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No one ever talks about eBay anymore....but when are we going to collectively realize that they are the best of the "big tech" companies? They've stayed remark

by _red 7y ago

No one ever talks about eBay anymore....but when are we going to collectively realize that they are the best of the "big tech" companies? They've stayed remarkable true to their mission, haven't entered politics (ironic given previous CEO), and continued to offer a good service. Since the commingling of inventory is now so prevalent at Amazon, I find myself using eBay more and more.

SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago
I've had nothing but good experiences with ebay over the past few years, and I'm a very heavy user (buying and selling). I've been a member since 2002, FWIW.
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Me too. eBay has consistently handled disputes quickly and without hassles. Amazon has never managed that, even when they're the ones fulfilling the order.
walterbell 7y ago
Even NewEgg sells on eBay, and they have their own website! There is something to be said for the stability of marketplace rules and ecosystem. No rules are perfect, but if the rules are stable, people eventually learn how to interpret signals and assess risk. If the rules are constantly changing, all that hard-earned customer knowledge is discarded at random intervals, because the platform vendor has silently forked/rebooted the economy into a parallel universe. Now you have sellers in the new universe and buyers in the old universe. In a sane regulatory environment, platforms would be forced to put a version number on both the UX and ToS, so people would at least know the universe/rules have changed. As with other mandatory reporting, metrics on public notification would reduce "universe churn" and make it part of the marketing/competitive landscape.
par 7y ago
agreed, since Amazon product quality has become more suspect, I've found myself going to eBay for lots of various types of goods. I'm usually more pleased with my eBay experience than my Amazon experience, though I do use Amazon more frequently.
pgrote 7y ago
Me, too. Unsure if they are the best, but they have maintained their core business. Yes, they lost to amazon in the overall race, but the niche they have carved maintains itself well. I was growing concerned in the last few years they were racing to be amazon, but in the last year they have pulled back on it. They need to update their app and website, but overall, I like their pro buyer stance on transactions. Incredibly, most of the time I am looking for something specific, ebay sellers have lower prices than amazon.
JohnFen 7y ago
> I find myself using eBay more and more. The irony is that what attracted me to Amazon in the first place was that they could mostly supply the things I used to go to eBay for, but did it better -- because Amazon held the inventory and handled returns. If Amazon no longer does that for the things I buy, then there's no advantage to using them. It sounds like eBay will be getting more of my business back.
notatoad 7y ago
is ebay considered one of the "big tech" companies? maybe they were at one point, but their market cap is at least an order of magnitude smaller than any of the FAANG companies
- dymk 7y ago
  yes, ebay is a big tech company by almost any measure
- odiroot 7y ago
  Why do we put Netflix in there anyway? Seems eBay is actually a better fit with the crowd.
  - notatoad 7y ago
    FAANG is a much better acronym than FAAG
    - odiroot 7y ago
      FAAMG? For Microsoft.
yazboo 7y ago
Looks to me like they've donated quite a bit of money to conservative democrats and republicans so I wouldn't exactly say they haven't entered politics. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=C00342394 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=... Their CEO also sent a somewhat political all office email after the last presidential election: https://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13576446/ebay-ceo-memo-us-election-diversity https://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13576446/ebay-ceo-memo-us-elec... My point is just to say that "market liberalism" is a stance, not the absence of a stance.
rootusrootus 7y ago
I still use eBay once in a while, but many times they're more expensive than Amazon and the shipping is much slower. I'm not totally sold.
- criddell 7y ago
  If eBay started a prime-type program where I could pay one fee for "free" 2-day shipping all year long, I'd buy more items from there. Until they do, Amazon is just easier and more reliable and that's more important than price.
mortenjorck 7y ago
Amazon is a sprawling complex of market stalls masquerading as a single Costco, while Ebay is a sprawling complex of market stalls that makes no pretensions of being something else.
- stcredzero 7y ago
  The Faux Cathedral and the Bazaar?
  - zaroth 7y ago
    For those wondering where the quote comes from; https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Raymond_Eric_S_The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar_rev_ed.pdf https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Raymond_Eric_S_The_Cathedra...
- derefr 7y ago
  Amazon is a decaying strip mall surrounded by market stalls. There is a big-box store in there somewhere, where the "Amazon Basics" products come from.
bredren 7y ago
