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The end of eBay as we know it
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by Rob Peters | August 10, 2008 at 03:56 pm
420 views | 4 Recommendations | 4 comments
With the addition of features like fixed-price auctions and merchant stores, eBay is looking less and less like the quirky online flea market it started as and more and more like a big box superstore.
As a result, a lot of people are starting to look elsewhere for their rare collectibles--astonishingly, in the same places they could be found 13 years ago, pre-eBay. Places like flea markets, trade shows, and garage sales.
According to this feature in the Guardian, eBay enthusiasts aren't too happy about the company's shift from online auctioneer to instant salesman and claim the company has sold out.
I wonder though, did eBay simply respond to what most web consumers want--instant transaction gratification and Amazon-like shopping power? Is it eBay, or us?
Going, going, gone? Furious fans have accused eBay, the website that brought auctions to the internet, of betrayal. They are upset by a decision to lurch away from the website's original format and instead allow major retailers to list thousands of products at fixed prices.
The trend, they warn, marks the beginning of the end for the online auction - leaving eBay looking less like a car-boot sale and more like a shopping mall.
'Auctions in some categories are already pretty much dead,' said Chris Dawson, an eBay seller from Thatcham, Berkshire, who runs a blog about the site. 'Not many people bid for rechargeable batteries, Gillette razor blades, toothbrushes or even mobile phone handsets or DVDs - the kind of commodity items you pick up in a supermarket. EBay started out for the collectors' market but it's been overtaken by the business market. Buyers have become used to instant sales on the internet, and they expect eBay to be no different.'
Buyers are showing a preference for fixed prices, with the promise of a reputable brand and instant delivery. Fixed-price sales on eBay have grown by 60 per cent over the past six years, eating away at the auction side of the business. They now comprise 43 per cent of the value of all goods sold on the site, up from 39 per cent a year ago. Analysts say that it is only a matter of time before auctions are in the minority.
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (4)
at 17:23 on August 10th, 2008
eBay lost it's soul when its profits kept rising and rising, and instead of lowering charges to it's sellers or keeping them level, it kept raising them.
at 21:08 on August 10th, 2008
Rob Peters, I like this story. It's good stuff. Ebay just isn't fun anymore. I was going to sell some things--including pruning my library--but the work, the fees, etc. make it not very worthwhile.
at 06:22 on August 30th, 2008
Ebaa really messed things up for me by introducing compulsory paypal and that was the signal for me to totally move away from them.
I have been selling on ebid.net for a number of years alongside ebaa, but now alll my auction site trading is now happily done through ebid.net where both myself and the buyer are not restricted to only the payment methods forced by ebaa. Many are moving away from ebaa's ugly sister p@yp@l and using payment methods such as Moneybookers and Google Checkout.
at 08:38 on January 10th, 2009
Back in the 1960s, everybody seemed to hate “the telephone company”. Those were autocratic, arrogant entities with monopolistic power and generally inferior service. Today, that same antipathy is directed at “eBay”. Can’t think of any other private company that now evokes such instant disdain just by mention of its name as “eBay”.
Had eBay accounts, one for buying and the other selling for about ten years, but finally quit selling in late 2008. During nearly a decade, I’ve seen the auction eBay site change from being mostly enjoyable to a general money losing annoyance. For a time back around year 2000, I was pulling in over $1,000 a week in profit from eBay auctions selling odd smaller items such as vintage photo images, old LIFE magazines, antique books and small collectible pieces. It was actually fun and in selling, many online friendships developed. There were lots of eager auction buyers then with all payments in check or money order. With over 6,000 sales transactions there were just a couple problems involving small amount checks.
Selling and buying back then was quite simple too without myriad complex, confusing and useless added enhanced features. Within the past five or so years, eBay has been transformed through gross mismanagement into a politically correct, money losing, authoritative monstrosity.
All of my auctions were cancelled by eBay twice for “inappropriate content” in year 2004. These occurrences both involved old photographic prints. One picture showing the zeppelin Hindenburg in 1936 had use of the term “nazi airship” within the descriptive text. That and 40 other auctions were all wiped out by eBay with my account being at once suspended for 14-days as punishment.
The other episode was a few weeks later involving a photographic print taken in 1942 showing a wartime scrap metal drive with a sign within the picture displaying “All this Scrap to Lick the Jap”. Not only were all other ongoing auctions wiped out, but there was a small barrage of assorted “nasty gram” robot Emails from eBay that followed. I was threatened with being banned from eBay forever for “racist” content in my auction sales. I was ordered that before being “allowed” to again become a “ full member of the eBay community” that I complete and online instructional with quiz on “Social Tolerance”. Only after carrying out that task would I be “considered” for reinstatement, blah, blah, blah.
A little sidebar is that I’ve found eBay messages are usually signed by some anonymous goofball with a probable contrived name such as Crystal, Lance, Tiffany or Moonbeam. Anyway, in response to the demand by some idiot named "Todd" that I summit to an eBay indoctrination in “racial tolerance”, a reply was sent. My response to eBay was simple and brief . . . “I’m married to an Asian you a--holes” “Go and f--k yourselves!” “Enough is enough!” Within less than a week, my eBay account mysteriously was reinstated as if nothing had happened at all. So much for eBay instructional diversity materials.
By October 2008 with increased listing fees and other negative factors, such as eBay’s PayPal only accepted payment rules, as a small seller, I just dropped out. eBay is in financial deep trouble due to bad business practices and an overall lousy attitude towards its customers. Seems that too that eBay like many other “sales” outfits today have gone totally off track. Corporate attitude is now more like that of a government social service agency rather private business for profit. Since alienating and pissing-off the customer base, eBay is headed for the rocks.
The hard dollar cash economy with millions of small time sellers built eBay. Many tons of Beanie Babies moved back and forth through eBay in the early days. In recent times eBay’s policies are set to drive out modest sellers and pull in big retail dealers. As we know, that model is now in collapse. The whole situation is going bust. As it turns out, due to corporate greed and basic incompetence, eBay has killed it’s own golden goose and driven itself out into the cold. The salad days of eBay are over. Time to move on.