Is eBay Worse Than Early Sears Catalogs? 438
prostoalex writes "The New York Times claims eBay can learn a lot from the early Sears catalogs, which promised unconditional returns (postage paid by Sears) in case there is any dissatisfaction with the product even if the product behaves exactly as described. Apparently eBay is doing something right, but with no buyer protection, no seller authentication, and no desire to participate in seller-buyer conflicts, no return policy, can the business model be sustained?"
no more e-bay for me (Score:3, Informative)
I bought my wife a present of her favorite bubble bath on e-bay. When it came, it was somebody else's favorite bubble bath. I got in touch with the sender, who apologized profusely and offered to send the right stuff. It never came. And, I never got my money back.
My friend, on the other hand, purchased a guitar on e-bay only to have it be in far worse condition than advertised. He never got his money back, either.
My conclusion is to never spring big bucks for anything on e-bay.
big difference (Score:3, Informative)
vs.
Ebay makes money off of people listing items to sell.
The big difference is that Ebay makes money even if the products don't sell, Ebay has both an excellant business model and a huge market share, plus their just plain usefull
Re:Not if someone better comes along (Score:3, Informative)
Buyer authentication on eBay/listings credits (Score:3, Informative)
Did you receive any money from the buyer: Yes ______ (amount) OR No
eBay then sends a confirmation email to that buyer where they have the opportunity to say yes they DID send money or no they didn't didn't send money. Not responding goes in favor of the seller.
Unauthenticated buyers is usually a SELLER scam and not a buyer scam. Many con artist sellers register their own bidding email addresses as well and schill bid in their own auctions - jacking up the price.
There isn't really a way beyond honesty that this "multiple" registration could be prevented other than by fingerprint. Which actually isn't a bad idea.
Since the post office and UPS receive so much business from eBay - I would think it would be a nice service to provide at both for a fingerprint scan that could authenticate email and registrations on websites like ebay.
Buyer protection not worth anything/not true (Score:3, Informative)
That is of course if you fund your transactions with credit cards which should ALWAYS do!
Re:Paypal... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What can they do about it? (Score:4, Informative)
Sellers refuse to leave positive feedback unless the buyer does, buyers AND selelrs leaving retalitory negative feedback against legitimate gripes and overall everyone leaving "A++++ best ebayer ever" over and over makes the feedback system almost 100% useless except as an idea as to how active the user is.
More information needs to be tracked for ebay for sellers and buyers to get a better idea.
the time it takes for a buyer to pay needs to be shown. same as time it takes for a seller to ship as well as response times of both in email.
Certian buyers take almost a fricking week to pay, some sellers will ship when they get around to it in a couple of weeks and thise stuff needs to be noted to improve EBAY service style.
if a seller has his rating plus a "slow shipper" icon I'll know to avoid the guy. same as a buyer having a "slow pay" flag can be avoided for auctions.
finally, ebay removed the ability for me to look at feedback but ONLY the negative feedback.
Yes negative feedback is at least 90,000 more important than the sea of half hearted positives. and they need to be taken in context. but I do not want to clikc for 2 hours trying to read EVERY one of your negative feedbacks just to find out that you like to screw around and ship people's things from 2-3 weeks later, or you never read or respond to customer emails. (just as an example, not saying YOU do this.)
ebay needs to collect more information automatically. and they can through their ownership of paypal... auction ended and buyer took 6 days to pay...
What sears has become (Score:3, Informative)
I have wandered in with damaged and defective Sears screwdrivers and gotten replacements with no receipt and issues.
My wife orders clothes and if it doens't fit returns it without any problems.
The staff is generally a step above much of the competition, both in knowledge, and customer service.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that, and the feedback.
Take off the tinfoil hat. If someone has great feedback, you're just as safe trusting them as you would be trusting the stranger you just met at the flea market. Moreso, in fact, because you have no idea if the flea-market guy's customers are satisfied. OK, OK, with one notable exception [freep.com].
Can you wipe your ass with Ebay? No. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Paypal... (Score:3, Informative)
Credit cards can't receive payments from buyers. That's all that PayPal's really good for. It also allows people who can't otherwise accept credit cards to do so.
But BitPass will do the same thing, as will 2Checkout. And neither of them has a long and glorious history of screwing people like PayPal does.
-JemRe:Not if someone better comes along (Score:5, Informative)
The comment the grandparent made about you having to police all your forums if you police one is just a warning. I don't think there are any laws that say such a thing specifically, but I know I have read about cases where some sites have been found liable in civil suits because they engaged in selective enforcement. I think the guy's comment was just to alert you to the fact that you're probably better off not policing things on your site or else you open a potential can of worms. I doubt he's right, but I think the idea behind is comment is worth looking into.
eBay versus New York Times (Score:5, Informative)
Let's dig into the New York Times finances. I start at www.sec.gov, click on Edgar filings, search for "New York Times", and grab the 10-K, the most recent annual filing.
New York Times 10-K [sec.gov]
For the year ended 2003-12-28, their revenus was $3.2 billion. Here's a breakdown:
100% $3.2 billion total revenue
66% $2.1 billion advertising
27% $0.9 billion circulation
07% $0.2 billion other
Advertising revenue is up about 3.5% from 2002, but advertising volume, the number of inches of ads, dropped 3.8% from 2002 to 2003. The Times has been selling fewer ads but charging more for them.