The best big tech company? Maybe presently people have no major beefs with the organization. But there have been more than enough negative actions by this company in the past including: Suing craigslist (and losing) for breach of fiduciary duty because it wouldn't exploit its users enough. This was knowing that the shares were acquired in conflict with the ownership and mission of craigslist. eBay tried to get inside information from Craigslist while it was secretly preparing release of Kijiji.[1] eBay has been facilitating the sale of counterfeit items long before Amazon. Many sellers were upset by the requirement to use PayPal anded even acted to ban use of competing services. So while the heat may be on Amazon, I would hold off on elevating eBay to some superior ethical position. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120959923436057759 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120959923436057759
- JohnFen 7y ago
  Yes, this. I don't consider eBay to be a "good guy". But they do increasingly appear to be the best of a bad bunch.
- nacs 7y ago
  Also, they own Paypal which itself has tons of issues (it had them before the purchase and apparently those issues continue as regular HN posts show).
  - smeyer 7y ago
    >they own Paypal They spun Paypal off into an independent company in 2015.
    - GarrisonPrime 7y ago
      Yes, technically the are separate. But given how tightly the systems remain integrated, it appears that was just for show.
      - smeyer 7y ago
        >given how tightly the systems remain integrated Ebay is moving away from its tight integration with Paypal and has a deal with a new payment processor (Adyen) after it's current paypal deal ends in 2020. Between that and the fact that they're two public companies with separate freely traded ownership, it's hard for me to buy the argument that the spin off was "just for show". https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-to-intermediate-payments-on-its-marketplace-platform/ https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-to-intermediate-pa...
the_watcher 7y ago
Peter Thiel was never CEO of eBay. He was CEO of PayPal until eBay pruchased it, at which point he left the company to found Clarium Capital and Palantir. EDIT: While the above statement is correct, I'm an idiot and totally forgot that a former eBay CEO ran for governor of California and remains active in politics.
- smelendez 7y ago
  I thought that was either a reference to Meg Whitman, who has run for office, or Pierre Omidyar, who funded First Look Media, parent of The Intercept.
  - the_watcher 7y ago
    Oh, you're right. Facepalm moment for me, I definitely knew about Whitman and politics.
SomeOldThrow 7y ago
> They've stayed remarkable true to their mission, haven't entered politics (ironic given previous CEO), and continued to offer a good service. Well, aside from forcing you to use paypal and go through their mediation process. I'll never spend a cent on ebay again, or sell there—credit cards are the only way to shield yourself from bad purchases (that and buying in person).
dawnerd 7y ago
I've been selling on eBay recently and it's been surprisingly easy. Not making a killing by any means since it's just a side hustle but that extra 5k in the last 90 days is pretty nice for very little work. I think the only beef people have with eBay is how dumb their support people can be sometimes when you run into a problem.
jayalpha 7y ago
ebay is getting more attractive again. But probably the stupidest company in the tech field. They had skype, a kind of social network. They could have been facebook. They had paypal they could have been the major payment processor on phones (see WeChat) A lot of missed opportunities.
liotier 7y ago
> [eBay] stayed remarkable true to their mission Having used eBay since its early days, I stopped when they lost their focus on auctions and became just another platform. Now I have to bother with market research to set a fixed price - much more hassle than auctioning at zero Euros and letting the market find the optimum price (only works in liquid categories though). I understand that the mass market finds auctions bewildering and prefers fixed price... I'm still disappointed.
- dalbasal 7y ago
  Auctioning the way eBay originally did it is usually sensible where items are unique. Used/vintage stuff, one-offs and rarities, opportunist-oriented bundles... Selling toilet paper, or USB cables with that sort of bidding model doesn't work. I mean, prices don't need to fixed either. A dynamic bidding system of some sort (eg AdWords auctions) is definitely an interesting idea. But, to be the place where you ship for regular stuff it needs to be lower overhead for the buyer. That's nothing against eBay's original mission. They did do (not anymore? I haven't tried in years) that job pretty well. I suspect it's still an awesome place to buy a proverbial broken radio.
yowlingcat 7y ago
Yeah, I've continued to use eBay to make some of the higher ticket purchases I used to make on Amazon. If you want to buy something quality used, it's hard to find an alternative, and frankly, buying something that's high quality and used is one of the best ways to make a purchase (IE instruments, clothing). Ebay's been good to me for nigh on 20 years, and it's not because everything is perfect quality. It's rather that, unlike Amazon, they don't try to hide and commingle differing quality items. Counterfeiting is still a problem, but giving negative feedback is still possible and it seems still encouraged in cases where it's warranted, and that makes the marketplace dynamics actually even out at scale. This is in stark comparison to Amazon, and it makes me trust eBay aggregate feedback scores much more on the whole. I'll use Amazon for low-risk purchases, but otherwise, I'll find another retailer these days. The risk of something going awry and receiving poor after purchase support is too high.

by _red 7y ago

SmellyGeekBoy 7y ago

I've had nothing but good experiences with ebay over the past few years, and I'm a very heavy user (buying and selling). I've been a member since 2002, FWIW.

