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?"
But who are they going to return it to? (Score:2, Interesting)
The second one however, was for an external camera for a mobile phone. They were selling retail for 75 at the time, but I got mine free with the phone. I sold it for 50 (most were going to 35) to a guy. I sent it out, then two weeks after he got it he said it didn't work. I had already tested it, but what can you do? Call the guy a liar? Well, I refunded his money and when I got the camera back, I plugged it in and it worked perfectly. What I think really happened was that he found out he paid too much and that the quality was crap and wanted to "return it to place of purchase for a full refund".
So after that episode, I simply put a disclaimer at the bottom that there will be no refunds and all sales are final. I try to be as honest with descriptions as possible so there *should* be no problems.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:After this long (Score:5, Interesting)
I liked Larry Page's (Google co-founder) take on it: "A management team distracted by a series of short-term targets is as pointless as a dieter stepping on a scale every half hour." Very nice.
However, there are a lot of things I (and many others like me, I'm sure) won't buy on eBay because of the lack of protection from the company. But I'm not sure that eBay should do this - the resources involved are purely losses; no revenue will be gained directly, only indirectly (hopefully) through increased traffic.
I think a better solution would be for a cottage industry to grow up (similar to Paypal or the escrow services already doing well b/c of eBay) offering transaction insurance or seller/buyer disputes for a reasonable price. If this business did well, eBay would probably purchase it the way it did Paypal.
The problem with eBay (Score:3, Interesting)
And don't talk to me about eBay user ratings: these are a joke. These sorts of credentials are a joke even in real-life: as the saying goes, really good con artists can sell you a turd and make you say thank you and beg for more.
On the other hand, eBay brings sellers and buyers from the entire world together, and (more importantly), there's no lower price limit to what you can sell. So if I'm looking for Star Trek paraphernalia for example, I'm much more likely to find that miniature Klingon ship on eBay than from ads in the local newspaper.
So, several years ago, the choice was tough for me: avoid doing business with people online, or be able to find great things? So one day I took the plunge, opened a PayPal account and starting bidding on things. Net result: out of 50-so items I won, I never received 4, and PayPal still owes me $150 of *my* money they just don't want to let go of.
So FUCK EBAY!
Network effect and customer service (Score:3, Interesting)
What really cheeses me off about businesses that benefit from a network effect [wikipedia.org] (like ebay) is that once they have their customers "locked in" there is no incentive for them to improve their business because it is very hard for competitors to challenge them.
On a sidenote, check out New Zealand's version of ebay [trademe.co.nz]. The interface is so much cleaner and easier to use. I'm surprised how e-bay can have such a crap, ugly interface and continue to operate as a successful company.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes they are. If they rented the space to Joe and Joe shafts you, then you can take it up with the owners that let him sell there (assuming they have some kind of policies for sellers). Same with ebay. And ebay has the means to implement more checks anyway. It isn't just a street corner.
Re:What can they do about it? (Score:5, Interesting)
This system should be self-correcting, but the reason it isn't is that people are concerned that if they leave a bad feedback, the other person will retaliate. On my site, I've seen people with 2,500 feedbacks (ALL positive) freak out because one person left them one bad feedback. If nobody is willing to suck it up and leave appropriate feedback for a problem buyer or seller, then they're just passing the buck and letting more people get screwed over.
On my site, I ban people after their feedback ratio drops to a certain point in relation to the number of feedbacks they actually have. If more people would leave the bad feedback when it was deserved, more people would be banned. But since they don't, the system has no way of knowing the person needs to be banned. And without leaving the bad feedback, *I* certainly have no way of knowing that the user is a problem.
Really, if you're not willing to do your part - don't blame the auction site.
What about buyer authentication? (Score:1, Interesting)
The end result is driving away the good sellers to category specific forums. If you want to list a musical instrument go to Harmony-Central.com, a telescope go to Astromart.com, computer equipment go to the AMD or Intel forums.
Re:Feedback fills the gap (Score:1, Interesting)
I do what I can to deal with problem users, but I'm just one person. I have to handle maintaining the hardware and writing the software - I barely even have time for *that*.
It would be very helpful if my users would leave bad feedback when it was deserved. My system automatically boots people who are consistant problems but this is based on their feedback rating and if the good users are too concerned with having a perfect record of feedback to bother leaving negatives for the bad users, then it makes my job impossible. I can't very well say "I'm banning you for having perfect feedback, because I have heard rumors that you're a bad buyer/seller"...
