eBay

glasser · ‎12-03-2021

Great article in the New York Times today about how messed up the buying experience is on Amazon. Some of the elements--bad search results, items with crazy prices, too many items for sale, need for advertising for third-party sellers, etc. feels like where eBay is headed.

Sorry if behind paywall for some (think NYT allows like 10 articles a month without subscription)

What Happened to Amazon’s Bookstore? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

dbfolks166mt · ‎12-03-2021

I have never had any issues with ordering off of Amazon but I am not a huge ecommerce buyer. Few ecommerce sites can beat the rivers delivery. I have ordered stuff from the river at 10 in the morning and had it by 4 in the afternoon. However, I have no loyalty to the river or to eBay and I will canvas the internet for the best value (price, delivery and warranty) and purchase accordingly.

EBay would be foolish to attempt to mirror the river but I would agree that eBay has shifted their business model over the past several years and moved away from the core model that made them what they were/are. However, the river has also changed its own business model not so much with regards to ecommerce as diversification. The river is now the largest cloud services provider to both the public and private sector, they have moved into the media market and I believe are headed towards an expanded logistical services market. One day it may be the river delivering your eBay orders/packages.

Playing follow the leader seldom works out very well for the followers. It has always been the innovators and leaders that reaped the big dollars prior to the competition moving into the market and leveling the playing field.

zamo-zuan · ‎12-05-2021

@southern*sweet*tea wrote:
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Ebay could have been THE premier website for all things vintage, antique and preowned. Instead, by embracing the cheap junk gravy train like Amazon they're now just another third party mediocre shopping site where you now have to dig through all the crap to find the hidden gems.

New items should have never, ever been allowed here. Etsy did the same thing. When they started allowing mass produced "handmade" items, the whole site went into the toilet.

In my opinion, a lot of the problems could be solved by making "new" and "used" items function completely differently , possibly even different "sites" like how Motors/the rest of eBay functions.

Trying to do a "one size fits all" approach leads to many problems. And we see it with more than just search, it also happens with returns, service metrics, shipping, and so on.

zamo-zuan · ‎12-05-2021

@katzrul15 wrote:
@zamo-zuan wrote:
@katzrul15 wrote:
Third-party sellers are unhappy about their experience there as it has all gravitated to FBA. This is not new - it begins and ends with the Behemoth.

Many 3rd party Sellers have transitioned to Wally World and offerUp. We chose to embrace FBA. Has served us well, but books are not a good fit for FBA.

Yup. And as mentioned, that's why it's kind of insane that eBay has copied so much from Amazon, when they're built around fulfillment, and eBay is not. And all their tests/attempts at fulfillment seemingly failed.
Absolutely. Our FBA sales have been incredible this season. Out-pacing anything we anticipated.

We shifted due to chaos and abyss on here, but SO glad we did. We have rarely had a day in the past 2 weeks with under 100 FBA orders/day. Lowest day was 91. Saturday after black Friday, 143. Sold 4 here that Saturday - 4.

They can do it faster, cheaper, more accurate and they handle their own FBA claims.

Will see how many returns in January. Otherwise, so far, really glad we shifted more product when we did.

Yep, for what Amazons focus is (FBA) their design supports it much better than eBay's design supports eBay's focus (or lack of).

The problem with Amazon is moreso their sponsorship system (which eBay copied, ironically) and the way China could abuse it, with them making frivolous copyright claims that you must defend, but if you do legitimate claims against them they can't be enforced because China.

EBay used to have the advantage on CS, but now they took the ability from CS to actually assist you on anything but the most basic straightforward cases, and the only time you actually need CS is for the rarer cases to begin with, (especially with all the tech probs hte last few years) so....

carolynnq · ‎12-05-2021

@zamo-zuan wrote:
@southern*sweet*tea wrote:
I've said it before, and I'll say it again.

Ebay could have been THE premier website for all things vintage, antique and preowned. Instead, by embracing the cheap junk gravy train like Amazon they're now just another third party mediocre shopping site where you now have to dig through all the crap to find the hidden gems.

New items should have never, ever been allowed here. Etsy did the same thing. When they started allowing mass produced "handmade" items, the whole site went into the toilet.
In my opinion, a lot of the problems could be solved by making "new" and "used" items function completely differently , possibly even different "sites" like how Motors/the rest of eBay functions.

Trying to do a "one size fits all" approach leads to many problems. And we see it with more than just search, it also happens with returns, service metrics, shipping, and so on.

ebay did try splitting out new and used about 2006 or so. It was a disaster. They also really messed up search at that time.

IMO, ebay went wrong when they started trying to emulate Amazon. With all the MBAs eBay hired (instead of people who knew the categories and the buyers in those categories), you'd think they'd know the concept of USP (unique sales proposition). eBay held a unique place in the marketplace. It was THE place for collectibles. They had what Guy Kawasaki called "evangelical marketing" working for them. Sellers and users were excited about eBay and talked it up. I don't think adding fixed price offerings was bad; there's a place for it, even in collectibles, but especially in media.

eBay made a lot of changes that drove a lot of antique sellers to Ruby Lane and other sites. I forget what change drove Bruce, who ran movie posters and movie memorabilia auctions every Sunday night, off. He was a pretty big seller and his buyers would buy stuff from other sellers while they waited for his auctions to end. He was sad about having to leave ebay and tried to get ebay to work with him, but he ended up leaving and starting his own site.

duckypms · ‎05-03-2023

3RD PARTY RESELLERS ON EBAY turns into 6 PARTY TRANSACTIONS

ISSUE BESIDES DECEPTIVE PRACTICE that ebay allows this and doesn't care, it takes way longer to get your ebay purchased item to your door , if you get it at all, by the listing posted timeline, sometime weeks !

1st party = ebay

2nd party = ebay lister or seller

3rd party = amazon where the ebay 2nd party seller seeks and finds item you purchased from ebay

4th party = amazon lister or seller

5th party = amazon 4th party seller seek and finds the item supplier

6th party = YOU the buyer from ebay receiving your purchase from amazon 8 to 10 days later if your lucky

EBAY go back as you use to be, a media for a ebay item listing owner of the listed item to sell direct to the ebay buyer

kh-vince · ‎05-03-2023

Hi everyone,

Due to the age of this thread, it has been closed to further replies. Please feel free to start a new thread if you wish to continue to discuss this topic.

Thank you for understanding.