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EBay Deal Irritates Individual Sellers

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish dept.

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."

37 of 382 comments (clear)

  1. No competition by N8F8 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    With no real competition in the online auctions and micropayment system, I don't see things getting better. Craigslist auction anyone?

    --
    "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
    1. Re:No competition by ciscoguy01 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google auctions, more likely. Craigslist's business model is ridiculous.

      --
      .
    2. Re:No competition by Notquitecajun · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Many of the hard-core ebay whiners on its website are practically BEGGING google to open up an auction site, mostly because it will have practically millions as a buyer base overnight. Ebay's other competitors can't match that yet.

    3. Re:No competition by i.r.id10t · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, there is gunbroker.com which lets you buy/sell things fleabay won't (anything gun related, etc). And they have several domains pointing to them as well (forthehunt.com, a few others). No listing fees for basic listings, they do picture hosting for you, and if you don't "upgrade" your listings, you only pay when the item sells.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
    4. Re:No competition by Gewalt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Their model is to *not* sellout. They are doing quite well at that.

      --
      Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
    5. Re:No competition by Fulcrum+of+Evil · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But no guns. Heaven forbid you buy a scope on craigslist :)

      --
      "We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
    6. Re:No competition by N8F8 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The trouble is that eBay is the "market maker". They provide the best market for selling used goods on the internet. Sure you could use another service, but you probably won't make as much money since their market is much smaller.

      --
      "God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
    7. Re:No competition by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's exactly it. We Americans have a very distorted perspective.

      Used to be you could open a little produce shop, live above it, sell produce at a reasonable price and provide personalized service to your customers, and by that make enough money to support your family and pay your bills... and that was all you needed - you were successful, your business was successful, and you were happy.

      You did that until you retired, and if your kids took over the store, great - if instead they went to college and became doctors or accountants or opened up a used furniture store and did like you did - great.

      The American dream, you were all happy and successful.

      NOW, if your produce store doesn't become "FRUITCO," with thousands of locations, grabbing the most market share and beating out "GREENSCO" to become the biggest produce corporation on the planet with diversified subsidiaries, then you're "failing."

      Nationally we seem to have an all-or-nothing mentality.

      Actually, I think that one of the bigger obstacles to small shops as you describe are the infrastructure requirements and costs to be in the market. The laws, legal liabilities, and regulations regarding any sort of business these days is centered around a large corporate entity.

      Complying with regulations and laws regarding things like records, reporting requirements, insurance, certified inspection and licensing, zoning permits, labor laws, taxes, etc etc, on and on, cost a large corporation only a tiny fractional percentage of their gross income, but the percentage does not scale down linearly to small shops and is prohibitive. Not saying that all or any of the above is good or bad per se, just that in total, the costs of all of the burdens that are put in place to regulate and restrain the behaviors of big corporations are beyond the means of many small operators.

      Cheers!

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  2. Bottom Line by Hyppy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Unless it is in a binding contract, with severe penalties, you should never expect a company to "keep its word." This is especially true when keeping said word affects the almighty Bottom Line. Cash is king, peon.

    1. Re:Bottom Line by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You hear that kind of excuse a lot, just like when a politician does something particularly egregious (e.g. Obama's FISA vote) you hear people explaining, "Oh, that's just a compromise to get more votes. He can't do anything if he isn't elected."

      The problem with the stock explanation is that it's very often just wrong. Ebay's current emphasis on big sellers at the expense of individuals is losing them money, just like Obama's FISA sellout is losing him votes. Piss off your core market to chase some other potential market, and odds are you won't do well with either. By all means, businesses should try to expand their customer base and politicians should try to appeal to more voters. But when you abandon the people who got you where you are in the first place, you're almost guaranteed to suffer overall.

