3 ms·

They have a Consignment Center [0] but that only really seems to hook you up with on the the various "I'll sell your crap on eBay" that exist instead of doing i

by rtkwe 6y ago

They have a Consignment Center [0] but that only really seems to hook you up with on the the various "I'll sell your crap on eBay" that exist instead of doing it themselves. [0] https://pages.ebay.com/rcp/consignmentcenter/#/ https://pages.ebay.com/rcp/consignmentcenter/#/

thaumasiotes 6y ago
Well, I wasn't just hallucinating: https://www.cnet.com/news/ebay-drop-off-locations-coming-to-1600-fedex-office-stores/ https://www.cnet.com/news/ebay-drop-off-locations-coming-to-... But the program does seem to be dead. I found some interesting forum discussion taking the opinion that eBay strangled consignment businesses by choosing to heavily discourage auction sales (as opposed to fixed-price listing). They did that because customers on average strongly prefer fixed-price sales, but I'd be open to the idea that this could be a case where giving the customers what they want turned out to be a mistake for the business. eBay saw themselves as competing with Amazon in the "buy things over the internet" space.[1] But by emphasizing fixed-price sales so much, they arguably made themselves much less distinct from Amazon. [1] I was surprised to learn this, as I had always thought of Amazon as being for buying things new and eBay for buying things used.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  I think a lot of people didn't understand or know about how the eBay auctions worked [0]. I only learned about eBay being a second price auction, effectively, ages after eBay was a thing. Without knowing how the proxy system works doing an auction would be pretty frustrating because it'd look like you were usually instantly outbid. [0] At least the later version I don't know if they used a different scheme earlier. They must have because the sniping services that existed in early eBay don't really make sense with proxy bids.

3 ms·

They have a Consignment Center [0] but that only really seems to hook you up with on the the various "I'll sell your crap on eBay" that exist instead of doing i

by rtkwe 6y ago

thaumasiotes 6y ago
Well, I wasn't just hallucinating: https://www.cnet.com/news/ebay-drop-off-locations-coming-to-1600-fedex-office-stores/ https://www.cnet.com/news/ebay-drop-off-locations-coming-to-... But the program does seem to be dead. I found some interesting forum discussion taking the opinion that eBay strangled consignment businesses by choosing to heavily discourage auction sales (as opposed to fixed-price listing). They did that because customers on average strongly prefer fixed-price sales, but I'd be open to the idea that this could be a case where giving the customers what they want turned out to be a mistake for the business. eBay saw themselves as competing with Amazon in the "buy things over the internet" space.[1] But by emphasizing fixed-price sales so much, they arguably made themselves much less distinct from Amazon. [1] I was surprised to learn this, as I had always thought of Amazon as being for buying things new and eBay for buying things used.
- rtkwe 6y ago
  I think a lot of people didn't understand or know about how the eBay auctions worked [0]. I only learned about eBay being a second price auction, effectively, ages after eBay was a thing. Without knowing how the proxy system works doing an auction would be pretty frustrating because it'd look like you were usually instantly outbid. [0] At least the later version I don't know if they used a different scheme earlier. They must have because the sniping services that existed in early eBay don't really make sense with proxy bids.