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Amazon is the new ebay. I still remember the good old times when ebay was mostly honest regular people selling used stuff online. Then "powersellers" appeared.

Amazon is the new ebay. I still remember the good old times when ebay was mostly honest regular people selling used stuff online. Then "powersellers" appeared. Then things get automated. By now, e-bay is mostly new items but with horrible service and almost no safety checks. That's also why GPU scalpers love both ebay and Amazon Marketplace.

bovermyer 5y ago
I dunno, I'm still able to find good deals on used books and games on eBay.
Wingman4l7 5y ago
The used folks definitely still exist, you just have to be judicious with your search filters, unfortunately.
JaimeThompson 5y ago
>with horrible service and almost no safety checks So e-bay was crypto before crypto.
- kleer001 5y ago
  technically cryptocurriencies have no service and no safety checks, and that's the selling point
RajT88 5y ago
You have to use the advanced search to find those folks now. When I am looking for good deals on used stuff, I focus on lots of items, sorted by most recently listed. Always buy-it-now.
na85 5y ago
>That's also why GPU scalpers love both ebay and Amazon Marketplace. Maybe in 2030 I'll be able to buy an RX 6800 XT for MSRP.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
deanCommie 5y ago
The key difference between Amazon and eBay is the amount of risk to the consumer. There is NONE with Amazon. There is zero chance that you will lose your money if you get scammed by someone into a bad product. Everything else that people complain about is a function of selection vs curation: the more selection Amazon adds the more likely there is to be low-quality junk. I'm sure if they aggressively curated stuff, we'd see HackerNews stories get 1000 upvotes with headlines like "Amazon won't list my startup's products!" and people will be screaming about how it's not Amazon's job to censor or to curate, they should just be the "Everything Store", and let intelligent consumers like us decide.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  No one is asking Amazon to curate. Just a simple filter option to only show stuff sourced by Amazon itself (which they removed years ago), that is NOT commingled with other random sellers’ junk, would be sufficient. In other words, do the job that a retailer should be doing. Of course, Amazon does not want to be a low profit margin retailer, which is fine, but then it also deserves to be called a more expensive Aliexpress.
- everforward 5y ago
  My impression as an outsider was that eBay is pretty close on that front if you pay with PayPal. From what I've heard, PayPal aggressively sides with the buyer, to the point where there are all kinds of scams you can run as a buyer. Also, the risk isn't zero. https://www.newsweek.com/man-buys-7000-camera-amazon-receives-two-empty-boxes-instead-1594970 https://www.newsweek.com/man-buys-7000-camera-amazon-receive... There are others, but that's the one that stuck in my head. > Everything else that people complain about is a function of selection vs curation: the more selection Amazon adds the more likely there is to be low-quality junk. I'm sure if they aggressively curated stuff, we'd see HackerNews stories get 1000 upvotes with headlines like "Amazon won't list my startup's products!" and people will be screaming about how it's not Amazon's job to censor or to curate, they should just be the "Everything Store", and let intelligent consumers like us decide. This is an over-simplification of the issue. I don't mind that Amazon sells crappy products; I buy some of the crappy products because I only need them to work once or for a week. What I do mind is their total lack of competence in stopping people from passing off shitty products as good ones. I don't even know where to start the complaints on that. Inventory comingling resulting in people getting fake products or even empty boxes. Recycling ASIN's resulting in a shitty product inheriting a good product's reviews, or even inheriting reviews from an entirely unrelated product. Allowing user reviews, and then doing such a poor job of policing them that they're actively unhelpful due to gaming them. They're basically digitized Walmart, except they allow people to use their brand to pretend their cheap crap isn't cheap crap. I'm at the point where I only buy from Amazon if I'm intending to buy cheap junk, because I don't feel like dealing with the hassle of figuring out which items are dropshipped at a 10x markup and which are legitimately worthwhile.
PaulKeeble 5y ago
I thought I understood how to interact with ebay and use reviews and history to avoid the scammers until I run across one in January. They know just how to avoid ebay issuing refunds and then even worse is that ebay didn't even keep the negative review. The reviews on ebay are fake, they are at least sanitized and the negative reviews removed because I saw it happen and I wasn't informed. Everyone gets scammed on ebay and its also true of Amazon, you will get sold fake products on there and the search is getting worse and worse very quickly.

bovermyer 5y ago

I dunno, I'm still able to find good deals on used books and games on eBay.