      Businesses that do well are those which build a steady, loyal customer base that keeps coming back for more. This is particularly true in the online world, where changing to a competitor is very, very easy; the few success stories to come out of the dot-com mania of a decade ago show how to do it right. Amazon, for all its evil, still does a damned good job of selling books. Google, no matter what else it does, remains far and away the best general-purpose search engine. Until a couple of years ago, I'd have counted Ebay among those success stories, but now it looks as though they were just as flaky as any HowFastCanWeBurnVentureCapital.com site; they just took longer to show it.

      Suits and their sycophants love to talk tough about how they serve the bottom line ... but in the real world, the suits are wrong more often than not, and here's a sterling example.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    2. Re:Bottom Line by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      How was what I wrote a "political rant"? I'm talking about the effectiveness of business and political strategies, not about the merits of political positions. The Obama/FISA analogy naturally occurred to me because, as a Democrat, I pay attention to what my candidate is doing; I'm sure a Republican could have come up with a similar analogy involving McCain.

      Apparently you missed the actual point of my post, so I'll say it again: businessmen, like politicians, very frequently do really dumb things, and they always have sycophants who will explain that they're doing those dumb things in pursuit of getting more of whatever they're interested in (money in business, votes in politics) while ignoring the fact that they actually end up with less of whatever it is they're after. So yes, it is just making excuses instead of actually looking at (to borrow a phrase from another hot topic) the facts on the ground.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    3. Re:Bottom Line by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Careful how your phrase that. "Severe Penalties" make a contract unenforceable. In fact, "Penalties" can make it questionable. Predetermined contract damages must be fair and equitable, as determined from the time a contract is entered into. If I contract for $10k of your services, plus $10k liquidated damages if you fail to hold up your end, the contract probably won't be enforceable.

      Even the notorious US mobile phone contracts have run into problems enforcing their more egregious terms.

  3. eBay may be losing its popularity... by FlyingSquidStudios · · Score: 2, Insightful

    but what alternative is there when it comes to actual auctions? I can see the buy-it-now categories being replaced by other online retailers, but there simply is no better website (by better, I mean with as much variety and as many different purchase options) out there at the moment for people to sell each other things on an individual level. So maybe due to things like this buy.com deal, the era of the eBay power seller is over, but a lot of people, including myself, sell at least a handful of things on eBay every year and have since the site debuted. Other than maybe recycler.com and craigslist, both of which are more localized and filled with scammers, I don't see another good option.

    --
    http://twitter.com/OLDTELEGRAM
  4. Losing Popularity to Whom? by cptnapalm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Where are these former eBayers going?

    Or is it a case of a fad (ooh, I got it from eBay!) settling down and it becomes just one way to get something (I could have gotten it cheaper on eBay, but if I need to return it, it would be a big hassle)?

  5. Duh by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know several people who used to do a lot of business on Ebay who are rapidly becoming disgusted with it because of its clear preference for giant sellers over individuals; I'm not at all surprised to hear that this is a general trend.

    Why is it that so many executives feel the need to destroy a successful business model? Ebay started as an online auction house where individuals could find a worldwide audience for cool, quirky stuff, and it was wildly successful as such. If its executives want to start a site for selling commercial products with free-floating prices -- which is essentially what they're turning Ebay into -- then fine, but why are they abandoning the business that made them successful in the first place? Ebay was one of the few real success stories to come out of the dot-com boom. It's really sad to see them throwing that away now.

    --
    The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  6. I based my business model... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ... entirely on a single corporation with major incentive to see me succeed, and now it turns out that they aren't acting in my interests!

    Some people really make me wonder about humanity.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  7. Ebay not going away, but changing... by Notquitecajun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm getting a little more and more irritated about this stuff with ebay, and I would honestly jump ship if there was another decent auction-style competitor that is close to the ebay of the early 2000s.

    Ebay is doing some SERIOUS wrong by the small seller (mostly through their fee issues, I don't think the feedback issues are as bad as some sellers try and make them out to be), and despite their platitudes, is turning into Amazon-lite. I have no huge problem with this, but they really need to make a decision on who they want to cater to and either split into two divisions or send the small-time buyers and sellers somewhere else.

