eBay to de-emphasize auctions, lose all distinctiveness

Honestly, I don't remember the last time I went on eBay looking for a bargain. Typically if I go on eBay it is to find a rare or hard-to-find item. That is where the site really shines.

But if they want to become simply a conduit between retailers and shoppers I think they will lose a lot of what made the site so special. The whole flea market feel of the site is what makes it stand out.

Its easier to just buy it now. If you think you're getting a bargain, it probably just means you're going to get snipped.

Ebay is about the 2nd place I look for new-ish stuff and 1st place to find stuff that is old.
In the last month I have saved a ton of moeny buying stuff from ebay than newegg.
Print server for $0.99, 2.5 250 GB for $50, 2 gb ram for my old server $20, etc.

Personally I like being able to bid on an item and have the option of a buy now.
Like wait 6 days and possibly get it for $20 or buy now for $40. I try to wait for the bid, but if I need something right now I will do a buy now.

I think used items are eBay shines. If you're looking for a new item you are not going to find it cheaper than anywhere else; and depending on the item's popularity could pay more.

Used items however have a lot more fluidity to their value and for that reason a bargain is more likely to be had.

For people like me, Buy It Now is a good thing. I can quickly see if there really is a bargin and not have to deal with crooked sellers who have people on staff that just bid up the price on the "bargins" until they aren't worth it. More than once I tried to buy a broken dvd player but mysteriously the items were autobid out of my price range and not just before the auction ended. When I looked at the bid histories they were all the same two or three people.

Ebay is losing customers because they can't be confident they are not being scammed from items to business practices.

eBay's de-emphasis of auctions makes about as much sense as having Google de-emphasizing search.

Usualy peoples buy it now price is pretty much on par with onine retailers prices plus blown up shipping. If I had a choice between ebay and amazon, id go amazon cause its easy to return if need be. Mostly I buy on ebay for the bargain. I hardly see buy it nows as a bargain.

Ebay shot themselves in the foot when it comes to an auction site. Like a real auction, a garage sale, or a clearance bin, shopper seek out deals. When they implemented the multi-category organization, spelling correction, automated descriptions, etc, they took the human component out of the site. This means that there are FAR FEWER deals resulting from spelling errors, miscategorizations, poor descriptions, etc. I used to surf Ebay with a dyslexic dictionary looking for deals. Those just don't exist any more... which has put a big dent in my Ebay shopping (I was a former power seller, btw). On top of that, Ebay really let the fraud get out of hand on their site. There was a time when 99% of auctions ended cleanly and items were real. Now, I would guess that big ticket items are about 30% fraud, and non-paying bidders are about 15% across the board (which is HUGE). In those situations, Ebay makes you jump through hoops to recoop your money from them (ie they profit from fraud on their site and therefore don't bother to fix it). This made it too expensive for me to continue making reasonable profit margins... and I was constantly waiting to get back large sums of money for fraud and non-paying items.

I could go on... the idiotically long and tedious listing process, the constant nickle-and-dime add-ons, etc. Frankly, whoever is running Ebay is probably also the president of a large bank since the policies seem to be the same... "Take the customers' money in any manner possible regardless of ethics or morality." Shame on Ebay for letting cumulitive bureaucratic management decisions ruin their site (and likely their future). Good thing they were smart enough to buy 25% of Craigslist... because it is the future of used/second hand items.

This post made me think about my recent use of eBay and the fact that I posted about Auction inquisitor (a scam detecting tool) a while back on my blog.

I bought 3 items in the past 2 weeks after not buying anything for a while. They were all bought with "But-it-now" and I cannot remember the last time I bid for anything in a proper auction.

I suppose it is because it is easy, quick, instant gratification and if you do a little research you can be confident in the product, the price and the seller. (ie You are not likely to get scammed)
So you can see why eBay me be heading in this direction if my buying habits are fairly typical for at least part of their "audience".

Barry Cleave
ProReviewer

I'm more concerned with Paypal than anything else. As a seller I prefer money order/personal cheque because it doesn't charge a fee and its it's a lot safer. Paypal has held money more times than i can count for no good reason and over charged fees which are nearly impossible to get back.

The new feedback policies are a disgrace. Buyers are encouraged to leave negative feedback! and Sellers cant defend themselves. I sell antiques and have a perfect rating so far. As an antique seller I need protection from irate Buyers, there are a lot of them around and taking the proactive stance of blocking ppl who have left negative feedback which is obviously retaliatory seems ridiculous.

They need competition - where is a good eBay alternative?

There isn't one, until somebody makes one any way. There are some open source auction scripts that could be customized into anything you want.