Is eBay Worse Than Early Sears Catalogs?

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?"

Comments

Re:Not if someone better comes along

[skyhawker]

Hate speech harms society and it seeks to oppress the people or groups that it demeans.

I have no problem with you policing your own site for this kind of garbage. The problem with making laws about "hate speech," however, is who gets to decide when something falls under the hate speech category. When the government decides to crack down on "hate speech," it's amazing how many things are suddently classified as such. American universities are particularly egregious at this kind of thing.

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

[mec]

The New York Times is a publicly traded company which sells advertising and subscriptions. They actually get about twice as much revenue from advertising as they do from subscriptions.

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

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.