*sigh*. I don't know. It's a difficult job. I'd love to find some logistics genius who could help me devise a successful system/algorithm for handling situations like this. I just don't have the mathematical background to come up with it myself.
Buyer protection not worth anything (Score:3, Interesting)
I wanted a 802.11g card with a specific chipset (PrismGT), so having found a seller on ebay I bid and won the auction. The description of the item in the auction was very specific, quoting the modeul number, etc.
3 weeks later (nice speedy delivery... not) I received a package, which I paid import duty on since the seller was in the states, only to discover that I had been sent an 802.11*B* card worth under 15ukp (and completely useless to me). So I tried to contact the seller to resolve the problem - the seller ignored all my emails. I opened a SquareTrade complaint which the seller ignored. The seller's account had been suspended by ebay shortly after the transaction so they obviously had complaints against him.
However, the auction was paid for over PayPal and had a "PayPal buyer protection" icon on it, so I thought that I was safe... Wrong! I logged a complaint at PayPal, expecting them to refund my money and they said that the seller sending an incorrect item isn't covered by the protection.
So what it comes down to is that if the seller had sent me what I ordered but it wasn't quite as shiny as it was described, I would've been covered, but since the seller sent me something completely different to what I ordered they won't cover me at all.
IMHO the buyer protection scheme isn't worth anything and in the future I will be treating auctions covered by the buyer protection policy with the same suspicion as the unprotected auctions. As far as I could tell from the policy terms, I was covered, but PayPal (who are part of ebay) just weaseled out of it.
Paypal... (Score:5, Interesting)
Person x puts money into paypal (with credit card usually)
Person x then pays person y.
Person y then (for the sake of this example) takes the money out of Paypal (e.g. to their own credit card/bank account) and sends the goods.
For whatever reasons, person x then decides to do a chargeback for the credit card (for example, if they dont get the goods, the goods are faulty or whatever else). Credit card company asks Paypal to pay back money. Paypal then freezes account of person y so that they can take back the money to pay the credit card company. If person y has transfered the money to someone else on paypal, even more accounts may be frozen until things are sorted out. But if (as in the example above), person y has taken the money out of paypal alltogether, thats when paypal will go to bank accounts, credit cards or whatever they can to get the money back from person y.
What we need is a new service similar to Paypal but:
A.backed by an existing bricks and mortar bank (to provide security and confidence that there is real money in a vault somewhere to back up your virtual dollars)
B.complying 100% with banking regulations
C.provides more ways to put money into your "e-account" (i.e. ways that DONT allow the service to take money from your bank account or your credit card without you specificly making a transaction)
D.provides a better way to handle disputes than "freezing the accounts of anyone who might be remotly involved and moving money around without permission"
E.operates worldwide so that everyone can use it (like PayCrud)
F.would not allow other services to touch the account without permission (so you could have a PayCrud account to pay people who only accept payment that way and have it linked to this account so that if something goes wrong, PayCrud cant touch it). Ideally, you would need to specificly authorized a direct debit (be it once off or recurring) before it was valid.
Course, even if such a service was set up, Ebay would probobly "prohibit" people from using it (to force more people to use PayCrud which they own)
Re:Make scams more difficult (Score:1, Interesting)
More machine than man (Score:2, Interesting)
I've posted this before (Score:3, Interesting)
no minimum balance, free checks, free billpay (with a caveat, if you stop using billpay, they charge you) open an account, fund with a low limit credit card and withdraw to netbank.. you can still get your token two deposits recorded to have the bank account 'verified'
Re:Not if someone better comes along (Score:3, Interesting)
See, everyone says this, but all the anecdotes are particularly short on details. I've visited paypalsucks.com [paypalsucks.com] several times, and have yet to see a definitive instance where paypal screwed someone over. I've seen lots of "I shipped item $foo, and the seller claimed he never received it, and PayPal stole my money". Of course, they probably didn't read PayPal's TOS which says if you want seller protection, you ship via a method that provides tracking.
Personally, I find that feature useful. I bought an item which never arrived. The seller tried to claim he didn't have to provide proof to me that he mailed it, since I didn't pay for insurance. So after two months, I filed a claim with PayPal and got my money back, since he failed to abide by their TOS. Then in retaliation he tried to report me as a non-paying bidder. It was later revealed that the item was returned to him for insufficient postage.
