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The Perfect Store: Inside Ebay
According to the tale, an atheist
traveled to Rome to check out the Catholic Church,
and saw, through some odd gift of divine grace,
that the Devil himself was sitting at on the
throne of St. Peter and ruling the Church
disguised as a Pope. The atheist
reflected upon the paradox and then became a
devout Roman Catholic. Why? He reasoned that
only the one true faith could succeed with the
Devil himself in charge.
Leaps of faith take many forms, and none were
stranger to the world of the 1990's than the
possibility that people might buy objects they've
never touched from people they've never met and
send money to addresses they've never seen on the
basis of a bunch of colored stars summarizing a
community's collective opinion. Yet that's eBay --
and now anyone curious about the communion of
online buyers and sellers can turn to The
Perfect Store by Adam Cohen. The new history chronicles the purity of the founder's vision, the tumultuousness of exponential growth, the tremors of bliss rippling down the spines of the auction
winners, the purgatory of crashing servers, the
saintly trust of the masses, and the deviltry of
the few. Through all of these trials and tests,
the company prospered with a steadfast devotion to
a libertarian's dream of a frictionless
marketplace where buyers and sellers could engage
in a conversation to discover the one true
price.
The book is sort of a hagiography, although focused
more on the marketplace community than the
corporate leadership. Almost every twist and turn
of the company's history seems to depend upon how
well the people adhere to the vision of a
hierarchy-free community of buyers and sellers.
The company thrives when they make it easy for
goods to find the people who want them.
The book begins where eBay itself began:
in the vision of the founder, Pierre Omidyar. The
book follows him and then the people who join the
company by laying out a largely chronological
collection of important milestones, interrupted
every now and then with a tale of some quirky eBay
member. The author, Adam Cohen, may not speak with the earnest voice of a true believer, but he
is largely happy to describe the decisions with
devotion and reverence. This shouldn't be
surprising because he worked closely with everyone
at eBay and even had his own company ID badge and
work space in the office building. He obviously spoke
often to the core team and the history is filled
with their words.
But the book isn't a dump truck filled with happy
stories. The book manages to include almost all of
the major controversies that I, a casual eBay user
and fan, remember. There's a long discussion about
the decision to ban guns and plenty of talk about
the right way to handle pornography and used
underwear. Cohen also interviewed a number of the
disenchanted members who developed a love/hate
relationship with the marketplace run by one
corporation. They keep talking about quitting or
protesting or going somewhere else when eBay keeps
jacking up the rates, but every time the market dominance
of the company keeps pulling them back in.
The later half of the book is largely filled with
these controversies, in part because there are
only so many ways you can keep repeating details
about the company's phenomenal growth. The viral
explosion of new listings was the story at the
beginning, but after the IPO cemented the success,
the management had to wrestle with the bits of
evil that would drift into the network.
Most of the coverage of these battles is
straight-forward and carried by a flat tone
typical of journalistic distance. The analysis and
criticism are largely left for the reader to
assemble, although the parts aren't hard to find.
For instance, we learn early that Omidyar's
experience in the 1980's with the fat cat-friendly
IPO market inspired him to create a neutral
marketplace where all buyers and sellers were
equals. He apparently tried to buy into an IPO
only to discover that skinny cats didn't get to
buy at the issuing price. Back then, Omidyar was a
skinny cat.
But when it comes time for eBay's IPO, the people
on the company's throne skipped the chance for an
eBay-like OpenIPO. Goldman
Sachs got the opportunity to pick an opening
price for the stock, and the investment bankers
managed to find a number that left a lion's share
for the usual fat cats.
At the time, Omidyar, the other members of the
management team (Jeff Skoll and Meg Whitman) and
Benchmark Capital controlled a stunning 98.1% of
the stock. They quickly became
billionaires. Many of the workers made a few
million of that 1.9% divided among the rest, but
everyone else was left out. The thousands of
people who worked the bulletin boards, and help
create a cohesive community ruled by colored stars
got nothing. This continues to be a bitter point
for many involved with eBay from the beginning.
