3 ms·

Hmmm... I'm surprised eBay didn't go the Amazon route - see what's working well in the marketplace, and then sell it yourself. For instance, there are clearly

Hmmm... I'm surprised eBay didn't go the Amazon route - see what's working well in the marketplace, and then sell it yourself. For instance, there are clearly a lot of electronics that sold at below-market rates just because of the hassle of an auction. If eBay could "pose as a buyer" and buy items at a certain price point, re-sell them for a little more, they could make money on the margins. In fact, I'm certain a lot of people use eBay to do exactly this, I just don't know how large the market is.

notahacker 8y ago
When you have a business model which make a steady 10% per sale for hosting a seller-updated web page and shopping cart, why would you adopt the far more risky strategy of employing more people to analyse, buy, hold and handle items in the hope you'll eke out net profits from reselling at higher prices on the same platform in future? Especially if doing so is likely to irritate part of your existing customer base.