Personally, I find the biggest problem on eBay is the users, not PayPal. However, I agree that if another suction service comes along that does a better job for the same price, yes, eBay will suffer. But I think that'll turn out to be difficult.
Re:Not if someone better comes along (Score:5, Interesting)
It happend to me, though. I sold computers using PayPal. One buyer called up PayPal because the system was damaged during shipping. PayPal told him they could do nothing, so he contacted me and I replaced it immediately for him.
A day later my PayPal account was frozen and all of the money I had in there was stolen by PayPal. That was last fall, and it's still frozen. PayPal will do nothing for me. All because the customer called PayPal first.
-JemRe:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:5, Interesting)
Property owners who have high visibility leases, and depend on high visibility and positive consumer attitude are very careful about keeping the image up. One or two lousy stores can drag down the profits of an entire mall, and force good clients to look for retail space elsewhere. No leasees = no money for landlords. They do care.
Smaller places will be more tolerant as long as the rent checks don't bounce. The bigger the city, the less policing will go on in these "off-main" singles or low volume rentals. The smaller the city, the more careful everybody is. A few really bad trasactions, especially with the wrong people (tip: beware of grandma, she knows everybody in town), can spell doom for a business. If you run a shady business in a small town (say, less than 100,000pop) you can expect to only get leased space from an equally shady landlord, or you'll have to buy your own place.
Then, of course, there's the local licensing authority. You can always lodge a complaint with the board which grants business licneses. Depending on the rules, it may be possible to get a repeat offender banned form doing business in your town.
Re:Incorruptible (Score:4, Interesting)
I worked in the electronic department at Sears and saw this no questions return policy abused.
People woule buy a video camera, use it for a wedding, then bring it back say they didnt like it. Even got one back that had seawater in it and the lady said it came that way. Manager made me take them both back(and commission was retroactive). Hell, they would take things back thate were a year or two old and give them a percentage of the full price back.
Craftmans tools, life time warranty. People would show up with tools so old and funky just for new ones. I caught one of our old faithful returnees at a flea marker, buying used craftsman stuff, returning it for new and then reselling it for almost new prices.
Sears no questions return policy almost put them out of business. The abuse was rampant.
Puto
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:3, Interesting)
GothicAuctions.com [gothicauctions.com]
Re:What can they do about it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:business reality (Score:3, Interesting)
It's impossible to know how ethical the person on the other end of the screen-name is going to be...
Just look at the rest of the internet... I've never met a troll or a crap-flooder in person, so I assume they are the result of internet anonymity. The same is true for ebay. Scams that couldn't possibly work in a yard sale, will work nicely on ebay. The sellers know the likely hood of someone like me hunting them down from across the country is a slim possibility.
There are two types of people in the world, those that have been ripped off on ebay, and those who have not been ripped of on ebay, yet.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:4, Interesting)
I snipe because I'm a cheap bastard and I hate getting into last-minute bid/counterbid wars over rare import games. I know it's a cheesy tactic, but it's not my fault if the current high bidder didn't set an appropriate max bid and I snipe, preventing him from re-bidding.
Others have already said it, set your max bid to the most you'll spend, and then stand back. Or snipe. There aren't too many other choices.
Now, I've only bought 16 things on eBay in my 3 years with them. And my first sale has yet to happen. But so far, I'm pleased with eBay and the sellers I deal with. For the most part, any single item I bid on is less than 50 bucks, and often 25, so if I were to get hosed it wouldn't be the end of the universe.
GTRacer
- I finally have a star!
Re:Not if someone better comes along (Score:3, Interesting)
Consumers are very different now (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, if my CD writer dies, I just go buy another one, and I'm out only a few $10 bills. I don't care (as much) about quality. If my CD writer works for two years, I'm happy.
Also, look at WalMart. They don't usually stock high quality items -- they go for the lowest prices possible (watch out for falling prices). Their whole business model is based on having the lowest price anywhere. This is very appealing to most consumers.
At ebay, you can often find good deals. Sure, the items are used, and since most things made today are made as cheaply as possible, it might fall apart.
I think as long as ebay realizes they are a "low price leader" like WalMart, they will continue to have success.
--
Re:How Cheap can they get? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:4, Interesting)
How many times have you been ripped off on ebay? Do you actually know anyone who has?