Money weaves a strange path in and out of the
narrative. On one hand, marketplaces are all about
price discovery. The only reason to list an item
on eBay is to get money. On the other, the book
gives the impression that it's kind of crass to be
into eBay for the money. The eBay folks are
supposed to be passionate believers in this
community ruled by colored stars. It's all about
community, we're told. But I guess if
you can't get IPO shares, that's what you have to
live with.
The book may be best as a sly bit of exploratory
surgery aimed at the strange desires in our body
that drive commerce and trade. Some of the
vignettes of eBay members are priceless and the
stories about the effect of eBay on the market for
collectables are not to be missed. Before eBay,
the members of the Midwest Sad Irons Collectors spent hours at garage
sales and antique stores looking for what many of us might call a rusting hunk of metal. There were even conventions populated by
dealers helping people find what they wanted. All
of the socializing and chatting intertwined in the
weekend swapmeets became history when eBay made
it possible for anyone to get what they want by
plopping down big bids. There's no need to go to
wade through church yards filled with schlock to
find the grail of sad iron collectors, the
swan-on-swan. Someone else is doing it right now... and all you need to do is grep the database. If you're lucky, there's no reserve!
At moments like these, the essential paradox of
eBay becomes clear. On one hand, we're really
after the stuff. We want the Pez dispenser, the
Hair Bear bunch poster or the Elvis jacket. Do you
realize how hard it is to find one just like that?
On the other hand, anyone with a bank account can
buy any collectable now. There are dozens of
every collectable waiting for buyers on eBay.
Purity of heart, steadfast devotion to the goal,
or indefatigable energy won't help you find the
Grail when it's just a matter of typing the right
number into a web form. There's no real scarcity
anymore if you've got the right credit card. Which
brings the question: if the items aren't really scarce, why would we want them?
The real problem is that eBay strips away the
narrative from the objects. Flea markets,
classified ads, and garage sales toss in stories
for free and this is what the dinner guests, the
friends, and the collecting buddies really want.
They want to hear about the clueless, the loopy, the obnoxious, the greedy, the windbags, the ditzes, and all of the other characters buying and selling sad irons.
Adam Cohen's history, The Perfect
Store, is a crisp, clean, and thorough
retelling of what made eBay what it is today. It's
a good story and you can't just buy those. Wait, I
guess you can -- and the publisher is willing to
print as many as the market will bear. Well, there's
another paradox: Maybe, if eBay can survive with
this many strange, wonderful and bitter stories,
it may be the one true thing after all.
Peter Wayner is the author of Translucent Databases , a book commodifying the protection paradox. It describes how to build databases that reveal nothing to the wrong people, but everything to the right people. You can purchase The Perfect Store from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit yours, read the book review guidelines, then hit the submission page.
So they named their book to sound like "The Perfect Storm." I wonder how many extra copies they're going to sell as a result of people with speech impediments trying to order that 'other' book?
OK, so now we worship how ebay works, yet scorn amazon for their dotcom business?
Hrm....
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
except maybe a Slashdot account, coz information wants to be free, unless Malda sez so.
would involve paypal
Hmmm. I remember the days before the web became popular and there were so few people on usenet groups that you generally did just trust them.
I remember sending real cash through the mail to someone in the states and they sent me a tape in return. Never even crossed my mind that anyone on usenet could be dishonest, as I read so many of their postings that I just trusted them.
I guess replace postings with stars and add lots of red tape and you have eBay. :-)
I'm buying my copy used.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Of course they don't allow certain things on their site, but if someone buys a telescope for a gun, there are side deals going on for the gun it came on for sure.
Ebay, of course, brings in people who are addicted to the rush of the auction so they end up paying more than they would at a retail site. However, it offers an expansive selection of new and used items and lets the community police itself. In general it works, and surprisingly it scaled decently.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. -Samuel Johns
Ebay may dominate in the US and Europe, but its dominance was not inevitable. Ebay Japan is quite pathetic and the online auction market is instead dominated by Yahoo auctions - while Yahoo is stopping its auction service elsewhere.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
but seriously,
as an infrequent e-bayer (13+ to my name) maybe I missed the whole community aspect.
but beyond checking out someone's rating (are they crooks? are they auction kooks? Are they attached to some university and selling off old computer components? Did it "fall off a truck"?)
I always thought the idea of community was more of an extrapolation.
