What Is It About E Bay Part 1
Back in the mid 1990's I started to buy on E Bay. I would buy and sometimes sell through a friends account until I got my own E Bay account. Back then it was a sellers market. You would bid and if you were the winning bidder you would exchange information. Back then you would e mail the seller to get their name and address while giving them your shipping information. Most sellers would only accept checks or money orders. If you sent a check they would hold the item you bought until the check cleared, which could be up to 2 weeks. If it was a Money Order they would ship soon after receiving same. You would have to put the E Bay item # on your check, on the envelope or any other paper you included. This took time and was a pain in the ass, as E Bay at that time didn't have the set up as they do now for tracking your transaction.
Feedback was the way bidders and sellers could tell if someone had a good or bad reputation. It was important to leave feedback for a seller or buyer. It was more important to the sellers as the buyers sent the money and if it cleared you would have good feedback. Sellers on the other hand had to have good feedback or buyers wouldn't buy from them. There are plenty horror stories about both sellers and buyers trying to cheat each other. Even today this goes on.
You have to remember this, if you bid on any item, you are entering into a contract to pay for whatever you bid on. No buyers remorse, no backing out for any reason, yet this still goes on. It costs the seller time and money when this happens.
E Bay today takes a good learning curve to be a good seller. You have to know what category to use, a good description of what you are selling, good photos and what day and time to have in appear on E Bay. It can be very time consuming selling on E Bay.
Sometimes I would have as many as 40 items up for auction and sometimes none. I am glad I don't have to do this 24/7. I enjoy putting things for sale on E Bay and I am also a buyer. I can spend a lot of time checking out what is selling and what is not.
E Bay has a lot to be desired in certain things, but it also can be a hell of a lot of fun. More later about E Bay in part 2 when I get some more time.
posted by Double Dogged @ 7:24 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
One problem with ebay is respect. Since sellers and buyers don't have to look each other in the eye, it's easy to burn someone without feeling guilty. People today don't bother to think how their actions might affect others, but even if they did they wouldn't care.
Also, I've found that buyers are far worse than sellers, generally. If you rip someone off as a seller enough times you can have the law on your tail. All that can happen as a buyer is your account may be suspended if you don't pay enough times. Buyers have absolutely nothing to lose by not dealing in good faith.
Of course, ebay does nothing at all to foster responsibility in buyers or sellers, and I think that's the greatest problem of all.
SC you got that right. Some of the things you brought up I will bring up in part 2.
E Bay doesn't give a rats ass about what goes on.
E Bay isn't all bad, but it does have its problems.
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