    I completely understand that businesses need to make money, and the buydotcom route may be one way to do that. However, ebay is WIDELY opening a door for another company to undercut them in the small seller market, and those of us who collect, buy, and sell anything used on a small scale and aren't interested in just shopping online for new stuff that we can get down the street at Wal-mart or wherever.

  8. Their gun policy made me bail on them by m0nkyman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Their anti gun policy made me stop using ebay years ago....

    --
    ~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
  9. Re:eBay is a shareholder in Craigslist by longacre · · Score: 5, Insightful

    eBay's stake in Craigslist does not allow for any management input on eBay's part, and based on Craig's previous behavior I don't think he'd have any qualms about competing with them.

    --
    Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
  10. Natural monopolies by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ebay has name recognition. That's all...

    Sadly that is not all eBay has. EBay has network effects working for it which makes it VERY hard to displace them no matter how much money and talent is thrown at the problem. Buyers go where the sellers are and vice versa. Amazon and Yahoo both tried to take market share from eBay and both failed miserably. There are lots of other auction and e-commerce sites out there but none of them are likely to displace eBay anytime soon.

    That's not to say eBay won't cut their own throat (they might) but that's pretty much what it will take to make a real dent in eBay's market share. Ebay's business tends towards a natural monopoly as do many marketplaces.

  11. Re:The harder they fall... by MindStalker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Well there are silent auctions that work that way. But I agree the ebay system is rather ridiculous.

    Though you do need a time limit for advertising reasons. I think an interesting solution to all this would be bidding doesn't end until 6 hours after the last bid or the initial time limit was reached whichever comes last. And the seller could always opt to end it early if they really need it to stop on the day they wanted it to stop. Heck most sellers would even agree to a per day fee if the auction went long.

  12. Re:The harder they fall... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, it is an auction, and a fixed time length.

    One thing eBay should do to fix one of the major problems of their auctions is that every time a bid is entered, and there is less than 5 minutes left on the auction, the auction time should be extended to 5 minutes.

    That way, there is none of this nonsense of waiting until 10 seconds before the end of the auction and then bidding furiously. If you knew that each time you bid you would extend it 5 minutes to give other's a chance, items would be selling for realistic values and not trumped up values in the last few seconds of an auction.

  13. Shutting out the little guys by CowTipperGore · · Score: 3, Insightful
    eBay was wonderful back in the day, but has been on the decline for years. They've made decisions that increasingly shut out the individual reselling used items, which once formed the core of their business. The eBay of today hardly resembles the place where I bought a used guitar in 1998. I looked through a few hundred guitars each week, nearly all of which were used instruments listed by an individual. Now you're likely to find ten times the number of guitars but 90% or more will be listed by a wholesaler or huge pawn shop. Some of it was to be expected - as eBay succeeded it attracted more businesses that could do more volume than any individual, and directly tying an individual's reputation to the number of transactions benefited those large sellers.

    However, the seller policies were modified over the years in ways that benefited the larger sellers. For example, many small sellers left when eBay wholesale surrendered to big business efforts to ignore the legal rights protected by the first-sale doctrine. My smart-card programmer listing was pulled without explanation, which I finally figured out was apparently due to DirectTV claiming that it could be used to "hack" their equipment.

    Unfortunately, each time I looked, I found no viable alternative. There are plenty of small auction sites, but none with a fraction of the buyers and/or the buyer and seller protections offered by eBay. Has the Web simply been too commercialized now for someone to make a new eBay that caters to individuals again?

  14. Re:Not just a prediction... by Trojan35 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I agree, although have a slightly different opinion of why it is.

    So many reasons I believe ebay is not going to continue to grow at its current pace:

    1) Everyone already cleaned out their garage junk on ebay.
    2) Diminishing quality control on products makes easy exchanges an important retailer feature (frys)
    3) Used prices on ebay are just way too close to new prices. (what happened to half.com being half price?)