If I'm trying to find some old analog synthesizer of course I'm gonna check and see some auctions to find what the going rate is. I'll see some users names come up frequently and I'll see who has a passion for this stuff. Chances are we're bent in the same direction. But beyond the congratulatory e-mail and the negotiation of mailing addresses and payment methods is there more to the e-bay community?
It's stars, stars mean sales, and that's that.
Or am I just missing out on the richer tapestry of e-bay life that only becomes apparent when you have 100+, or 1000+?
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
According to the tale, an atheist traveled to Rome to check out the Catholic Church, and saw, through some odd gift of divine grace, that the Devil himself was sitting at on the throne of St. Peter and ruling the Church disguised as a Pope. The atheist reflected upon the paradox and then became a devout Roman Catholic. Why? He reasoned that only the one true faith could succeed with the Devil himself in charge.
I know that this is treading on shaky ground (potentially offtopic, flamebait, and troll-like at the same time) particularly because this is essentially a semantic complaint (which I generally hate)...but since I have never heard that story before -- this is eating away at me.
If an athiest thought he/she saw the Devil, that person is decidedly not athiest. In modern times, the/a Devil is typically a Christian construct (excluding Hades, etc), and to believe in such things, you must be either a Christian, or hold some relegious beliefs...therefore the person who saw the devil sitting in St. Peter's throne could not be an athiest.
-Anonymous (Athiest) Coward
George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg, Diane Lane and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio will star in the Wolfgang Petersen directed thriller about an online auction house?
...including an ass kicking. This "item" can be found here.
I was thinking about this the other day, i dont think i know of any other user based auction sites (uBid isnt user based) that actually have any worth while content. eBay is the only place i know of to go these days. anyone know of any other worth while auction sites?
yahoo comes to mind, but i havent been too happy with the content in the past.
Some E-bay items for sale:
Spammers
Goat Sex
Windows Boot Disk
Hollow Jesus Fish Ring
Various Linux
You really can buy almost anything on ebay...
Amazon has never posted a profit, Ebay generates close to $50MM in distributive (but not distributed) earnings per quarter.
Prompt hyperlinking and friendly service! Content was only a little stupid!!! Would definitely read again!
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
a)online auction fraud is one of the biggest sources of fraud on the internet, period
b)there is more CRAP on ebay than anywhere else. I tried to find a Powerbook, and I had to spend 20 minutes weeding out the complete CRAP even though I was looking only the "laptops" category(there is a separate "accessories" category, which of course all the accessory hucksters ignored.) By the time I was done, I had something like:
"powerbook -memory -pad -mouse -case" etc...you get the idea.
Ebay has three basic problems:
-the listings are far from real-time. I've found auctions still listed as running, with decent prices...click on it, and the auction ended an hour or more ago
-astronomical levels of fraud
-garbage, in the form of:
-improperly listed items
-worthless trinkets(laser pointers etc)
-snake oil(radar "eliminators", diet pills, etc)
-items with little to no info and probably not even working("This item is sold AS IS. I get many different kinds of _____ and I don't have the [pick one: experience, equipment, time] to test ______") Translation: "I bought this off the back of a truck and there's no way in hell it'll work, but I might sucker some stupid college kid into paying $50 for it when I got it for $1"
Isn't the thing about ebay - at least it is for me - is not the availability of large numbers of things, but that they are cheap?
Seventy five pence for a working NIC was a recent purchase of mine.
anywhere you can buy a human kidney or a kilo of coke has to be good.
Linux is dead.
LU
for example, all of you people who support emulation because you "cant find" the hardware bullshit, nearly everything in this 70+ system collection was found on ebay. im sorry but ebay has revoked the excuse of obscurity!
I want 2D games back.
Most "collectibles" go through huge buy-up/sell-off cycles. In the buy-up cycle, everyone sees that everyone else wants the item and therefore decides they need it too. E-bay has, IMHO, greatly accelerated this part of the cycle, for better or for worse, but the cycle has been around forever.
Just look at the E-bay auction terminology: to "win" an auction is to have bid the most. It turns into a game. Which is what the whole auction-to-the-public industry is based around, in fact. The "pros" (as opposed to the public) know that you don't win by paying the most :-)
I wouldn't bid without seeing a picture of the guy. 6 ft and 230 lbs might sound good but then you pay and he's only 5'7 and 150 lbs! And shipping isn't included...