I've been using ebay since August of 1998 and in all that time I have been ripped off a grand total of ZERO times in over 150 transactions.
I have had a few incidents, such as:
* A buyer who bid up an item and then disappeared before sending any money (I resold the item a few days later for almost as much).
* A seller who took my money, then sent an e-mail to let me know that they would not be able to ship the item as expected because the quality did not match their expectations (it was something they had ordered to resell) and they refunded my money promptly (via M.O., this was pre-PayPal).
* A seller who claimed to have shipped a product to me but it never showed up. They then claimed to have shipped it to the wrong address and were reshipping, after another week or so they gave up trying to make up new stories and refunded my money.
* A seller who sold me a high-end digital camcorder that showed up damaged. I notified him via e-mail and he shipped me another one without waiting for me to return the broken one first.
Other than the first one, I've encountered these same kinds of issues shopping in real brick & mortar stores and in dealing with various online companies.
Are there people who get ripped off on ebay? Sure, you betcha. Are there people who get ripped off in real brick & mortar stores? Yep. Online shopping? Yes. From a guy on a street corner? Sure.
If you're going to shop anywhere then you need to be aware of:
* Feedback, either through an obvious display like on ebay or by calling the BBB and asking before dealing with a new company
* Return Policy, especially on anything expensive. A lot of online sellers charge a "restocking fee" which can be as high 15%.
* READ BEFORE YOU BID. I've done business recently with an electronics liquidator on ebay (userID BuyEssex) and they have really high feedback (55,000+) and a lot of negative feedback. A quick review of the negative feedback shows quotes like "Didn't know item was broken, bad deal" yet when you read the auction description they're replying to you'll see things like "we plugged this in, it DOES NOT POWER ON, sold AS-IS" and then people complain because it doesn't work...
* And the number 1 rule, as mentioned by previous posters, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:4, Interesting)
Furthermore, stuff like this happens:
I just bought a non-working device, it wasn't marked as-is but was missing the proprietary power supply (thus forcing me to build my own, which will take about 10 hours). So I left neutral feedback explaining this caveat emptor situation -- and the seller went back and changed his positive feedback (i had paid the same day) to a negative feedback along with a series of lies claiming I begged for a refund and made unreasonable demands.
This pissed me off. NEUTRAL + $100 != NEGATIVE + Broken Fucking Device. I did nothing wrong, and now I look bad? It pissed me off even more when the guy emailed me, asking if I wanted to drop BOTH feedbacks under ebay's Mutual Retraction program.
Essentially, he chose to mar my reputation in the hopes that the damage would cause me to remove my neutral. After all, one negative out of 20 is worse than a neutral out of 850.
But I'm not going to do it. Ebay isn't my livelihood, and so I don't care that much. But I bet a lot of unsatisfied customers in that 850 did remove their feedback rather than get tagged as a negative buyer.
The problem with escrow (Score:3, Interesting)
Well for most items, the buyer just isn't going to find it worth it. Are you really going to drop $30-50 in escrow fees on a processor you bought for $100?
Re:Amazing (Score:5, Interesting)
And they are bastards for it. I got a real steal on an item because the seller had listed it in the wrong place. He then tried to charge me a $15 "handling fee" (not mentioned in his auction) + $20 shipping to make up for the low price. This is a violation of two of eBay's policies (fee avoidance and listing handling charges in your auction), so I of course refused to pay and filed a complaint.
eBay's response? "You can think of us as a classified ad section. You wouldn't complain to the newspaper if you had a dispute with a seller that had advertised there. We're the same way." Followed by, "Oh, by the way, if you don't pay we'll slap you with a NPB alert. Three of those and we'll suspend your account."
It's pure bullshit. They want to have their cake and eat it, too. Either you're a free marketplace or you're not. eBay has established that they are not, as they cancel listings they don't like, they have a whole list of rules, and they slap people that don't play nice. They are nothing like the classified ad section of the newspaper and need to stop pretending that they are, and start enforcing all of their rules equally.
For now, eBay effectively has a license to print money. They don't have to do anything to appease anyone.
Re:The problem with escrow (Score:3, Interesting)
Real escrow works because Mr. Escrow holds both the item and the money to prove to the seller that the item exists, and to prove to the buyer that the money exists. The buyer knows the seller can't pretend the buyer didn't send him the item, and the seller knows the buyer can't take the money and run. In your case Mr. Buyer will just claim that he never received the item and demand the refund from Mr. Escrow.