    And, most importantly for me:

    4) It's too freaking expensive. By the time you pay 10% to ebay, 10% to paypal(ebay), 20% to USPS, 10% to gas, selling that $40 item for $20 in "profit" just wasn't worth the hour of your time. There's businesses out there where you can drop off your product and they'll take care of all the hassle for you, but then is giving up your $40 item for only $3 or $4 even worth it?

    It's not just the $40 items either. I look at ebay and the cheapest (barely used) macs I can find are only 5-10% off getting a brand new one at Fry's. I haven't used ebay in a long time because their listings, fees, and policies suck. Maybe that's why they are going with Buy.com stuff; they know it.

  15. The Need for Growth by sjbe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I know several people who used to do a lot of business on Ebay who are rapidly becoming disgusted with it because of its clear preference for giant sellers over individuals; I'm not at all surprised to hear that this is a general trend.

    The only sellers that should be disgusted are ones with their head in the sand. EBay's costs mostly fixed so they grow through volume. You get volume through larger customers who can provide that volume. Economic inevitability.

    EVERY non-regulated company I'm aware of besides eBay provides volume discounts in some fashion for larger customers. I was an individual seller as well as a high volume power seller. One of the (many) reasons I no longer sell through eBay is precisely BECAUSE they provided no incentive for me to bring additional business to them. They kept raising rates instead of providing incentives to bring additional volume. Basically they priced me (and lots of others) out of their marketplace. It was too expensive as an individual or a business to continue to sell on eBay.

    but why are they abandoning the business that made them successful in the first place?

    The short answer is that they decided a long time ago to become a publicly traded company and the growth demands of being public is the deal with the devil you make to get equity funding. That's why companies don't really want to go public unless the owners are either cashing out (private equity) or they have no other choice. Had eBay remained a privately held company they could have chosen to stay their present size.

    Businesses out grow their original business model all the time. Some businesses simply do not scale beyond a certain point. Amazon started as an online bookseller that had no warehouses of their own. That only scaled to a point. IBM got out of the personal computer business not long ago. That particular niche of the industry just didn't hold enough growth/profit potential for them anymore and was more of a distraction than an asset. When you are a publicly traded company shareholders demand growth and eBay has hit a wall with being the world's premier online flea market.

  16. Re:Google doesn't want the liability by torkus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well the big difference is that eBay tries to act like wal-mart. Making everything fit their ideals, extra safe, family oriented and nicey nice ... as long as they can squeeze out the extra .01c per transaction.

    Is it me or has the size of eBay become the other half of the downfall. I hate searching for something and finding a million junk auctions or ubsurd shipping (which ebay is mostly to blame for anyhow) on many others. People that list 1000's of items simultaneously all for 'buy it now' aren't auctioning anything - they below in a store. Perhaps part of a larger, searchable multi-store "online mall" but still.

    Ebay is trying to move away from 'auction' and towards 'online store front'. Meh.

    Give me a google auction site and maybe i'll start doing online auctions again. Or better, convince Visa, MC, AMEX, or anyone to offer a realistic e-payment system that supports micropayments and fees somewhere close to reality. Seriously.

    --
    You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
  17. I can understand the reason for those, though by phorm · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Guns, alcohol, and many others can be a regulated or restricted market. There are age-limits, and various others (permits required, restrictions against owning a firearm, etc) which makes the whole thing rather complicated. When your business is general-auctions, some things are best left to the specialists.

  18. Re:Ebay on the way out by LWATCDR · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yes but Craigslist is far from perfect.
    It is hard to search nationally. Suppose I need a gas tank for a 78 CB750K. I don't care if it is local or not. Craigslist isn't as good as Ebay for that kind of thing.
    As to BUY.com and other companies putting products up I just don't see that hurting to many people
    I hardly ever look on Ebay for new stuff. I look for stuff I can not find any place else.

    --
    See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
  19. Re:Google doesn't want the liability by EdIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

    All that of course assumes Google could take marketshare from eBay where Amazon and Yahoo failed. That's a BIG assumption.