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
Check out www.npr.org for a stream of talk of the nation's interview with Adam Cohen about his book. An interesting point comes when a caller named Rosalinda calls in and relates the dark side of ebay (which includes rigged auctions and shill bidding rings).
yea i stole your sig- whats the big deal, it sucked anyway.
I know RHAT (and maybe LNUX) collected email addresses from gpl software and offered a few token shares to some contributors. What did Slashdot/ANDN do? I recall some people complaining that if you had a user id below xxx you deserved stock, or if you had a karma over xxx you deserved stock.
Please refresh my memory.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The eBay I'm familliar with is one with lots of mis-labled/described items that are pawned off as other things. Knock-off items abound. Over priced shipping costs. Paypal/bidpay. Crazed buyers that pay more than retail for used goods. and so forth.
Yes there is also a lot of nice stuff on eBay, it is not a good place for the ill informed(explain to your parents why "they" got ripped off sometime).
As for community? People are in it for the money as others have pointed out. There is less interaction than you would find at your local drugstore. Once a transaction is done, odds are you won't do business with the individual again. A community involves interaction, not one or two transactions.
But these aren't unique to E-bay auctions, they can (and do) happen in almost all types of auctions. It's just human nature.
Heck, fraud happens outside of auctions too. At least E-bay has a feedback and delisting scheme in place.
EBay is successful because they have no warehouse, have no stock (merchandise), their customers pay for the shipping. So they have very low overhead and they get a cut on every transaction. Plus much of the sstuff you find on eBay you can't find at the corner store. As long as eBay is popular, they have a license to print money.
Amazon sells books and video. Any self-respecting town has at least one big-box bookmart like Borders (or Chapters/Indigo here up North). You pay good $$$ shipping cross-country what you can usually buy or special-order down the street. Useful for hard-to-find items, or for shipping gifts, but that's a niche category. They have high overhead and are in competition with local booksellers. Amazon is IMHO more in the pets.com category ("order pet food online! only $20 for shipping!") than in the eBay category.
Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking
It's a little cynical, but perhaps part of the reason eBay works isn't trust so much as everyone believes they can spot the ripoffs, cons and shady dealers...
a grrl & her server
Come on, it's not that difficult.
This is really great stuff -concise, relevant, and no unnecessary opinion. Great job Peter! Why can't they all be like this? (I'm looking in your general direction, Katz)
+1, Informative
That's the aspect of eBay I'm most curious about.
Does the book explain it?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
This is not a FP!
I've used PayPal quite a bit for stuff on eBay, never a problem. You can prattle on and on about the .0001% of people who have issues with the service and wondering anecdotes to tell.
:-)
The one time I tried to use BillPoint, they lost my transaction and there was much emailing between me and the seller trying to figure out where my money went. Never again.
Oh -
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I know that classic arcade game collecting (the big vintage 80's games you find in the arcades) has been greatly affected by eBay. In fact, a great deal of the focus for online collectors IS eBay. Part service, part disservice.
It is easier to locate various parts that you are looking for to fix up your collection. But now it is also much easier for sellers to scam people, in this area in particular, with white lies.
White lies, to the seller anyhow. I am sick of all of the people who sell "complete presumed working" PCBs that are missing components. Or say, "TESTED AND WORKING! SEE PICTURES BELOW!" and yet provide a screen capture from MAME. Or even the "tested and working, sold as-is" that you receive and see that there is absolutely no chance that it could have worked.
What's better, they get away with it. The eBay rating system is hopelessly leaning towards positive feedback. You rate the transaction as a whole, and if you give a NEGATIVE, be prepared for revenge on your OWN feedback. (Personally, I think that the feedback should be broken down into sections, like product quality as described, speed of payment/shipping, etc.)
One of the most notorious arcade sellers (who I'll call KK1), didn't have a major feedback problem, yet they constantly sold absolute junk with white lies. They got away with it and got away with it, sellings thousands of dollars of merchandise. You couldn't tell it from the eBay rating, but in the USENET newsgroup, they were getting mauled.