Summary: the primary business line of the New York Times company is selling ads. Internet companies such as eBay are cutting into that ad business. And that's why the New York Times has been trash-talking Google and eBay lately.
Re:I may be missing something, but... (Score:3, Informative)
1) Don't deal with anyone outside of North America. Ever. For any reason.
2) Don't buy electronics at too-good-to-be-true prices. (Because is IS too good to be true)
3) Don't buy anything with "this is an actuion for instructions on how to buy...." in the description. Run away.
4) Don't sell to people with 0 feedback via Paypal. Request a money order or other method of payment.
5) If you're thinking of buying something substancial (>$100) then RESEARCH. Research both the item and the seller(s), ask LOTS of questions. If the seller can't get back to you with accurate information quickly, then move on.
6) Profit!
I'm sure people have come up with more.. post them here.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:3, Informative)
I've been on eBay for 3 years, have made hundreds of transactions, and have only been burned once. Since the seller never sent me the item promised, I got a full refund from PayPal.
Use your own brain (Score:3, Informative)
It is pointless to compare shopping on e-bay with going to a bricks and mortar retailer like Best Buy.
E-bay is the wild west. The onus is on the buyer to look at feedback ratings, look at what elese the guys sells, and make an educated guess about the risk factor involved.
If you decide to pay $250 for new super pentium4 notebook with lots of free software from a guy with no history called "ebaydood675", then you pretty much assume that it will never arrive.
Sure there are scam artists on e-bay. There are also guys who go door to door selling aluminum siding, but I don't insist that the city should roll up the sidewalks to keep them away from my house.
Instead of blaming e-bay or Pay-Pal (who, sure, don't really do anything if you do get ripped off) take some responsibility for your own decisions.
They offer buyer protection through PayPal (Score:3, Informative)
Nick Powers
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:3, Informative)
I look at the item, decide how much I am willing to pay for it, up the number by a few odd cents in case someone happens to agree with me exactly and bid first. Then I program that number into a bid sniper and let it run. I don't feel bad about it when I loose, they were willing to pay more. I don't loose often.
1 - The sniper keeps my bid from being nickled and dimed up by people who have no idea what they want to spend. You may like playing bidwars but I'm here to do buisness.
2 - I can put the snipe in well in advance, and if I find a better item or price before the auction is up I just cancel the snipe, no commitment until the last possible moment.
3 - If there are 0 bids on an item, most people just pass it by. If theres a bid on it then theres a ton of people who just have to take a shot at it. Its the sellers job to attract people, the buyers job to find good deals, and I'm not going to play spotter for lazy shoppers.
Think I'm evil yet? Well, let me add one more for you. If I see a Buy It Now auction I intend to snipe down the road, I put in the minimum bid to kill the buy now option.
Re:eBay Needs To Police Itself Better (Score:2, Informative)
It's strongly against their policies. eBay does not police itself. It relies solely on customers to report questionable activity. They almost always act on these reports.
The best deals I've come across lately on eBay are "Buy it Now!" items. It's much more convenient than bidding on traditional auctions and worrying about being sniped or shilled. Of course, if you only bid the max you're willing to pay, you won't have to worry about it.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:3, Informative)
Automated snipers solve that problem. They will bid for you at the last minute (within 10 seconds of the end of the auction). I use Auction Sniper [auctionsniper.com]. All you do is enter in the item number and it will place a last minute bid for you automatically. If you don't win, you don't pay.
This guy is a historian? (Score:3, Informative)
Each incoming mail order was opened and read, then assigned a bin number and a 45-minute time slot. Pull tickets, with bin numbers, were filled out for each item and sent by pneumatic tube to different departments all over the "plant", where stock pickers took the item off a shelf and sent the item to the order assembly bins via conveyor. There, this being pre-bar-code, people grabbed the items off the conveyor as it passed the appropriate bin, and dropped the item with pull ticket in the bin.
At the end of the time period for the current orders, all the filled bins were pulled and replaced with empty bins. The filled bins were sent off by conveyor to outgoing order processing, where the contents of the bin were checked against the original order, the appropriate bookkeeping operations were performed, and the order was shipped.
Note how this works. The information moves, in the form of pick slips, and the merchandise moves, but there's little searching for merchandise. The order picking people don't move very far. In any one area, the people in that area know where the items in their area are (and they're all numbered, of course) so they can quickly pick items and put them on their outgoing conveyor. Order binning involves no paperwork; it's just putting items with numbered tags in bins. Order final assembly and checking starts with all the merchandise and paperwork in one place, and the people doing that work on only one order at a time, so that's straightforward. Packing and shipping consists of putting the contents of a bin in a box and adding a label created at order final assembly.
In its day, the Sears, Roebuck center was considered a marvel of commerce.
Order fulfillment operations still work a lot like that. Barcoding and computers have substantially reduced the number of people involved, but everybody still has bins and timeslots.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What can they do about it? (Score:2, Informative)
www.escrow.com [escrow.com] is the preferred escrow provider [ebay.com] for ebay. Yes, it costs extra, which is why it isn't done all the time. It's also a bit more work for the buyer and seller; for example when I used it last year it involved doing a wire transfer.