    A big assumption? Hardly. Amazon and Yahoo were competing with eBay when is used to be viable. That was very hard to do, VERY HARD. Amazon was really only good for literature and music anyways and they seem to be moving in that direction still.

    I used to search eBay for items FIRST . I would get an idea of what the prices were, how much I could bid, how long to win, etc. I got many a laptop at 60-70% off retail prices for my clients doing this. I sold my cars on eBay, even though I never actually completed a sale. I just got leads.

    Once eBay forced to me to offer PayPal I instantly canceled my account and told them why. I have not even used eBay as a buyer since then at all. In fact, I don't remember even visiting their website in quite some time. I now use Google Shopping quite a bit to locate good prices on the equipment that I need.

    Google could have a user base millions strong overnight, and not by taking active eBay users either. They would have those millions that are waiting in limbo for the next big auction site to service their needs better than eBay.... like me. As soon as another company comes along that offers anything close to eBay I will give them a shot. I doubt that I am alone.

    As for sellers, eBay just committed the final act of suicide. I cannot understate that. Inking a deal with a major outfit like Buy.Com is a big move, and without listing fees, a fatal one. The Power Sellers will not stand by and "compete" with Buy.Com in a one-sided unfair fight. That's ludicrous. How could they? Buy.Com could compete with volume alone and with the savings that no listing fees represent it force regular sellers to destroy their own profit margins to stay afloat.

    No, I don't think it is a big assumption at all. I think you underestimate just how pissed off people are, both buyers and sellers alike. eBay is losing market share to the VOID . People would rather be doing anything but eBay, even if that is nothing at all.

    eBay is losing both buyers and sellers at a pretty fantastic rate. Only they really know, but I bet they are being tight lipped about it. Probably even lying to themselves that they don't need those people or that they will be back. eBay is becoming less and less relevant as an online auction site for the common man. That is how they started it, and they have forgotten their roots. Perhaps they want to push to become something bigger and new, but they can't do it without the people that started it. When Joe Blow can't sell his stuff on eBay anymore, I don't see how he will continue to buy stuff either.

    Personally, I thought eBay was going under after the PayPal scandal. With this new development.... start the death watch today, July 14th, 2008.

  20. Re:The harder they fall... by alexgieg · · Score: 1, Insightful

    an auction site would have a time limit for the bids to be increased. not some arbitrary deadline where the last person to enter a bid before the cutoff "wins".

    I don't see a problem with this system. People who follow this pattern you describe are trying to game the system to somehow get the item for less than what they're willing to pay. If you yourself refuse to play the game and approach these auctions differently, it doesn't cause you any trouble.

    For example, when I bid on something, I ask myself:

    "How much is this thing worth to me? Would I pay $100 for it? Yes. Would I pay $110? Yes. Would I pay $120? Hmm... yes. Would I pay $130? No! $125? No! $124? Hmm... no. $123? Hmm... yeah, I guess it's worth $123."

    Then, now that I know how much I'm REALLY willing to pay, I simply fill "$123" and let the auto-bidding thing play on itself.

    If later I discover I won the auction at $110, hey, great! I got the item and saved $13 from what I was willing to pay!

    If I win at exactly $123, great too! It was exactly what I was willing to pay!

    And if I lose because it sold at $140, hey, this is also great! Why? Because I already knew I didn't value that thing over $123.

    Thus, the trick is simple: fill the box with what you are willing to pay, not a cent more. Then let it run. What you won, you won. What you didn't, you're not missing it at all.

    But if you are missing it and thinking "I should have bid $x instead.", it was your error, because you didn't bid what you were REALLY willing to pay for it. Be always absolutely honest with yourself and the "guilty factor" will never happen.

    --
    Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
  21. Re:Ebay is dead, the body hasn't hit the ground ye by mlwmohawk · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Think what you wish. I said the same thing about Wang, DEC, Pr1me, and others.

    EBay will be dead and buried in less than 5 years, It will be acquired and destroyed by some giant like Microsoft, Google, or possibly even a rebounding Yahoo (long shot).