Wingman4l7 5y ago

The used folks definitely still exist, you just have to be judicious with your search filters, unfortunately.

JaimeThompson 5y ago

>with horrible service and almost no safety checks So e-bay was crypto before crypto.

kleer001 5y ago
technically cryptocurriencies have no service and no safety checks, and that's the selling point

RajT88 5y ago

You have to use the advanced search to find those folks now. When I am looking for good deals on used stuff, I focus on lots of items, sorted by most recently listed. Always buy-it-now.

na85 5y ago

>That's also why GPU scalpers love both ebay and Amazon Marketplace. Maybe in 2030 I'll be able to buy an RX 6800 XT for MSRP.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deanCommie 5y ago

The key difference between Amazon and eBay is the amount of risk to the consumer. There is NONE with Amazon. There is zero chance that you will lose your money if you get scammed by someone into a bad product. Everything else that people complain about is a function of selection vs curation: the more selection Amazon adds the more likely there is to be low-quality junk. I'm sure if they aggressively curated stuff, we'd see HackerNews stories get 1000 upvotes with headlines like "Amazon won't list my startup's products!" and people will be screaming about how it's not Amazon's job to censor or to curate, they should just be the "Everything Store", and let intelligent consumers like us decide.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
No one is asking Amazon to curate. Just a simple filter option to only show stuff sourced by Amazon itself (which they removed years ago), that is NOT commingled with other random sellers’ junk, would be sufficient. In other words, do the job that a retailer should be doing. Of course, Amazon does not want to be a low profit margin retailer, which is fine, but then it also deserves to be called a more expensive Aliexpress.
everforward 5y ago
My impression as an outsider was that eBay is pretty close on that front if you pay with PayPal. From what I've heard, PayPal aggressively sides with the buyer, to the point where there are all kinds of scams you can run as a buyer. Also, the risk isn't zero. https://www.newsweek.com/man-buys-7000-camera-amazon-receives-two-empty-boxes-instead-1594970 https://www.newsweek.com/man-buys-7000-camera-amazon-receive... There are others, but that's the one that stuck in my head. > Everything else that people complain about is a function of selection vs curation: the more selection Amazon adds the more likely there is to be low-quality junk. I'm sure if they aggressively curated stuff, we'd see HackerNews stories get 1000 upvotes with headlines like "Amazon won't list my startup's products!" and people will be screaming about how it's not Amazon's job to censor or to curate, they should just be the "Everything Store", and let intelligent consumers like us decide. This is an over-simplification of the issue. I don't mind that Amazon sells crappy products; I buy some of the crappy products because I only need them to work once or for a week. What I do mind is their total lack of competence in stopping people from passing off shitty products as good ones. I don't even know where to start the complaints on that. Inventory comingling resulting in people getting fake products or even empty boxes. Recycling ASIN's resulting in a shitty product inheriting a good product's reviews, or even inheriting reviews from an entirely unrelated product. Allowing user reviews, and then doing such a poor job of policing them that they're actively unhelpful due to gaming them. They're basically digitized Walmart, except they allow people to use their brand to pretend their cheap crap isn't cheap crap. I'm at the point where I only buy from Amazon if I'm intending to buy cheap junk, because I don't feel like dealing with the hassle of figuring out which items are dropshipped at a 10x markup and which are legitimately worthwhile.

PaulKeeble 5y ago

I thought I understood how to interact with ebay and use reviews and history to avoid the scammers until I run across one in January. They know just how to avoid ebay issuing refunds and then even worse is that ebay didn't even keep the negative review. The reviews on ebay are fake, they are at least sanitized and the negative reviews removed because I saw it happen and I wasn't informed. Everyone gets scammed on ebay and its also true of Amazon, you will get sold fake products on there and the search is getting worse and worse very quickly.