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I don't understand why there hasn't been a significant challenger to eBay in their space. They are notorious amongst sellers for their high fees and dispute res

I don't understand why there hasn't been a significant challenger to eBay in their space. They are notorious amongst sellers for their high fees and dispute resolution that almost always sides with the buyer.

sokoloff 8y ago
As a buyer, where else can I find the insanely wide selection of goods on a listing-type site? Consistently siding with the buyer is the reason I use Ebay (and Amazon with A-Z) with confidence. You sell me what you listed, we're good. You don't? I'm probably going to be made whole by Ebay. That does open the door for scammer buyers. I hope, for sellers' sake, that Ebay has some kind of attention that they pay to patterns of bad behavior.
- Analemma_ 8y ago
  > I hope, for sellers' sake, that Ebay has some kind of attention that they pay to patterns of bad behavior. They don't. There have been quite a few stories about this, including some on HN, but the bottom line is that buyer fraud is rampant on EBay, and, as the GP said, when there's a dispute EBay never ever sides with sellers. To be honest, while I also like buying on EBay because of the protections, I'm amazed that anyone still sells there; that's how bad it's gotten. I suppose whoever is left has just accepted that the fraud is a cost of doing business and prices it in accordingly.
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    The mere whiff of them siding against a buyer would drive buyers away, destroying the platform. On the other hand, it’s evidently impossible to drive sellers away, no matter how badly they treat them. eBay could require sellers to undergo full body cavity searches and daily beatings and sellers would still sell there.
magduf 8y ago
High fees? Yeah, they kinda suck at 10% of the gross (plus whatever Paypal charges, usually 2.9%), but this isn't high compared to Amazon's fees.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  Amazon is a different business model, and doesn't really serve the same market. Bonanza and Etsy seem to be the closest things to what eBay was "back in the day".
  - magduf 8y ago
    I've never heard of Bonanza, but Etsy is pretty different: it caters to people who handcraft stuff and sell it directly to customers. You can do that on Ebay, but Ebay is(/was) really more of a giant garage sale. Amazon used to have a facility where any regular Joe could resell some used item on there: you'd see the new item listing, and then you'd see "available for as low as $$$ from these new and used sellers" that you could click on. You can still buy from other sellers there, but only if they have paid sellers' accounts, which keeps out the regular Joe who just wants to sell a few things a year, like the time when I resold a used table saw I didn't need any more.
ggg9990 8y ago
Because it’s the default place to go in everyone’s mind when you need some random one off item like an ALF alarm clock.
pbreit 8y ago
Auctions trend towards being natural monopolies since the network effect is so strong: more buyers -> higher prices -> more sellers -> more items -> (infinity)
jacquesm 8y ago
Two sided marketplaces such as Ebay have very strong network effects and as a result are super sensitive to first mover advantage.
- masonic 8y ago
  Ebay stopped being a two-sided marketplace when they banned leaving buyers negative (or even neutral) feedback.
  - MaxBarraclough 8y ago
    Wait, what?
  - 5555624 8y ago
    >Ebay stopped being a two-sided marketplace when they banned leaving buyers negative (or even neutral) feedback. What? As a buyer, I can still leave positive,neutral, or negative feedback. (I just checked.) I don't sell on eBay; so, maybe it's sellers that are limited in leaving feedback?
    - tim333 8y ago
      Sellers can't leave negative feedback on buyers, I think is the meaning.
      - jacquesm 8y ago
        That doesn't stop Ebay from being a two-sided marketplace. GGP simply doesn't understand the terminology.
jdietrich 8y ago
Network effects. Sellers use eBay because buyers use eBay because sellers use eBay. eBay dominate the long tail of e-commerce and will do for the foreseeable future. You can challenge eBay locally, as shown by Craigslist and Gumtree. You can challenge eBay in a specific niche, as shown by Etsy. Facebook tried to take on eBay directly with Marketplace, with limited success. Amazon Marketplace competes fairly directly with eBay, but at a significant cost to Amazon's reputation - it has flooded their platform with counterfeits and fake reviews.
- phatfish 8y ago
  For reference Gumtree was only challenging eBay before 2005, when they were bought by eBay. Shpock (mobile only I think) seems to be the nearest thing to a competitor at the local level, in Europe at least.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    OLX is a pretty big competitor in many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLX
  - chrido 8y ago
    There are many other regional competitors too. e.g. https://www.willhaben.at https://www.willhaben.at is very popular in Austria, mostly private sellers.
- digikata 8y ago
