3 ms·

eBay is not same-same, it's much more marketplace-esque. eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers product

eBay is not same-same, it's much more marketplace-esque. eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Amazon consolidates the listing for all sellers into a single product and uses their own ranking algorithms to determine which seller is in the "buy box" (which accounts for 97% of the items sales velocity). Amazon treats the entire experience as their transaction, they anonymize the emails and don't allow sellers to send follow-messages to clients or market other products to them (package inserts). The cart-checkout process isn't broken down by seller either, it's a unified payment and "1 click" checkout. I don't feel bad for Amazon at all - they've had it coming! FWIW .. I was the first person (as a 3rd party) to develop an integration with Amazon's marketplace. I also personally won eBays' star developer award. I recall the year the Internet Retailer show was in San Diego and Amazon didn't have an employee there. It was against Amazon corporate rules to allow employees to spend the night in CA in fear it would create sales tax nexus. Amazon employees would need to fly back to Seattle and then fly back to San Diego if they came down for a friday meeting and wanted to spend the weekend on personal time! Amazon has gamed the rules, they compete directly with their clients (sellers) using the sales data to decide what product to source. They ran their warehouses as 3rd party entities to avoid nexus and begrudging accepted 3rd party (non-Amazon owned) sellers when the courts ruled that wholly owned entities would create sales-tax nexus. I feel no pity for them.

shuckles 6y ago
Do you have a source for all these policies? I would love to hear more.
judge2020 6y ago
> eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Try searching for a product on ebay right now and it's the exact same experience as Amazon. Both Amazon and Ebay's algorithms determine which usb drives show up first when searching for "usb stick", which is where 99% of their commerce is coming from.
- brudgers 6y ago
  The eBay list will have a rating for the seller, full detailed customer feedback the seller received for the previous 90 days including the listing. It will also have verbatim customer feedback going back 12 months. This is the top result of my search for "usb stick" -- a seller with 28k transactions and 100% positive feedback. https://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-Cruzer-Blade-Flash-Drive-8GB-16GB-32GB-64GB-USB-2-0-Pen-Memory-Stick/202906951835 https://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-Cruzer-Blade-Flash-Drive-8G...
  - judge2020 6y ago
    That doesn't contradict my point. Both have a generic search list that combines multiple sellers onto one page, making the OP's statement "eBay does not use a consolidated product listing" incorrect.
    - brudgers 6y ago
      The search list on eBay provides provenance. The buyer can choose among suppliers as well as products. The eBay list is specific, not generic.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
donatj 6y ago
> they anonymize the emails and don't allow sellers to send follow-messages to clients Are you sure about that, I get emails from 3rd party sellers pressuring me to review the items all the time.
- 0x00000000 6y ago
  They are abusing the “more information required to complete your order” messages. I report them when they do it.
saddlerustle 6y ago
> Amazon treats the entire experience as their transaction, they anonymize the emails and don't allow sellers to send follow-messages to clients or market other products to them (package inserts) That hasn't been true for a quite a while. They changed this because product liability lawsuits used this to argue Amazon owns the customer relationship. As a result there were several HN posts outraged about no longer having privacy when purchasing products.

shuckles 6y ago

Do you have a source for all these policies? I would love to hear more.

judge2020 6y ago

> eBay does not use a consolidated product listing, much more like a bulletin board each sellers products being sold under it's own URL. Try searching for a product on ebay right now and it's the exact same experience as Amazon. Both Amazon and Ebay's algorithms determine which usb drives show up first when searching for "usb stick", which is where 99% of their commerce is coming from.

brudgers 6y ago
The eBay list will have a rating for the seller, full detailed customer feedback the seller received for the previous 90 days including the listing. It will also have verbatim customer feedback going back 12 months. This is the top result of my search for "usb stick" -- a seller with 28k transactions and 100% positive feedback. https://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-Cruzer-Blade-Flash-Drive-8GB-16GB-32GB-64GB-USB-2-0-Pen-Memory-Stick/202906951835 https://www.ebay.com/itm/SanDisk-Cruzer-Blade-Flash-Drive-8G...
- judge2020 6y ago
  That doesn't contradict my point. Both have a generic search list that combines multiple sellers onto one page, making the OP's statement "eBay does not use a consolidated product listing" incorrect.
  - brudgers 6y ago
    The search list on eBay provides provenance. The buyer can choose among suppliers as well as products. The eBay list is specific, not generic.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

donatj 6y ago

> they anonymize the emails and don't allow sellers to send follow-messages to clients Are you sure about that, I get emails from 3rd party sellers pressuring me to review the items all the time.

0x00000000 6y ago
They are abusing the “more information required to complete your order” messages. I report them when they do it.

saddlerustle 6y ago

> Amazon treats the entire experience as their transaction, they anonymize the emails and don't allow sellers to send follow-messages to clients or market other products to them (package inserts) That hasn't been true for a quite a while. They changed this because product liability lawsuits used this to argue Amazon owns the customer relationship. As a result there were several HN posts outraged about no longer having privacy when purchasing products.