After screwing over a large percentage of the bidders, finally the day came where almost NOBODY was bidding on what were previously very hot items. And that, not the feedback system, is what sent them away.
eBay may be good for some things, but I think in the case of classic arcade games, it has managed to take most of the market, and yet, screwed over countless buyers in the process. But I'm sure the sellers are rejoicing.
you can listen to it Here.
the part the above poster mentioned is around the 25 minute mark.
Let me guess, you submitted a story and it was rejected?
"(which includes rigged auctions and shill bidding rings)"
Who cares? You dont have to bid. I have a maximum above which i`m not prepared to go. If people want to bid on their own stuff and push it above that price, thats their problem.
I believe the story about the atheist actually comes from the Decameron, where a Jew sees the corruption of the clergy, thereby converting.
The book is sort of a hagiography
Right right. Of course. Thanks for clearing that up.
And its name is Walmart.
At least, if your measure is by sales. And their info system isn't too shabby either.
Does anyone know if there is an auction site that performs more like a real auction?
The main problem that I have with Ebay is that people can bid one second before the auction closes and get the item. In a real auction, the auctioneer says "Going once... Going twice... gone", to give everyone an opportunity to beat the high bid. Without this, you never have any idea how much the item will sell for, because everyone holds back their bid until the last second, making Ebay, IMHO, worthless.
Is there a better site out there?
WWJD? JWRTFA!
Granted the whole auction thing is a leap of faith, but it's not all that much stranger than many things we do. Just a different form.
Or maybe you dodn't even have the scraps - I have direct deposit, and then I pay for a lot of junk with my credit card (save on those ATM fees). At direct deposit time, some number called my "checking balance" is increased somewhere, and this other number on this piece of plastic identifies me, and then they subtract the purchase amount from my "credit balance" thingy, and then after a while, I log on to a computer, and send some of the checking balance numbers to my credit balance number.
Not to poke fun at the reviewer, eBay is interesting, it is a leap of faith and it is one of the few working models on the net, and has been making money since it's inception. Just realize there are leaps of faith all around you. the human mind does well with abstraction, large parts of our daily life revolve around that.
Like watching ESPN to get a recap of the car crashes at the Indy 500. This web site is dedicated to bring only the "best" of the auction sites:
To Copy from One is Plagiarism; To Copy from Many is Research.
I've sent US Dollars stuffed in an envelope to Germany to pay for an auction before. Heh, it got there.
Is that you on the front page? Are you single?
Is her site The Auction Guild?
Tried contacting several times, got auto-responder with trite mimicking of ebay feedback.
Error: PANTS NOT FOUND. Press <F1> to continue.
the article quotes a passage in the book about the community being (rigthfully) shut out of the ipo. How is it offtopic to refer to what Slashdot did in the same situation?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
My rating is over 100. I mainly use ebay to get jamma (arcade game) boards. The cheapest I got was World Heroes for $5 (shipping included!). The average price is about $40, the price of a console game.
Without ebay, I wouldn't be able to get all this stuff, no matter how much effort I put into it. But now it is easy to collect wierd stuff like that at good prices.
Community? No... I can't say I chat with the people etc. Like you, mainly I just 'what is your address/shipping?' and 'I got it safely, here is + feedback. Please return the favor.' Nothing personal/friendly really.
Still, it is kool in general.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I mainly collect arcade games off ebay. Average price ~$40. Do I care about how ebay makes it less rare? Or easier to get? No, that is a GOOD thing because it means I can actually get some arcade boards for less than a few thousand dollars. :P
:P
Strangely, emulation does significantly affect the price of boards on ebay. Macross boards (a japanese only game) used to cost about $250. Within the month of the preliminary driver for mame, the average price of that board went down to ~$95. The driver isn't even that good, and never has been updated. Yet look at the change. Hmm. Good if you want to buy the board, bad if you want to sell it.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
I have a rating of over 100, alot of which is from buying arcade stuff. Of all my arcade transactions, only two boards have had problems, and one that had a deceptive auction title.
Yeah, some people have problems. But there is alot of good stuff to be had. To me, the many great finds outweigh the few lemons (and I am not rich!) I am just happy to get this stuff at all.
