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> [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 anothe
by 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 agoAuctioning 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.