  Yes, as a customer, I think Amazon has been accumulating negative aspects of Ebay marketplaces faster than Ebay has been acquiring positive aspects of Amazon. That said, I have recently found myself buying some products on Ebay (w/o going thru the auction rigamarole) because they're priced better than Amazon .
- hakfoo 8y ago
  From a buyer's perspective, the network effects are strongest when you're shopping for one-of-a-kind items. If you're a coin collector looking for a 1896 half-crown in grade 62 toned, you have to be on the largest marketplace to have the best chance of getting one. If you're seeking commodity items, the network effect is far weaker When I need a cheap USB 2.0 hub, why should I buy it from eBay when it will likely be a buck or two cheaper from a DealExreme/Banggood/LightInTheBox style direct-from-China shop? The selection will be adequate even if there's only one seller. Similarly, as a seller, a combined marketplace makes sense when you have narrow inventory drawing low traffic. You have two widgets, and they'll sell faster being listed inside eBay's assortment of 500, than by trying ti SEO your two product pages. A lot of the classic eBay product lines were stuff where there were few "category killer" web shops with wide inventory and workable sales flow. (Think of the baseball card dealers where they publish paper price lists) I wonder if in 10 years we'll see an eBay much more like that from 10 years ago. The cheap commodity items will eventually move to sellers' own sites where they aren't giving up a major cut of the purchase price, but more differentiated individual items will stick around.
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Craigslist is the only one that could do it and they aren't interested in growth.
TorKlingberg 8y ago
The alternative is Amazon Marketplace, which has even higher fees and is even tougher on sellers, yet it's taking marketshare from eBay. They are not 100% competitors, but most of eBays volume is competing directly with Amazon. They have to be a bit biased towards buyers because scammers want money, and sellers get money. Buyer scams are mostly items that can be easily converted to cash, like laptops and phones.
slededit 8y ago
Aliexpress covers the bulk of their business which is drop shipped stuff form China. Craigslist covers "used stuff from other people".
- ausjke 8y ago
  adding amazon marketplace, ebay's growth is in serious doubt.
- etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
  The number of items available on Aliexpress seems far smaller than eBay. And the overall shopping experience on Aliexpress is kind of miserable, worse than eBay.
  - Uberphallus 8y ago
    I think selection and misery depend a lot on what you shop for. Looking for LoRa modules, eBay has 10 times more items, but half of the sellers are list the same item 30 times with different price and shipping costs, so that is actually reduced offer and enhanced misery. On Aliexpress you rarely find dupes from the same seller, they keep that shit at bay.
dizzystar 8y ago
Amazon is much more expensive and even more buyer-centric. Groupon isn't particularly busy and definitely aren't good with sellers. I've heard a lot of horror stories. Overstock is probably the worst, and I'd say downright abusive to their sellers. They also have no API or FTP. Rakuten, nee buy.com is a strange beast. They will pause your account for strange reasons. No API either. Walmart has little useful online presence for 3rd party sellers and no API. Newegg also has no API. I haven't heard any real bad things about them otherwise. There are a lot of niche marketplaces that do very well in their domain. They aren't using APIs. Some are absurdly expensive and others are cheaper. It doesn't really matter. No online market takes care of the seller, and honestly, the buyer is far more common than a seller. One seller leaves and another takes their place.
- TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
  Newegg has been expanding into 3rd-party retailing, which is what I've come to loathe about Amazon. Newegg's advantage, to me, was trust that they were carrying legitimate, good products that would arrive quickly, and a process without surprise. I can't reliably distinguish actual-Amazon-warehoused product on Amazon any more, and I figure I soon won't be able to on Newegg either. So, when I need computer kit, why not just get it from Amazon, where I already pay for Prime? I really wish Newegg would walk this back. I think the future of online retail is focused, curated shops, and not the worldwide haggling vendor stall that Amazon has become.
gscott 8y ago
Amazon tried auctions so did Yahoo... https://www.cnet.com/news/merchants-pull-out-of-amazon-auctions/ https://www.cnet.com/news/merchants-pull-out-of-amazon-aucti...

sokoloff 8y ago

As a buyer, where else can I find the insanely wide selection of goods on a listing-type site? Consistently siding with the buyer is the reason I use Ebay (and Amazon with A-Z) with confidence. You sell me what you listed, we're good. You don't? I'm probably going to be made whole by Ebay. That does open the door for scammer buyers. I hope, for sellers' sake, that Ebay has some kind of attention that they pay to patterns of bad behavior.