"Never, never suspect the dreams within the dreams of dreaming children." ~The Amazon Quartet
Dude. Send me all your extra dead presidents. I collect them. I want to get one of each serial number. Help me out man.
I like the boot disks for sale the best, especially since people actually bid on them. Cripes people!
http://www.bootdisk.com
From: Pub-Enforcement [enforcement@ebay.com]
l and state laws, including the Anticybersquatting Consumer
Dear Domain Name Registrant:
It recently has come to our attention that you have registered a domain
name that mimics the famous eBay name and trademark.
As you are likely aware, the coined term "eBay" is one of the most famous
names on the Internet. eBay owns several registrations for the eBay
trademark in the United States and internationally. Accordingly, eBay
enjoys broad trademark rights in its name. For your information, in a
decision by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), a third
party trademark application to register the trademark "ebaysecurities" was
denied due to the USPTO recognizing the eBay trademark as a famous
trademark, and thus entitled to broad protection.
We are concerned that your domain name infringes and/or dilutes the famous
eBay trademark. Infringement occurs when a third party's use a company's
trademark (or a confusingly similar variation thereof) is likely to
confuse consumers as to the affiliation, sponsorship or endorsement of the
third party's services. Trademark dilution occurs when a third party's
use of a variation of a company's trademark is likely to lessen the
distinctiveness of the company's famous trademark. In this case, your use
of the suffix "bay" in your domain name is likely to lessen the
distinctiveness of the famous eBay brand. "eBay" is an arbitrary and
fanciful trademark; neither "eBay" nor "Bay" describe online trading or
e-commerce in any way. Therefore, it is likely that you chose your domain
name to evoke eBay's famous brand.
We take these matters quite seriously. As you may know, we settled a
dispute similar to this one against a company using the name
www.bidbay.com . BidBay has agreed to change its
domain name, company name, and to pay eBay an undisclosed sum of money.
Attached for your information is a news account of the settlement.
More information on trademark law may be found at
http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/aVoid.htm.
Federa
Protection Act of 1999 ()
provide for serious penalties (up to $100,000) against persons who,
without authorization, use, sell, or offer for sale a domain name that
infringes or dilutes another's trademark. Infringers who have been
notified of such infringing activity, but do not cease their
infringements, may also be considered "willful" and could be subject to
additional money damages and liability for attorney's fees. Having
received this e-mail, you are on such notice.
Trademark protection is very important to eBay. In addition to the
Bidbay.com case, we have filed several successful federal court actions
against cybersquatters. We have also filed more than six proceedings
before the United Nation's World Intellectual Property Organization's
arbitration panel; all cases order the transfer of the domain names at
issue to eBay.
While eBay respects your right of expression and your desire to conduct
business on the World Wide Web, eBay must enforce its own rights in order
to protect its valuable and famous name. We appreciate that you may have
registered the above-mentioned domain with the best of intentions and
without full knowledge of the law in this area. Nonetheless, under the
circumstances, we must insist that you stop using the domain name, do not
sell, transfer or offer to sell the domain name to any other person, and
simply let the domain name registration expire.
Please confirm by replying to this email that you will comply as
requested. Thank you for your anticipated cooperation.
Edith
eBay Legal Department
So what was the site? It was a fan-site for A Tale in the Desert, called www.egyptbay.com.
p.s. A tale in the desert is in open beta - check it out - VERY cool.
But you still get screwed if you get pushed closer to your maximum by that shill--you wouldn't have had to pay the maximum price in the absence of the shill. You shouldn't have to pay at or near your maximum unless there was another (real) bidder willing to pay just under that--that's how eBay's structured.
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Maybe it's policy to use BN, but in this case it would make sense to list that The Perfect Store is available on Half.Com (an eBay company now).
If someone can't find that item nearby or can't find it easily (the definition of "nearby" and "easily" is subjective), then the eBay price becomes cheaper than the real world price.
In the real world you have to consider how valuable your searching time and resources (ie, automobile expenses) are. If you know exactly where to get cheaply what you want, or if you place little value on your time, then your real world costs are small.
The example which makes this more obvious is to look at something outside your expertise. How much time and travel would be needed for you to find a 1969 Mustang hubcap or a Romanian porcelain doll? How many flea markets and garage sales would you have to visit?