
Ebay will match Amazon’s, Walmart’s and others’ prices on over 50K items - janober
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/21/ebay-will-now-match-amazons-walmarts-and-others-prices-on-over-50000-items
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petraeus
PRO TIP eBay: people don't use your site not because of prices but because you
are a horrible company to deal with.

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Shivetya
I don't agree. As a buyer I have never had a problem they did not settle to my
satisfaction. I did make sure in each case to have my facts in order. I tend
to buy mostly antiques, glass and china, and have had three bad purchases
which were fraudulent in some manner. This out of nearly three hundred
purchases.

I also purchase consumer items like batteries, dog toys, beef jerky, a DJI
drone, and whatnot off the site.

Now as a seller I have no clue, but I have no clue what it is like to sell on
Amazon either. I do find ebay easier to navigate by leaps and bounds over
Amazon. amazon fills my pages with more trash than I ever want to see.

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jtth
As a buyer you're more than protected.

As a seller, I'm exposed for 30 days, because you can, for any reason, choose
to return the item with a full refund, and just say it doesn't work. Ebay does
not take evidence from the seller that this patently untrue. I've been burned
twice this way and lost hundreds trying to sell two laptops.

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Alupis
> As a seller, I'm exposed for 30 days, because you can, for any reason,
> choose to return the item with a full refund, and just say it doesn't work.

This is simply how eCommerce works. You have to accept returns... and 30 days
is just about as short of a period you can reasonably make.

> Ebay does not take evidence from the seller that this patently untrue

Neither does Amazon, or Walmart marketplaces. This is simply standard for
there marketplaces. Buyers get peace of mind, which encourages more purchases.

This "scam" works on Amazon too - so it's not just eBay or something about how
eBay has done things.

As a seller, it can be a pain sometimes - but it's a cost of doing business
and must be accounted for, and planned for before you sell the item.

If you're trying to just sell something and walk away, CL or your local
classifieds section is the place to be.

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Hamcha
Nice, I finally get to do work by having to find similar items and write an
email to be able to save exactly.. well, nothing.

Are they seriously expecting anyone to put effort and wait just to buy
something from their place? Granted, I hate how Amazon doesn't support Paypal,
but last I recall ebay doesn't do 1-day shipping, let alone 1-day replacement
when opening an RMA.

Besides, they don't even actually lower the price to match the competitor,
they just give you a one-time coupon with the difference. They're not even
trying.

~~~
notyourwork
> I hate how Amazon doesn't support Paypal

This might be the first time someone has been upset that paypal support is
lacking. I am surprised by this considering the general distaste for paypal
typically.

What makes you wish paypal was supported if you don't mind me asking?

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gtsteve
I understand some people prefer Paypal because Paypal can assist with
disputes, i.e. if something doesn't show up. At least that's why some of my
friends prefer to use it.

However Amazon has always resolved problems to my satisfaction. I don't
imagine it would be necessary in this situation.

~~~
notyourwork
I thought credit cards provide the same protections that Paypal does. Any time
I run into trouble I can call my credit card company, reverse the charge and
move on with life.

They are no questions asked easy and my credit card company cannot hold my
money for 6 months for arbitrary reasons without providing proof. I see no
benefit to Amazon using Paypal and only a less than good customer experience.

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nickpsecurity
This is true. Lots of people don't know you can do stop payment. You also can
do it 60 days on one rule or more than that if you tried to resolve it with
vendor.

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cletus
What I don't get about eBay is they found initial success in being an auction
site then they almost immediately decided they wanted to be an online retailer
instead. Why not just be the best auction site you can be rather than be yet
another Amazon wannabe?

Interestingly Amazon has done the same thing except they want to be Google
(Android) and Netflix (content bundling with Prime).

I get the desire to grow but honestly more often than not trying to do too
much just makes you mediocre at everything.

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uw_rob
> What I don't get about eBay is they found initial success in being an
> auction site then they almost immediately decided they wanted to be an
> online retailer instead. Why not just be the best auction site you can be
> rather than be yet another Amazon wannabe?

I recently read a book [0] that outlined some of the reasons why that
happened.

Two of the main reasons outlined were: (1) As more and more people started
selling on the site, items started to become commodities with fixed prices. So
even old antiques started to have a fixed value. This encouraged more people
to just buy it now. (2) Even by the mid 2000's, when ebay was still considered
mainly an auction site, only a very small fraction of sales were made by
auctions. Something around 90% of sales were buy-it-now new items. This meant
that their real success was in buy-it-now and they started to focus on that.
(Don't quote me on the numbers in the second part, I will try to get more
accurate ones later).

So they had a lot of initial success in being an auction site, but there isn't
really much of an market for a general purpose auction site. And once you
become a succesful auction site, you basically stop being a auction site.