If everyone used Certifiable delivery of both the money and the goods, that part of the problem would go away escrow or not, but nobody is willing to pay the extra money for certified mail.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:3, Interesting)
What's the problem with sniping? You're given X amount of time to put in a maximum bid you'll pay. If someone else wants to pay more, they'll pay more be it by sniping . . . .
The problem with sniping occurs when the "sniper" is sniping without intent to purchase. The sniper may be part of a group bid rigging [64.233.167.104] involved in price fixing [wikipedia.org], which is a form of conspiracy in restraint of trade. [adlusa.com]If the seller is using a separate account to drive the price up at the last moment, then this may also be criminal. I'm sure in auction case law there is something to be said for when the seller enters into an auction with intent to drive the price up. At the very least he is not dealing in good faith.
For those of you who despise the Music Industry of colluding to keep the prices artificially high, then out of principle you should be opposed to bid sniping because it supresses competition [vanderbilt.edu]. Bid sniping suppresses competition the same as price fixing. So, another problem of bid sniping is that it is unfairly (unethically?) suppressing competition.
Interestingly, the issue is brought up [maineantiquedigest.com] that online auctions should not be comparable to real auctions. The suggestion is that, in real auctions when a new high bid is established, the duration of the bidding period is extended. Also, in the vanderbilt link above, ther is mention of the same facet and its solution by "introducing a 'soft ending' mechanism, the company changes the rules of the bidding process so that any offer made in the last hour automatically triggers an extension of the deadline, removing the incentive for sniping."
Re:But who are they going to return it to? (Score:2, Interesting)
Probably. One time I bought an XBox from Walmart and I tried to install a first gen modchip in it (involving 26 wires soldered to the MB). At around wire 18 I ended up burning a trace on the motherboard and the end result was the Xbox was totally fucked.
I removed the chip and wires and screwed everything back together. The next day I took it back to Walmart and told them my new Xbox I'd just bought the day before was now angrily flashing a red LED and refusing to play games. The Walmart guy was like "WTF, I never saw one do that before!" and they gave me a brand new one.
The funny thing is, he removed it from the box and actually tried it out. He either didn't care or didn't notice that the stickers covering the screw holes were cut when he turned it over to examine the bottom.
Re:eBay is not a catalog nor a retail outlet. (Score:2, Interesting)
First, you get to hold the item in your hand and see that it exists.
And by reading a users feedback, you can tll if they have a history of screwing people over.
Second, you get to talk immediately to the vendor if you have a question, not having to wait for an email that may never come
Lame point. Auctions last up to nine days. This is why I prefer buying on eBay. I have more time to think things over and ask questions.
Third, don't have to worry about shipping issues (breakage, costs, delay) like you do with Ebay
This is a problem with purchasing ANYTHING that will be shipped to you, not just on eBay. Anything online or in a catalog could have problems.
Fourth, don't have to include iffy escrow services such as PayPal, as you do with Ebay
I haven't dealt with excrow on anything, and I find it quite stupid that anyone would buy something that damn expensive on eBay. I sure as hell wouldn't.
Fifth, you can get a sense of the type of dealer by talking to him (emotional reactions, knowledge of subject) face to face vs. having ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA who you're dealing with on Ebay
Again, feedback tells you everything. Someone with 200+ feedback and no negatives isn't going to fuck you over. Period. Someone with 5 feedbacks, 2 of wich are negative, needs to be avoided. After a few months of dealing on eBay you can tell at a glance whether or not someone is likely to fuck you over, just like doing business IRL.
Sixth, you can tell if vendors are legit if they come back to the same place week after week, as opposed to some that show up for one week and then never return.
Feedback, yet again. It takes a long time to rack up significant amounts of feedback and those that do are usually as good as gold.
Ebay being "just like" an open market? Don't think so... I've seen people get ripped off in SO MANY WAYS on Ebay that I'll NEVER buy through them, no matter how good the deal
By 'seen' do you mean "I have real life friends that have been fucked over multiple times" or do you mean "Some guys on this board I go to say eBay sucks"? Yes, eBay is just like an open markt. If you go around believing things that are too good to be true ("Quad Xeon server! Only $149.95!") then you're going to get your ass pounded. If you actually read feedback and are careful about who you deal with, you will have no problems.