JohnFen 7y ago
Me too. eBay has consistently handled disputes quickly and without hassles. Amazon has never managed that, even when they're the ones fulfilling the order.

walterbell 7y ago

Even NewEgg sells on eBay, and they have their own website! There is something to be said for the stability of marketplace rules and ecosystem. No rules are perfect, but if the rules are stable, people eventually learn how to interpret signals and assess risk. If the rules are constantly changing, all that hard-earned customer knowledge is discarded at random intervals, because the platform vendor has silently forked/rebooted the economy into a parallel universe. Now you have sellers in the new universe and buyers in the old universe. In a sane regulatory environment, platforms would be forced to put a version number on both the UX and ToS, so people would at least know the universe/rules have changed. As with other mandatory reporting, metrics on public notification would reduce "universe churn" and make it part of the marketing/competitive landscape.

par 7y ago

agreed, since Amazon product quality has become more suspect, I've found myself going to eBay for lots of various types of goods. I'm usually more pleased with my eBay experience than my Amazon experience, though I do use Amazon more frequently.

pgrote 7y ago

Me, too. Unsure if they are the best, but they have maintained their core business. Yes, they lost to amazon in the overall race, but the niche they have carved maintains itself well. I was growing concerned in the last few years they were racing to be amazon, but in the last year they have pulled back on it. They need to update their app and website, but overall, I like their pro buyer stance on transactions. Incredibly, most of the time I am looking for something specific, ebay sellers have lower prices than amazon.

JohnFen 7y ago

> I find myself using eBay more and more. The irony is that what attracted me to Amazon in the first place was that they could mostly supply the things I used to go to eBay for, but did it better -- because Amazon held the inventory and handled returns. If Amazon no longer does that for the things I buy, then there's no advantage to using them. It sounds like eBay will be getting more of my business back.

notatoad 7y ago

is ebay considered one of the "big tech" companies? maybe they were at one point, but their market cap is at least an order of magnitude smaller than any of the FAANG companies

dymk 7y ago
yes, ebay is a big tech company by almost any measure
odiroot 7y ago
Why do we put Netflix in there anyway? Seems eBay is actually a better fit with the crowd.
- notatoad 7y ago
  FAANG is a much better acronym than FAAG
  - odiroot 7y ago
    FAAMG? For Microsoft.

yazboo 7y ago

Looks to me like they've donated quite a bit of money to conservative democrats and republicans so I wouldn't exactly say they haven't entered politics. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=C00342394 https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=... Their CEO also sent a somewhat political all office email after the last presidential election: https://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13576446/ebay-ceo-memo-us-election-diversity https://www.vox.com/2016/11/9/13576446/ebay-ceo-memo-us-elec... My point is just to say that "market liberalism" is a stance, not the absence of a stance.

rootusrootus 7y ago

I still use eBay once in a while, but many times they're more expensive than Amazon and the shipping is much slower. I'm not totally sold.

criddell 7y ago
If eBay started a prime-type program where I could pay one fee for "free" 2-day shipping all year long, I'd buy more items from there. Until they do, Amazon is just easier and more reliable and that's more important than price.

mortenjorck 7y ago

Amazon is a sprawling complex of market stalls masquerading as a single Costco, while Ebay is a sprawling complex of market stalls that makes no pretensions of being something else.

stcredzero 7y ago
The Faux Cathedral and the Bazaar?
- zaroth 7y ago
  For those wondering where the quote comes from; https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Raymond_Eric_S_The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar_rev_ed.pdf https://monoskop.org/images/e/e0/Raymond_Eric_S_The_Cathedra...
derefr 7y ago
Amazon is a decaying strip mall surrounded by market stalls. There is a big-box store in there somewhere, where the "Amazon Basics" products come from.

bredren 7y ago

The best big tech company? Maybe presently people have no major beefs with the organization. But there have been more than enough negative actions by this company in the past including: Suing craigslist (and losing) for breach of fiduciary duty because it wouldn't exploit its users enough. This was knowing that the shares were acquired in conflict with the ownership and mission of craigslist. eBay tried to get inside information from Craigslist while it was secretly preparing release of Kijiji.[1] eBay has been facilitating the sale of counterfeit items long before Amazon. Many sellers were upset by the requirement to use PayPal anded even acted to ban use of competing services. So while the heat may be on Amazon, I would hold off on elevating eBay to some superior ethical position. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120959923436057759 https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB120959923436057759

