« Turning the Tide... | Main | IRC 306 »
Wednesday
May272009

The End Of The Last Dot Com Juggernaut

I used to love eBay. It used to be fantastic. I cleared out my garage of lots of crap selling things on eBay. I sold neon lights, used video games, used clothes, coffee machines...anything you can think of. Sometimes people didn't pay, but I never got discouraged. I didn't just sell things on eBay though; I also bought alot of things. I bought used cell phones, used video games, and even grab boxes. What's a grab box you ask?  You must not have lots of time on your hands.  A grab box is just a bunch of random crap someone puts in a box and sells on eBay; the items in the box aren't related to each other but the seller doesn't want to list each item separately. I'd buy the grab box, inventory its contents, and then sell the items separately to make a tiny (and I mean tiny) profit. I arbitraged eBay auctions.  Come to think of it, after fees, there's good a possibility I lost money.

That was a long time ago though. eBay was good then.  It was made up of people selling things they had laying around their homes; it was a huge garage sale and you could get decent goods at decent prices.  Certaintly, there were occasions where people didn't pay for items they purchased or refused to ship items they sold, but overall, the system worked and everyone really liked it.  Now, eBay is a pain in the ass to use.  Most items are incredibly overpriced and overbought!  What person in his right mind is willing to bid $25.32 for a $25 best buy gift card?  More than that, eBay is now dominated by powersellers.  It's no longer the world's largest garage sale but rather, the world's largest mall of crap.  If you've ever been to Istanbul, its like the grand bazaar but you don't get to actually see the goods.

 

I still like eBay when I need to buy a few things:  tickets to baseball and basketball games...electronic cords that I need to replace...used books.

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>