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EBay Deal Irritates Individual Sellers
Dekortage writes "EBay's recent deal with Buy.com appears to be seriously irritating its veteran individual sellers. The deal allows Buy.com and other large fixed-price retailers to list millions of items on eBay without paying listing fees, and appears to be the direction that eBay will follow in the future. Understandably, individual sellers are outraged. 'I've paid eBay many hundreds of thousands in fees over the past several years and believed them when they talked about a level playing field. And they just plain and simple are going back on their word.' This comes after the dire prediction that eBay is losing its popularity."
According to a recent MSN-Zogby poll,
WTF?! Those numbers are huge!
MSN-Zogby, IIRC, conducts online polls. Online polls tend to violate a wide array of rules regarding statistical bias.
I don't see things getting better. Craigslist auction anyone?
You do know that eBay owns a stake in Craigslist of over 20% of outstanding shares? Craigslist will not get you away from eBay.
I am the technology products seller mentioned in the article. I have a BS in Comp Sci. from the University of Maine, 95', and have been a Software Engineer at several .com's until I wrote the code that is running my website (http://www.teckwave.com/#showMostViewed), eBay Store (http://stores.ebay.com/TECKWAVE), Amazon, and Google Base accounts.
It's written in Java using the Google Web Toolkit for the website and several Web Service API's for integration with the various marketplaces, distributors, and warehouses. It runs on Amazon's EC2 compute cloud and uses S3 for image hosting.
My intention from the start was to create a scalable software platform to make selling online easy, and I think I've about done it. Buy.com coming into eBay and getting their backroom deal has accelerated my plans. No hard feelings though, business is business.
If anyone's interested in helping me scale this platform please email me... tlibby *at* TECKWAVE.com