Analemma_ 8y ago
> I hope, for sellers' sake, that Ebay has some kind of attention that they pay to patterns of bad behavior. They don't. There have been quite a few stories about this, including some on HN, but the bottom line is that buyer fraud is rampant on EBay, and, as the GP said, when there's a dispute EBay never ever sides with sellers. To be honest, while I also like buying on EBay because of the protections, I'm amazed that anyone still sells there; that's how bad it's gotten. I suppose whoever is left has just accepted that the fraud is a cost of doing business and prices it in accordingly.
- ryandrake 8y ago
  The mere whiff of them siding against a buyer would drive buyers away, destroying the platform. On the other hand, it’s evidently impossible to drive sellers away, no matter how badly they treat them. eBay could require sellers to undergo full body cavity searches and daily beatings and sellers would still sell there.

magduf 8y ago

High fees? Yeah, they kinda suck at 10% of the gross (plus whatever Paypal charges, usually 2.9%), but this isn't high compared to Amazon's fees.

LyndsySimon 8y ago
Amazon is a different business model, and doesn't really serve the same market. Bonanza and Etsy seem to be the closest things to what eBay was "back in the day".
- magduf 8y ago
  I've never heard of Bonanza, but Etsy is pretty different: it caters to people who handcraft stuff and sell it directly to customers. You can do that on Ebay, but Ebay is(/was) really more of a giant garage sale. Amazon used to have a facility where any regular Joe could resell some used item on there: you'd see the new item listing, and then you'd see "available for as low as $$$ from these new and used sellers" that you could click on. You can still buy from other sellers there, but only if they have paid sellers' accounts, which keeps out the regular Joe who just wants to sell a few things a year, like the time when I resold a used table saw I didn't need any more.

ggg9990 8y ago

Because it’s the default place to go in everyone’s mind when you need some random one off item like an ALF alarm clock.

pbreit 8y ago

Auctions trend towards being natural monopolies since the network effect is so strong: more buyers -> higher prices -> more sellers -> more items -> (infinity)

jacquesm 8y ago

Two sided marketplaces such as Ebay have very strong network effects and as a result are super sensitive to first mover advantage.

masonic 8y ago
Ebay stopped being a two-sided marketplace when they banned leaving buyers negative (or even neutral) feedback.
- MaxBarraclough 8y ago
  Wait, what?
- 5555624 8y ago
  >Ebay stopped being a two-sided marketplace when they banned leaving buyers negative (or even neutral) feedback. What? As a buyer, I can still leave positive,neutral, or negative feedback. (I just checked.) I don't sell on eBay; so, maybe it's sellers that are limited in leaving feedback?
  - tim333 8y ago
    Sellers can't leave negative feedback on buyers, I think is the meaning.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      That doesn't stop Ebay from being a two-sided marketplace. GGP simply doesn't understand the terminology.

jdietrich 8y ago

Network effects. Sellers use eBay because buyers use eBay because sellers use eBay. eBay dominate the long tail of e-commerce and will do for the foreseeable future. You can challenge eBay locally, as shown by Craigslist and Gumtree. You can challenge eBay in a specific niche, as shown by Etsy. Facebook tried to take on eBay directly with Marketplace, with limited success. Amazon Marketplace competes fairly directly with eBay, but at a significant cost to Amazon's reputation - it has flooded their platform with counterfeits and fake reviews.

