eBay has a lot of different use cases. Although it was originally for selling your second hand junk, now I expect a lot of their sales come from new items.
In my country eBay doesn't exist (i.e. they don't have a localised site, you can sell on other country sites though). The main 'second hand junk' services are:
- a local version of Craisglist
- Facebook Groups (for hyper local listings, mainly for very cheap or free stuff, e.g. "I'm moving tomorrow, come get my half destroyed IKEA furniture")
- Vinted [0] - although it's intended for second hand clothes, a lot of people sell new items they bought in sales from other countries, so it's more like eBay in this retrospect
For new items Etsy (crafts and furniture) is quite popular.
For electronics Tindie (although it's custom / DIY, rather than 'random adapter that only 5 other people worldwide have bought this month'). Most of the time when I want some sort of electronics that I can't find elsewhere I will buy from eBay in another country (using a shipping service) or AliExpress (then wait 2 months).
In my experience eBay is still the best for p2p auctions, but for anything vaguely commercial it's pretty dire.
You can sometimes find some bargains of people reselling from alibaba or whatever (FPGA boards can be had for cheap on eBay). In the UK at least, the listings are so unprofessional I don't understand why people would shop - usually no contact details, THE DESCRIPTION IS IN CAPSLOCK, and those stereotype word-art and product on white background photos.
Yahoo Auctions tried, but they only won in Japan, and eventually shut down everywhere else. As eBay has shifted to buy it now, marketplace sites (amazon, walmart, newegg, aliexpress) compete to some degree.
I finally rage-closed my account after carefully listing a thing, monitoring the auction, being happy when it sold, and then having the buyer casually tell me that they didn’t need it after all.
I remember when clicking the ‘make a bid’ button actually meant something. Wasn’t there even a warning along the lines of ‘you are entering in to a contractual obligation’?
I sold an Apple IIgs that had a monitor in one of the photos to show it worked, but clearly explained that the monitor wasn't included in the first paragraph of the listing. Someone bid and then emailed me asking me to cancel their bid because they didn't realize it didn't include the monitor, having taken a closer look. THEN the next highest bidder won, and after winning they must have bothered to read the listing because they emailed and canceled theirs as well.
I'm not used to selling on eBay and was shocked that people are so careless. Apparently even for unusual vintage items they just glance at the photo and then bid.
People don't read or skip half of what they read or misapprehend it this is a people problem not a platform problem.
Next time edit the photo to include large red text over top of the monitor saying monitor not included or better leave it out. Plan ahead for stupid because it is here to stay.
It’s not a people problem. eBay used to make bidding or even Buy It Now a contractual obligation. If you bid/bought, and didn’t want it anymore it was too bad for you. You would be charged for it anyway or lose your account.
Yeah that's actually what I am planning on doing when I relist this. I was just amazed people would bid over $200 without reading anything. And I took great pains to write a clear description as well!
If it makes you feel better, ebay probably showed that listing to 10,000 people and the two people that just managed to fail to read because missed their coffee that morning were the first/highest bidders. Unlikely? Why? Of course they'd bid the most / the quickest: from their perspective you were offering a killer deal.
:)
There are platform specific stupidities, last I saw it their mobile interface almost hides the listing details... and on a lot of listings the details are worthless and not really worth looking at. But I think experiences like yours, which I've also had, are just the natural result of taking the most eager buyers out of a lot of candidates.
Why would you rage-anything? List it again or offer it to the second highest bidder. (If you really wanted you can probably successfully collect on the winning buyer but it may not be worth it.)
The rage-part might have been a slight exaggeration. But why would I use a platform that doesn’t work? The whole point of the damned place is to sell stuff, and recently – this wasn’t an isolated incident – I’ve found it to be markedly bad at doing that.
Me personally I can’t stand to give people money for a shitty service. eBay has become, in my opinion, a shitty service.
Using Craigslist to sell is like the Wild West. There’s no rules or enforcement, and many criminals use it. I’m not going to risk getting robbed trying to sell my iPhone.
Amazon has locked out private selling for most mainstream items unless you’re a business with a PO directly from the manufacturer. Also, their fees get higher the more your item competes with their own sales. Totally anticompetitive.