    EBay doesn't add any real business value to the large customers it is currently targeting.

    Paypal is a good idea, but FedEx, UPS, or even the USPS could offer shippers and receivers escrow and verification.

    With Craigslist existing and growing, EBay doesn't have a viable business model.

    If you disagree, please tell me what ebay brings to the table that Craigslist does not also offer? (And no, auctions are dead, people are sick of them.)

  22. Re:Google doesn't want the liability by stewbacca · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Ebay is trying to move away from 'auction' and towards 'online store front'. Meh.

    I stopped using eBay two years ago once the online stores overtook the individual sales. Try searching for used drum gear, and IF you can get past the 50 or so posts from stores listing their "auctions" for retail price, you "might" find a deal in the form of used gear from a fellow drummer.

  23. Re:Google doesn't want the liability by EdIII · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well I guess you are pissed off and rightly so. As for the financial data, well... that is a little naive. I am not insulting you or flaming you either. Those bastards LIE. LIE, LIE, and LIE some more. It's always worse than what they are telling you, and I am sure some pretty fancy "Arthur Anderson" type accounting can hide how many users they have lost.

    Of course that is easy for me to say and not a very strong argument. However, you WERE a big seller, and I WAS a dedicated buyer. Does the financial data even reflect the amount of user base you would have expected to have disappeared by now?

    Everyone I talk to does not visit eBay anymore now. Your the first big seller that I have personally heard that left eBay. It would seem logical that based upon my limited experience, which is 100% of people leaving eBay, that eBay has to be suffering serious losses and most likely hiding it.

    They recently increased their fees substantially. Perhaps the people that are still left are keeping the numbers afloat giving that the increased fees allows less users to achieve the same cash flow. Give it another 18 months and look at the financial data. I expect a meltdown to occur inevitably as eBay cannot operate without buyers and sellers and I don't see a reason to stay.

  24. e-wants it anyway. by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I started lossing intrest in e-bay as soon as they stopped being a place for normal people to sell thier junk and became a place for 'business' to make a killing (driving up the price and complicating the search). I want to buy online for stuff that is cheaper then I can get it for in the store , because buying online requires greater risk ( identity theft, shipping , getting shafted,inability to easily return, etc.). So if I can't get it cheap because it's basically something someone is trying to get rid of or it is something so hard to find I can't get it in my area, why would I buy it on e-bay.

    --
    âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
  25. Re:Google doesn't want the liability by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I am not insulting you or flaming you either. Those bastards LIE. LIE, LIE, and LIE some more. It's always worse than what they are telling you, and I am sure some pretty fancy "Arthur Anderson" type accounting can hide how many users they have lost.

    Again, nothing surprising to me here since professionally I'm a degreed industrial engineer and a certified accountant. When I'm not trying to be an entrepreneur I'm in the business of operations consulting so I need to know every sort of problem I'll run into including cooked books. I know all about the games that can be played with the numbers as well as the operations.

    If you want the the short version of my opinion on eBay's prospects, I think eBay is on the verge of some serious problems but they aren't there yet. It's sort of like Microsoft in a way. Few people really love them but they haven't quite pissed everyone off enough to really torpedo their business. I think the biggest threat to them actually is litigation from luxury goods makers. That has the potential to drastically increase their costs and open the door to other marketplaces. But I don't expect anything in the near future. I expect eBay to remain a cash cow for the next several years at least.

    But hey, here's to hoping eBay goes down like the Titanic...

  26. Re:Not just a prediction... by Penguinisto · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "This seller currently has no items for sale." - the last toy he sold was nealy three months ago.

    I'm honestly not poking fun at you (or him), just that your link helps to illustrate my point exactly.

    /P

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  27. Re:No laughs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    We really need to do something about the moderation system to avoid situations like this: the punch line is currently at +4, but all the build up lines are at 0, so we get to see the punchline first and then have to click to reveal the other lines. Which comedy school did the Slashdot programmers go to? This is like reading Abbot and Costello, but with Abbot modded to oblivion.