[0] I cannot remember the name right now and I cannot find it. It was about
providing real world examples of famous economic papers. It covered wide
ranges of topics about used cars prices, trading in prison camps, ebay. It was
released in 2016.

~~~
Luc
The one about used cars could be 'The Market for Lemons' by George Akerlof.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons)

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dovdovdov
Finally, get paypal scammed at competitive prices! :)

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dsfyu404ed
Paypal is in the business of screwing merchants, not customers.

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awa
Reasons I use ebay for: 1\. Discounted gift cards, 2\. Cheap imports from
China.

As a buyer I have been happy with ebay, things take a while to come but are
generally well before the estimated time and a lot of stuff is much cheaper
than Amazon.

As per returns/bad goods, Sellers are generally willing to send a replacement
item if the original has an issue

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
> Discounted gift cards

You got me interested. How deep of discounts are we talking here? And for what
businesses? And have you gotten screwed ever?

~~~
awa
10-20% discount. Mostly from the daily deals section. I mostly buy Lowes gcs,
some restaurants gcs along with Dominos.

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dsfyu404ed
This doesn't make sense to me except as a marketing move.

For new items eBay's advantage is that you can buy in low volume straight from
china (if you don't mind waiting a month) or from an importer who's running
their operation out of a storage locker or basement. The prices are reflective
of the decreased overhead compared to selling on Amazon (or some other "less
flea-market like" option).

If you're shopping for something and don't want to wait for it to ship from
China odds are you could already find it on eBay cheaper than Amazon in the
first place.

This move is just publicizes and existing advantage.

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maerF0x0
>Found it for less? Here’s what you do: (... list of too much work ..)

Why would i go through all that work for just a match? If I'm only going to
get the same price, I'm buying from Amazon/Walmart where I dont have to 1)
contact someone, nor get the difference as a "coupon".

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sbierwagen
Pretty weird. I sure wouldn't buy food from Ebay. Or mainstream electronics,
or razor blades, since almost 100% of the stock on Ebay are counterfeits. That
doesn't leave a lot, mostly just durable goods, like tools, lab equipment,
etc.

I've only spent single-digit hundreds on Ebay in the last ten years. Not
because the prices were too high, but because I didn't trust the goods. This
is a big splashy initiative solving precisely the wrong problem.

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joshstrange
Definitely read that title as "Ebay will match Amazon’s, Walmart’s and others’
prices on over $50K items" or put another way "Ebay will match Amazon’s,
Walmart’s and others’ prices on items over $50K".

But I don't buy on Amazon only because of price. I buy for 2-day shipping,
peace of mind on returns, and a consistent experience across the app and
website.

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Sohcahtoa82
That's cool. I still won't buy or sell anything on ebay as long as scammers
are so prevalent.

I had a sealed collector's edition of StarCraft II that I wanted to sell a few
years after the game came out. I knew that there was a very significant chance
that if I sold it on ebay, some scam buyer would get it, open it, redeem the
codes for all the in-game loot, then file a claim saying the item was not as
described and that the codes were already redeemed.

Instead, I sold it through Amazon, using their Fulfilled by Amazon service.
That way, Amazon will have verified that the game was still sealed and refuse
a refund. It cost me a considerable amount in fees (IIRC, I sold it for $350
but only received $300), but it was worth it for piece of mind.

Though FWIW, some people have told me I still could have gotten scammed, it
just became a little less likely.

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seibelj
I have found eBay to be the best way to get the maximize money selling stuff.
If you can wait the auction week, just let it run and get the most money. I
have sold the most random stuff on there and found buyers. I only use eBay to
buy used cell phones (Android testing), but for selling it pays off.

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bitJericho
Ebay is usually cheaper than the alternatives. Does this mean the price is
going up?

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lighthazard
When has it ever been cheaper than the alternative?

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zanny
Phone cases and batteries are usually selling _much_ cheaper on ebay than
Amazon Marketplace. A lot of them are obviously fakes, but even the real ones
are a good 20-30% cheaper.

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kbart
_" A lot of them are obviously fakes"_