phatfish 8y ago
For reference Gumtree was only challenging eBay before 2005, when they were bought by eBay. Shpock (mobile only I think) seems to be the nearest thing to a competitor at the local level, in Europe at least.
- icebraining 8y ago
  OLX is a pretty big competitor in many countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLX https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLX
- chrido 8y ago
  There are many other regional competitors too. e.g. https://www.willhaben.at https://www.willhaben.at is very popular in Austria, mostly private sellers.
digikata 8y ago
Yes, as a customer, I think Amazon has been accumulating negative aspects of Ebay marketplaces faster than Ebay has been acquiring positive aspects of Amazon. That said, I have recently found myself buying some products on Ebay (w/o going thru the auction rigamarole) because they're priced better than Amazon .
hakfoo 8y ago
From a buyer's perspective, the network effects are strongest when you're shopping for one-of-a-kind items. If you're a coin collector looking for a 1896 half-crown in grade 62 toned, you have to be on the largest marketplace to have the best chance of getting one. If you're seeking commodity items, the network effect is far weaker When I need a cheap USB 2.0 hub, why should I buy it from eBay when it will likely be a buck or two cheaper from a DealExreme/Banggood/LightInTheBox style direct-from-China shop? The selection will be adequate even if there's only one seller. Similarly, as a seller, a combined marketplace makes sense when you have narrow inventory drawing low traffic. You have two widgets, and they'll sell faster being listed inside eBay's assortment of 500, than by trying ti SEO your two product pages. A lot of the classic eBay product lines were stuff where there were few "category killer" web shops with wide inventory and workable sales flow. (Think of the baseball card dealers where they publish paper price lists) I wonder if in 10 years we'll see an eBay much more like that from 10 years ago. The cheap commodity items will eventually move to sellers' own sites where they aren't giving up a major cut of the purchase price, but more differentiated individual items will stick around.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

Craigslist is the only one that could do it and they aren't interested in growth.

TorKlingberg 8y ago

The alternative is Amazon Marketplace, which has even higher fees and is even tougher on sellers, yet it's taking marketshare from eBay. They are not 100% competitors, but most of eBays volume is competing directly with Amazon. They have to be a bit biased towards buyers because scammers want money, and sellers get money. Buyer scams are mostly items that can be easily converted to cash, like laptops and phones.

slededit 8y ago

Aliexpress covers the bulk of their business which is drop shipped stuff form China. Craigslist covers "used stuff from other people".

ausjke 8y ago
adding amazon marketplace, ebay's growth is in serious doubt.
etaioinshrdlu 8y ago
The number of items available on Aliexpress seems far smaller than eBay. And the overall shopping experience on Aliexpress is kind of miserable, worse than eBay.
- Uberphallus 8y ago
  I think selection and misery depend a lot on what you shop for. Looking for LoRa modules, eBay has 10 times more items, but half of the sellers are list the same item 30 times with different price and shipping costs, so that is actually reduced offer and enhanced misery. On Aliexpress you rarely find dupes from the same seller, they keep that shit at bay.

dizzystar 8y ago

Amazon is much more expensive and even more buyer-centric. Groupon isn't particularly busy and definitely aren't good with sellers. I've heard a lot of horror stories. Overstock is probably the worst, and I'd say downright abusive to their sellers. They also have no API or FTP. Rakuten, nee buy.com is a strange beast. They will pause your account for strange reasons. No API either. Walmart has little useful online presence for 3rd party sellers and no API. Newegg also has no API. I haven't heard any real bad things about them otherwise. There are a lot of niche marketplaces that do very well in their domain. They aren't using APIs. Some are absurdly expensive and others are cheaper. It doesn't really matter. No online market takes care of the seller, and honestly, the buyer is far more common than a seller. One seller leaves and another takes their place.

TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
Newegg has been expanding into 3rd-party retailing, which is what I've come to loathe about Amazon. Newegg's advantage, to me, was trust that they were carrying legitimate, good products that would arrive quickly, and a process without surprise. I can't reliably distinguish actual-Amazon-warehoused product on Amazon any more, and I figure I soon won't be able to on Newegg either. So, when I need computer kit, why not just get it from Amazon, where I already pay for Prime? I really wish Newegg would walk this back. I think the future of online retail is focused, curated shops, and not the worldwide haggling vendor stall that Amazon has become.

gscott 8y ago

Amazon tried auctions so did Yahoo... https://www.cnet.com/news/merchants-pull-out-of-amazon-auctions/ https://www.cnet.com/news/merchants-pull-out-of-amazon-aucti...