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I thought the point of eBay was to get rid of that middleman. Wouldn’t that be something eBay would have done at some point if they wanted to own a pawnshop? No
by dgellow 6mo ago
I thought the point of eBay was to get rid of that middleman. Wouldn’t that be something eBay would have done at some point if they wanted to own a pawnshop? Not saying that cannot work but that doesn’t sound like a genius idea
- metalliqaz 6mo agoYes, exactly. In fact there were some ebay "helper" companies that made a go of it in the early 2000's. They went out of business because it doesn't add enough value. USPS created Media Mail and flat rate boxes, and UPS stores are found in nearly every community. They handle the hard part (shipping) well enough. The only thing I can think of is Gamestop positioning to become a clearing house for fan swag or gaming items the way Woot is for Amazon overstock.
- happyopossum 6mo ago> USPS created Media Mail Umm, that’s been around since 1938, which is a few years before the era you’re talking about…
- Scoundreller 6mo agoAmazon probably wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for USPS subsidizing media mail
- coredog64 6mo agoThere's one of these near me in a shopping center with terminally low rents. I think the additional value add for these places is that a) they can help you price the item to move and b) they can wade through eBay support if things go wrong.
- coffeebeqn 6mo agoThat sounds like a very low value add. So you’ll have some teenagers clicking on the eBay portal for me like I’ve never used a computer before?
- TheGRS 6mo agoI think the value is in not having to mess with scammers and people who make eBay difficult to interact with (i.e. those who game the system).
- radlad 6mo agoI remember one of these shops all the way back in the late 2000s. At the time I was confused about whether it was operated by eBay or a third party. It did not last long.
- Barbing 6mo agoiSOLD It on eBay apparently still has listings out of Pasadena, California https://www.i-soldit.com/listings/ https://www.i-soldit.com/listings/
- Apocryphon 6mo agoMemorialized: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNsFEhHLlHA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNsFEhHLlHA
- iwontberude 6mo agoIt disgusts me how eBay sellers abuse the US Post Office by stealing supplies. It’s one way to guarantee I never buy from someone again.
- cj 6mo agoUSPS is the only storefront I can think of that allows you to walk in, grab an unlimited amount of boxes/supplies, and walk out with no questions asked. They will even deliver boxes to your front door, for free, by simply submitting a form online. It's so easy, I'm not at all surprised that it's occasionally abused.
- Scoundreller 6mo agoFedEx used to send anyone big boxes of free bubble mailers
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- Barbing 6mo agoThen have to waste time to politely educate the sellers… They wrap up the free priority mail flat rate boxes to obscure markings to send them with a cheaper service. So they know should they’re naughty but might not realize it’s reached the level of a crime, perhaps. Definitely didn’t realize they’d have customers who don’t like stealing from themselves (taxpayers)
- trollbridge 6mo agoIt’s a federal crime the the post office periodically investigates. You get offered to pay USPS’s estimate of the amount of postage you stole, or else face a criminal trial. FedEx and UPS will report priority Mail boxes to USPS as well.
- CamperBob2 6mo agoYes, exactly. In fact there were some ebay "helper" companies that made a go of it in the early 2000's. They went out of business because it doesn't add enough value It didn't add enough value back then, but IMHO it does now. Selling on eBay is a massive hassle these days for a variety of reasons, and much less profitable for onesy-twosy transactions than it used to be. If I could just drop off a bunch of stuff at my local GameStop and forget about it until the checks arrive in the mail... yeah, there's definitely a business model there.
- bombcar 6mo agoThey’re called consignment stores and some have an online component (which can involve eBay or other similar marketplaces).
- CamperBob2 6mo agoYes, consignment stores have existed for a long time, but they aren't generally functional interfaces to eBay. If you want your stuff to sit on a shelf for the next few years, a consignment store is OK, I suppose. When I sell something, I usually want the item gone ASAP in exchange for a modest amount of money.
- dawnerd 6mo agoThere’s a ton of eBay sellers doing consignment, usually for friends that just want to sell things but I’ve seen some much larger operations selling pallets worth of goods from stores not large enough to wholesale or liquidate.