Amazon is even worse, because sometimes there's no way to tell if items is
original or fake and end up getting fake for same price as original. On eBay
you can mostly safely assume it's fake, so at least you get what you pay for.

~~~
bitJericho
Well you can source ebay items from reputable, name brand, stores, and you
know they didn't mix in fakes from chinese companies.

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frgtpsswrdlame
Here's what I don't get. Why do a price match guarantee? Why not just price
your items lower? Or do a "match" where you guarantee every item for 10 cents
cheaper than your competitors?

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JumpCrisscross
> _Why do a price match guarantee? Why not just price your items lower?_

MAD [1]. Price-match guarantees are meant to deter price competition. If you
cut your price below a price-matching competitor's, the time you have the best
price will be short. After that, less profit for everyone (assuming similar
cost structures). If, on the other hand, you match, everyone keeps their
market share and margins.

Price competition in a price-matching market happens when someone has lower
costs. It also happens when someone uses cheap capital to buy market share,
intending to make up for lower margins with volume, _e.g._ to cover fixed
costs.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_assured_destruction)

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frgtpsswrdlame
Don't we want companies to engage in price competition though? Especially in a
market with network effects which is dominated by a few large players.

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JumpCrisscross
> _Don 't we want companies to engage in price competition...?_

The literature is mixed on the effects of price-matching guarantees [1][2].
The most compelling resolution I've read says "price-matching guarantees can
facilitate monopoly pricing only if firms automatically match prices. If
consumers must instead request refunds (thereby incurring hassle costs)...any
increase in equilibrium prices due to firms’ price-matching policies will be
small; often, no price increase can be supported" [3].

In any case, enforcing an automatic price-matching ban would be difficult.
Would you prohibit firms from lowering their prices to match competitors'? If
not, it would just take a few turns of the ratchet to send the message to
would-be competitors (and consumers). Whether the consumer surplus from those
ratchet turns are worth the enforcement cost is an open question.

[1]
[https://www.bauer.uh.edu/jhess/documents/10.pdf](https://www.bauer.uh.edu/jhess/documents/10.pdf)

[2]
[http://people.tamu.edu/~sjain/papers/published%20pmr%20paper...](http://people.tamu.edu/~sjain/papers/published%20pmr%20paper.pdf)

[3]
[http://www.simon.rochester.edu/fac/SHAFFER/Published/Hassel%...](http://www.simon.rochester.edu/fac/SHAFFER/Published/Hassel%20Costs.pdf)

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frgtpsswrdlame
>In any case, enforcing an automatic price-matching ban would be difficult.
Would you prohibit firms from lowering their prices to match competitors'? If
not, it would just take a few turns of the ratchet to send the message to
would-be competitors (and consumers). Whether the consumer surplus from those
ratchet turns are worth the enforcement cost is an open question.

Couldn't you just make a law saying "price-match guarantees are illegal"?
Firms who explicitly move prices to match each other is fine with me, but the
match guarantee is problematic. It seems that your conclusion is that
companies use matching guarantees to implicitly collude but that even if we
got rid of this they would still collude. But we should still stamp out
collusion wherever we see it even if that puts us in a whack-a-mole situation.

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ecommerceguy
We sell on eBay and have seen a slight uptick in sales with their last media
campaign. However, I still question the company as a whole. For instance, I
wonder if eBay will ever enforce their "prohibited goods" policies.

[https://medium.com/@datafacts/why-ebay-is-allowing-e-
cigaret...](https://medium.com/@datafacts/why-ebay-is-allowing-e-cigarette-
and-tobacco-products-to-be-sold-regardless-of-their-tos%C2%B9-2a7abedc5148)

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zer00eyz
I find this interesting.

There is a huge market for "discounted" lego on eBay and the bulk of these are
probably "stolen" (from Walmart to boot). If you don't believe me just google
stolen lego and read up.

I think this is going to lead to some interesting pricing conditions in the
market, ones that don't work well for retail locations like Walmart.

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yourapostasy
I wonder if heating up competition and shakeups in the retail sector means
that margins have gotten so thin that the only way to survive going forward is
through massively-scaled automation and innovative presentation and delivery
that limits real-estate footprints as much as possible. Another factor I've
been unsuccessfully trying to nail down is if disposable income and velocity
of money has declined for a broad enough swath of the population that we're
seeing a gradual collapse towards an increasing percentage of incomes going
towards essentials over time.

All this excitement in online retailing reminds me of yield chasing investors;
the excitement appears as growth- and margin-chasing, and in the meantime the
"plodding" sectors (and their associated populations) are overlooked. For
example, I don't see a shift to online with dollar stores.

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losteverything
Walmart has been stopping price matching (except their own.com) this and last
year across the country in its stores

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linsomniac
The only reasons I even think about going through the ebay process is because
either their price is significantly better than I can get on Amazon, or it is
an unusual thing I can't get at Amazon (mostly used stuff). Most of that
irritation comes from their desire to get me to use Paypal.

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elorant
RIP for Amazon to Ebay arbitrage.

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sigi45
yeah sucks to be ebay: No innovations for auctions over the last 10 years, got
more and more expensive to put stuff on and with trying to be also a
'marketplace' it is sucking more and more.

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JoblessWonder
I wonder if this will change the Amazon/Ebay arbitrage markets?

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geekierkid
They lost me at "...call customer service..."

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amelius
Second-hand items now price-matched to new items?

I don't get it.

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bitJericho
Ebay has a lot of new stuff. Often cheaper too because the fees aren't as high
as other retailers.

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amelius
Does Ebay have the same problems with authenticity as Amazon? There are a lot
of fake items being sold on Amazon.

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colmcg
It's a lot easier to see the quality of the seller on eBay. Items are not
grouped like they are on Amazon.

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ReverseCold
And, just like Amazon, disputes are basically a guaranteed win for the
customer.

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the_wheel
eBay?