JohnFen 7y ago
Yes, this. I don't consider eBay to be a "good guy". But they do increasingly appear to be the best of a bad bunch.
nacs 7y ago
Also, they own Paypal which itself has tons of issues (it had them before the purchase and apparently those issues continue as regular HN posts show).
- smeyer 7y ago
  >they own Paypal They spun Paypal off into an independent company in 2015.
  - GarrisonPrime 7y ago
    Yes, technically the are separate. But given how tightly the systems remain integrated, it appears that was just for show.
    - smeyer 7y ago
      >given how tightly the systems remain integrated Ebay is moving away from its tight integration with Paypal and has a deal with a new payment processor (Adyen) after it's current paypal deal ends in 2020. Between that and the fact that they're two public companies with separate freely traded ownership, it's hard for me to buy the argument that the spin off was "just for show". https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-to-intermediate-payments-on-its-marketplace-platform/ https://www.ebayinc.com/stories/news/ebay-to-intermediate-pa...

the_watcher 7y ago

Peter Thiel was never CEO of eBay. He was CEO of PayPal until eBay pruchased it, at which point he left the company to found Clarium Capital and Palantir. EDIT: While the above statement is correct, I'm an idiot and totally forgot that a former eBay CEO ran for governor of California and remains active in politics.

smelendez 7y ago
I thought that was either a reference to Meg Whitman, who has run for office, or Pierre Omidyar, who funded First Look Media, parent of The Intercept.
- the_watcher 7y ago
  Oh, you're right. Facepalm moment for me, I definitely knew about Whitman and politics.

SomeOldThrow 7y ago

> They've stayed remarkable true to their mission, haven't entered politics (ironic given previous CEO), and continued to offer a good service. Well, aside from forcing you to use paypal and go through their mediation process. I'll never spend a cent on ebay again, or sell there—credit cards are the only way to shield yourself from bad purchases (that and buying in person).

dawnerd 7y ago

I've been selling on eBay recently and it's been surprisingly easy. Not making a killing by any means since it's just a side hustle but that extra 5k in the last 90 days is pretty nice for very little work. I think the only beef people have with eBay is how dumb their support people can be sometimes when you run into a problem.

jayalpha 7y ago

ebay is getting more attractive again. But probably the stupidest company in the tech field. They had skype, a kind of social network. They could have been facebook. They had paypal they could have been the major payment processor on phones (see WeChat) A lot of missed opportunities.

liotier 7y ago

> [eBay] stayed remarkable true to their mission Having used eBay since its early days, I stopped when they lost their focus on auctions and became just another platform. Now I have to bother with market research to set a fixed price - much more hassle than auctioning at zero Euros and letting the market find the optimum price (only works in liquid categories though). I understand that the mass market finds auctions bewildering and prefers fixed price... I'm still disappointed.

dalbasal 7y ago
Auctioning the way eBay originally did it is usually sensible where items are unique. Used/vintage stuff, one-offs and rarities, opportunist-oriented bundles... Selling toilet paper, or USB cables with that sort of bidding model doesn't work. I mean, prices don't need to fixed either. A dynamic bidding system of some sort (eg AdWords auctions) is definitely an interesting idea. But, to be the place where you ship for regular stuff it needs to be lower overhead for the buyer. That's nothing against eBay's original mission. They did do (not anymore? I haven't tried in years) that job pretty well. I suspect it's still an awesome place to buy a proverbial broken radio.

yowlingcat 7y ago

Yeah, I've continued to use eBay to make some of the higher ticket purchases I used to make on Amazon. If you want to buy something quality used, it's hard to find an alternative, and frankly, buying something that's high quality and used is one of the best ways to make a purchase (IE instruments, clothing). Ebay's been good to me for nigh on 20 years, and it's not because everything is perfect quality. It's rather that, unlike Amazon, they don't try to hide and commingle differing quality items. Counterfeiting is still a problem, but giving negative feedback is still possible and it seems still encouraged in cases where it's warranted, and that makes the marketplace dynamics actually even out at scale. This is in stark comparison to Amazon, and it makes me trust eBay aggregate feedback scores much more on the whole. I'll use Amazon for low-risk purchases, but otherwise, I'll find another retailer these days. The risk of something going awry and receiving poor after purchase support is too high.