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How Amazon and Google are taking eBay's Business
prostoalex writes "Wall Street Journal says many online sellers who started on eBay are now going solo, being helped out by 'name-your-own-price' Amazon Marketplace and Google's and Yahoo's advertising programs, which allow small businesses to direct their ads to search engine users interested in specific items. The article discusses several companies where online sellers, being disappointed with eBay's falling profit margins, increasing fees, disruptions coming from PayPal account freezes and high fraud rate, are leaving eBay. Many start with setting up their own sites, continuing to do business on eBay, but then switching to solo e-commerce entirely after looking at profit margins."
Lying about the location needs to be sorted out too.
I'm sick and tired of searching for items in the UK and having to sort through pages and pages of crap from Hong Kong (which seem cheap until you look at the shipping costs).
I haven't had a problem with them, but see http://www.paypalsucks.com/.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
They didn't mention that yahoo auctions just went completely free.. It's just ad supported now. I would be very happy if eBay had a little more competition in both the auction and payment sectors.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
I can't "Me Too" the parent enough. Back in 1999-2000 I bought and sold many, many items off of eBay (at least many, many cheap electronics and trading cards based on my college budget). Right around 2002, however, I slowed my browsing and now I haven't even gone to the website for over a year. The reason: any non-trivial item I want to look for (laptop, camcorder, digital camera, LCD projector) is infected with frustrating-as-hell spam reading "GET ITEM X FOR FREEE!!!!11!" eBay, for all intents and purposes, has been hijacked by the no-product "FOR FREE"-guide spammers and extremely high volume power sellers. It is just really hard to wade through the crap to find some guy who's just selling his camcorder because he doesn't want it anymore.
"What we elect to call imagination is mere combination of things not heretofore combined." - Frank Norris
Have to agree.. just as a buyer I have found their customer support to be second to none. Any time I have had a problem they have fixed it instantly - even if they lose money as a result, for example by sending replacement products out (internationally) which they have done for me several times.
They are the only online retailer that I really trust.. they've earned it.
I rarely every find a "bargain" on eBay anymore; I've stopped looking at the site. I see allot of stuff selling for prices higher than retail. However, most things are priced at about 85-95% of new. Go search closed auctions for a Mac Mini, you'll really have to dig to find a used one that sold for less than 95% of what you'd pay from Apple.
Me? I'll bone up the extra $25 and buy a new one.
The year was 2001, a client wanted a simple way to wire me money for remote consulting services I was providing. I suggested PayPal, and helped him to configure an account.
When he would pay me, he would send approximately $150-250 through PayPal. This occured 8 times.
When I received the funds in my PayPal account, there was never any indicator of how he provided funds to PayPal, nor did I think I should care.
Approximately 6-8 months after the last transaction, I logged into my PayPal account prompted by an e-mail I received from them.
My account balance was -$1300 and some change. After calling PayPal to figure out what happened, I found out that the client had disputed the charges.
He worked out of his home, I called and reached his wife. His credit card had been stolen and he charged back any transactions he didn't recognize.
When I called again to reach him, I couldn't seem to communicate what had happened. (He was rather non-technical). He thought that other charges he saw on his account were the ones for me, but these were checks he had written for another matter. He refused to "double-pay me."
So, since PayPal doesn't bother to check with merchants or ask any questions whatsoever before charging back transactions, I'm out some $1300.
I call PayPal, they tell me they need proof of shipping. The funds were sent and labeled as 'for services'! I questioned this, and they seemed confused, and then said they needed proof of shipment, again.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions from this story. I'm tired of writing, but google around and see how MasterCard or Visa handles chargebacks with their merchants. PayPal is NOT a financial institution, by any definition.