eBay Will Now Price Match Amazon, Walmart and Others On Over 50,000 Items (techcrunch.com)

eBay announced today a new Price Match Guarantee for over 50,000 items across its site -- promising that it will have the best deal online, or it will match the lowest price of a competitor. While only select items are available for this offer, "the move is a significant effort on eBay's part to ensure that it doesn't lose customers to Amazon, Walmart and other online stores as the market consolidates behind the industry's major players," reports TechCrunch. From the report: In order to qualify, the item must be one of the new, unopened items sold daily through eBay Deals, for starters. Deals are eBay's selection of "trending" inventory across all its categories -- like consumer electronics, home & garden, and fashion. The deals are also generally offered at 20 percent to 90 percent off, and are sourced from over 900 of eBay's trusted sellers. These sellers include both smaller merchants looking to grow their customer base as well as major consumer brands. At any time, eBay says there are "tens of thousands" of items offered through the Deals site, with featured deals updating at least once per day, beginning at 8 AM PT.

Comments

Paypal still required?

[HornWumpus]

If so, fuck off.

Re:Paypal still required?

[ArylAkamov]

What was wrong with funding Terry Bollea's lawsuit?

No Prime & that wonderful guaranteed ship time

[SensitiveMale]

One of the best things about Amazon is the "Will ship today if ordered in XX hours" time guarantee.
Buying something from eBay doesn't guarantee when it'll ship & when it'll arrive.

Why would you prefer buying from eBay?

[coryhamma]

Having dealt with eBay on a bad purchase, it seems strange that anyone would prefer purchasing something from eBay at the same price, especially if they have to jump through hoops to perform the pricematch. For items that are more likely to be counterfeit, like memory cards, it is actually more advantageous to purchase them from a reputable retailer, and extremely difficult to prove to eBay that you received a counterfeit item.

Re:Why would you prefer buying from eBay?

[drinkypoo]

Having dealt with eBay on a bad purchase,

Every time I've had a bad purchase, eBay has sided with me. Literally every time. And I regularly purchase from the cheapest sellers in China.

Pepperidge farms remembers

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember when... Ebay was for auctions?

Re:So does this mean...

[omnichad]

No - they got sellers to sign on to this. Which is fine with the bigger sellers that would sign on. Lower profit beats a lost sale any day for them.

Re:Race to unprofitability

[stooo]

Ebay increased their fees again last year. They have a crazy margin on stuff they don't sell themselves.

Doesn't matter

[nehumanuscrede]

eBay requires PayPal.

Thus, eBay can charge HALF of what Amazon does and I still would not use them.

When PayPal is regulated like any other financial institution vs being allowed to do whatever they want with no concequences, I may change my mind.

Maybe.

Re:Ripped off by ebay -- will never use them again

[CyberKnet]

This is anecdotal, but in my experience customer service at Amazon has been far superior for lost packages/misrepresented items than eBay when something is Shipped and Sold By Amazon.com or Fulfilled By Amazon.

• A) At Amazon, when the item in the package was not what was advertised, they have either refunded my money (without a product return required) and let me order it again, given me a prepaid label for return and cross shipped me a replacement, or offered me a discount on the item to make up for the difference.
• B) On eBay, When the item in the package was not what was ordered (clearly used instead of new), the seller confirmed the deception and offered no solution, while ebay (and my bank) insisted I should return the item at my expense, and then they would refund my original purchase price.

One of those solutions is acceptable, the other costs me money for someone else's deliberate deception. It should be noted though, when an item is completely third party at Amazon (neither shipped nor sold by Amazon.com), all bets are off and you are about as likely to find help as at eBay.