- bombcar 6mo agoYep, watching the store/usernames of sellers can be instructive (many thrift stores, pawn shops, consignment stores, and others list things on eBay, especially for fixed price). One of the reasons to refund an order is “already sold in-person”.
- spaqin 6mo agoOver time, eBay has become the middleman - with international shipping centres, basically escrow service with buyer protection, and rather high fees for promotion and of course, the actual sale. No middleman is something like Craigslist or FB Marketplace.
- BizarroLand 6mo agoeBay has also started doing strongarm middleman things as well. If you list an item, it strongly "suggests" a price. Sounds innocuous, right? However, when every seller knows they would be stupid to list a product for less than the suggested price, that means that eBay is enacting a collusion process on their sellers to regulate prices for products sold on their platform. I don't think this is illegal in any way, but it is bad for the buyers as it decreases the chance that they will get lucky with a purchase and ensures that all purchasers on the platform spend as much as they can afford to spend. Next, as a seller, eBay presents you with an option to "promote" your product, for a fairly significant percentage of eBay's suggested sell price. (Last time I tried to sell something, they wanted $9.99 to promote an item expected to sell for ~$150, for instance). If you do not "promote" your item, then it is thrown to the bottom of the listing and may be filtered out when purchasers sort by "price low to high" as they often do. I chose not to promote my item as I was just getting rid of it, (brand new OEM toner for a printer that normally sells for $200) and it got almost no views and ended up selling for $40, of which ebay took $7.50 for their cut. I checked the other solds for the same product and mine was the lowest sold by almost $100 all seemingly because I didn't pay the racketeer price upfront. I didn't care about the money, I was just getting rid of it, and ebay punished me for not playing ball their way while also losing out on their profits just to make a point with me. If you don't eBay the ebay way you will suffer for it. Speaking of which, eBay has started changing the number of results based on your search filtering, preventing purchasers from finding the specific thing they are looking for in exchange for something that is often more expensive and not quite right. Try it yourself. Search for something very specific and then change your filters and see the number of available items increases and decreases based on how you search. I honestly would not be surprised if they were hiding the unpromoted less expensive more accurate item you are searching for from you in the expectation of inducing you to buy the more expensive item in the process. Why would eBay do this? They make more money. It's pure enshittification. They charge the sellers to promote. They set the prices. They charge an insane percentage, something like 15-20% of the final sell price to the sellers, and they have made the platform hostile to its original purpose of being a bazaar for ordinary people to sell their old stuff to people that might want them. Of course, they are still seller hostile, they protect fraudsters who buy expensive items and claim they are fakes or broken and return bricks, and they have strongarmed their customers into arbitration agreements in an attempt to prevent anyone from suing them to stop their anti-consumer practices.
- antasvara 6mo agoI think the difference is that GameStop already has this network of pawn shops, and those stores are doing enough business to justify their existence (at least somewhat; GameStop wasn't doing great before all the craziness). I could see something like the UPS kiosk in my local Walmart working; if you offered eBay returns at GameStop stores, you would be adding revenue without needing to justify an entire store to it like eBay would have needed to. There's also the synergy that GameStop now has access to more used gaming inventory, a category that I'm led to believe is high margin for the stores.
- turtlesdown11 6mo ago> GameStop already has this network of pawn shops, and those stores are doing enough business to justify their existence Gamestop closed 2,400 stores from 2020 to present, and operates just 2,200 stores currently. They'll continue to close stores as their revenue continues to shrink (down 60% in the last decade). >used gaming inventory physical used game inventory is a fraction of what it was a decade ago, and continues to shrink as a category, digital sales continue to climb and exclude Gamestop
- iinnPP 6mo agoIt's reasonable to predict that as physical media is phased out by the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, that the value of offline capable inventory will shift to an investment instead of a liability. Increasing their percent cut as a result.
- turtlesdown11 6mo agoTheir margin was highest on used physical media, which continues to plummet. Physical sales are down from $13b in 2015 to $1.5b in 2025, while total sales of physical + digital went from $23.5b in 2015 to $60b in 2025. Physical media is a tiny fraction of current game sales, even if their margin skyrockets, they're stuck in a tiny kid pool of potential sales.
- 6mo ago