

[bloatedmonkey]

Yahoo WAS free and they were on a roll.

That's a matter of opinion. I looked at it often during it's first 6 months of operation. What I saw was hundreds of games with high opening bids, and nothing being bid on. It was a waste of time. The fees are essential to making sure that sellers put items up for sale at a reasonable price. That's why I stopped looking there.

[Xanadu]

What I saw was hundreds of games with high opening bids, and nothing being bid on.

 

I think that was a case of a "vicious circle". You rarely got bids, so you tended to start your auctions at the lowest bid you would accept. As a result, because of the high starting bid you didn't get many bids, even after the membership numbers increased.

[rpmxxipt]

Hmmmm... maybe if www.bidbunny.com offered stock options as an enticement to list... I think I have more stuff cluttering up my room than they have on their site. I do like the current listing fee schedule, though.. maybe I'll post ten low-profile things as a public service.

 

-RPM-

[Pie]

Personally, the bigger eBay gets, the better. It takes twice as long to search in two places, and therefore its simpler just to go through one.

 

Another problem with Yahoo being free is that people used to list hundreds of items individually, and not mind if they didn't sell, and so it became hard to find the good stuff.

[AtariDude]

While Ebay is not perfect, it is pretty well run. Yes you are going to get ripped off from time to time (I have lost about $40 from bad sellers who never sent me anything) but for the most part, everything is well done.

 

I like Ebay because if it were not for Ebay, I would not have any Atari items at all. There seems to be no Atari items at all in the wild in South Florida so without Ebay, I would not have my Jaguar, my Lynx or my 7800 with tons of games.

[rpmxxipt]

Are you kidding Ataridude? I used to have to endure endless hot summers in S. Fla visiting the grandfolks and it seemed to me that they INVENTED the thrift store down there. Now that I'm thinking about it, they probably invented the custom of the insane price tag there, too.. I seem to recall never buying anything in any of those shops.

 

But I suppose when your general population skews as old as it did in Florida in the 1980's, one doesn't find a whole lot of youthful stuff like Ataris in the flea markets or thrifts. Great place to pick up Hammond B-3 organs, though.. I really could have started a business running them up to the Bible Belt at $2k profit a throw. Too bad I didn't have the "seed money" to do it at the time.. oh well..

 

RPM

[AtariDude]

Maybe at one point South Florida had a lot of Atari items at thrift shops but it seems that everyone must have bought them before I started collecting and now they are all holding on to them so I have yet to see anything in the wild.

 

The only time I have seen even a few Atari items is a local computer show that comes around once a year and this year there was nothing at all Atari related. At least in the past few years I got to see an Atari 130XE and 2 Jaguars systems and one beat up 2600 system but that has been it.