

EBay’s Strategy for Taking On Amazon - gitah
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/ebays-strategy-for-taking-on-amazon.html

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dcc1
I hope Amazon crushes Ebay/Paypal

Ebay/Paypal has a long history of screwing sellers and buyers and users of
Paypal, just search the internet for horror stories. Their support is staffed
by drones (ha) unlike Amazon support who are swift and efficient and seem to
go out of their way to make me feel good as a customer.

What is more surprising is that Ebay hasnt been brought to court here in
Europe, its quite obvious majority of sellers are not charging or paying sales
taxes (VAT) which are as high as 20 to 30% here depending on state.

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chaz
I was a consultant at eBay for a few years, and one thing I learned was that
it's big, hairy, complex problem to run a marketplace. Every policy change is
fraught with vitriol because there are always two sides -- the buyers and the
sellers. One group will always think you're screwing them over while the other
side thinks you made their day. It's worse because the sellers are a small,
extremely vocal group and the buyers are the quiet millions that simply react
through purchasing decisions (or lack thereof). Buyers tend not to run anti-
eBay blogs, forums, etc.

On top of that, there's fraud. Both eBay and PayPal have inserted themselves
as an intermediary in the long history of humans trying to screw each other
over, where one or both parties is going to walk away very unhappy, and the
company gets the blame. It's a tiny fraction of the activity, but the outcome
is that everyone pays the price through draconian policies, high fees, bad
customer service, locked accounts, etc.

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Retric
Honest question, why does EBay not offer a simple we open the package weigh it
and take some pictures and then email them, to the buyer option? Even adding a
week and charging 20$ + shipping would be worth it for a fair number of
purchases and add quite a bit to there bottom line.

~~~
chaz
I have no idea. If I had to guess, I'd say the problems are that it's not cost
effective and it could cause eBay to hold the bag in the case of fraud. I'm
not sure that it would be as little as $20 to process shipments, and
photographs aren't necessarily going to show problems such as defective
products or counterfeit goods. It requires a more lengthy examination by an
expert.

I think there's a small market opportunity here though. Gazelle and some other
companies are doing this for some electronics. Instead of essentially acting
as an escrow, they are buying a tested, QA'd product outright from the seller,
and then selling it for a more hefty markup on eBay and other outlets. Small,
high value goods with high margins such as electronics, luxury clothing, and
jewelry may be a good business here if it marketing can be scaled cost
effectively.

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bambax
I usually only ever shop on Amazon; recently I got a little into drones and
aerial photography, and some addons can only be found on eBay.

Man, shopping on eBay is a friggin' nightmare.

1\. For some reason, eBay logs you out completely every time you restart the
browser (whether or not you check the "stay connected" checkbox). Curiously,
the page says "hello {my name}" but I still need to reconnect to do anything,
and when I do, I have to retype my email address!! If the system can remember
my name why can't it remember my email address?? (This is the most annoying
detail imaginable, probably because it seems so easy to fix).

2\. Product descriptions are a mess; they usually contain many pictures but
the text is more about what the buyer NEEDS TO DO AND VARIOUS OTHER WARNINGS
IN ALL CAPS (and red font) than about the product itself. I feel like I'm
being yelled at by an angry cop every time I read those.

3\. Paying is a pain. Buying and paying are two very different events on eBay,
whereas they're just one and the same on Amazon. You have to go to Paypal
(completely different website -- eBay owns Paypal, can't they integrate it to
the main eBay site??) and then you get a deluge of emails (around 4 I believe,
sometimes more when the seller decides to write too).

4\. Sellers are often unprofessional and obnoxious. They send you emails
telling you to rate them 5 stars and that "FOUR STARS = FAILURE"; they add a
paper saying the same thing in the package; they very rarely respond to
emails; shipments are made via non-traceable systems.

5\. Products are of uncertain quality; some are very good and some are cheap
rip-offs (but it's hard/impossible to tell from the product description).

I would very happily pay 30% more (or even 100% more for some products that
are very cheap anyway) to shop on Amazon vs. eBay; I can't understand how
they're still in business (it can't just be me buying a couple of filter
adapters for GoPro cameras, can it?)

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blisterpeanuts
Interesting; my experiences on eBay have been quite different. They do make me
log in repeatedly, but my browser remembers the form data so it's just one
click. By the way, Amazon also makes me log in repeatedly; I see no difference
there.

I try to pick reputable sellers and I've learned to avoid the Hong Kong and
China based sellers, some of whom really do sell junk and are hard to deal
with. Recently I had a bad experience with one, and eBay quickly credited me
the money even though it was long past the eight weeks which is the maximum.

As for shipping, almost everything I buy on eBay is trackable, except for
stuff coming from Asia. It's a different shopping experience from Amazon and
other online retailers, but sometimes I prefer it actually. I do prefer
Amazon's review system which often provides invaluable advice about the
product and feedback on the seller.

~~~
bambax
> _By the way, Amazon also makes me log in repeatedly; I see no difference
> there_

Amazon doesn't make me log in repeatedly; they ask for your password again for
some actions (looking at your order history for example) but for most actions
(including buying) you usually don't need to retype your password... and you
_never_ have to retype your email address.

eBay makes you retype your email address while they display your name on the
page, which is incredibly stupid.

Amazon looks like it's build and operated by real people who care about what
they're doing; eBay looks like it's been put together by consultants who
couldn't care less about the user experience.

Man I hate eBay.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Sounds like a browser setting. Chrome browser remembers my name and password
on Ebay and I never have to retype my name or email. In fact it's a little too
easy; I'm wondering if I should tell it not to do that; my 9-year-old can just
wander in and order all kinds of stuff!

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robryan
The best thing eBay could do is copy Amazon in how a third party listing
works. On Amazon we can throw up a feed of our entire inventory. On eBay you
need to create a separate listing for each product you want to list. In effect
it means more complicated software and overhead to maintain the same level of
listings.

Additionally it gives customers the impression that one unit of a product
listed on eBay is one physical unit the merchant has and is specifically
holding for an eBay listing, which are rarely the case.

Basically this is the result of eBay shoehorning fixed price multichannel
merchants into the traditional auction listing model that they started with.

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josu
Could you change the link to the single page view:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/ebays-strategy-
fo...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/22/magazine/ebays-strategy-for-taking-
on-amazon.html?pagewanted=all)

~~~
annnnd
Thanks, I only read the first page when I saw I should click through 5 more
pages... will continue reading now. :)

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iamben
Interesting read. A few months back eBay change their affiliate cookie from 10
days to 24 hours. Revenues for most affiliates dropped across the board and
lots of those pushing BIN products jumped ship to Amazon. Lots of those
pushing auctions are stopping active development on their sites - it's
incredibly tough to make a 24 hour cookie work. Shame really, it was a great
program.

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smackfu
Their strategy seems to be "throw a lot of stuff against the wall and see what
sticks."

