[HN Gopher] 'Wallets and eyeballs': how eBay turned the internet...
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'Wallets and eyeballs': how eBay turned the internet into a
marketplace
Author : yarapavan
Score : 22 points
Date : 2022-06-25 11:45 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| CommanderData wrote:
| In the UK at least the quality of product on Amazon has plummeted
| and listings seem akin to Aliexpress.
|
| I can't trust reviews, cases products have caused serve health
| issues and claims made by sellers can be wild with apparently
| little to no vetting from Amazon themselves.
|
| I don't use Amazon for any food supplements anymore and usually
| go to the highstreet (Holland and Barret), they've a much
| stricter standard to accept products into their stores.
|
| Lots of things are just rebrands offering little value except
| next day shipping at a much higher cost. Anything I don't need
| urgently gets purchased from eBay, usually a much lower price.
| wackget wrote:
| eBay can be good but some of its "features" are infuriating and
| ultimately drive me to buy stuff elsewhere.
|
| Multi-item listings is the worst thing they've ever done because
| they totally ruin search results.
|
| Let's say you're searching for something like a box of 200
| disposable gloves. You dutifully type in "200 gloves" or "100
| pairs gloves", filter by "Buy it Now" and sort "Price Low to
| High".
|
| Suddenly your search results are filled with dozens of pages of
| results all priced at $0.99. How could a box of 200 gloves be so
| cheap? Because it's not showing results for 200 gloves... it's
| showing you a multi-item listing which contains packs of gloves
| in several quantities. One option is indeed a pack of 200 gloves,
| but that's priced at $20. The $0.99 option is, in fact, a single
| pair of gloves, listed as a "Sample".
|
| You can't exclude multi-item listings from the search results, so
| this leaves things very much open to exploitation by unscrupulous
| sellers.
|
| This makes the search basically useless for anything which could
| be sold in multi-item listings. It makes eBay unusable for me
| whenever I'm buying anything except for unique, clearly-listed
| items.
|
| Another point of frustration is that you can't filter by shipping
| speed. Some listings boast a "Fast and Free" label which
| indicates that the item will be delivered within three days, but
| you can't actually filter on this in the search results. So if
| you need an item quickly, you just have to manually sift through
| all the results for items labelled "Fast and Free".
|
| If any developers from eBay happen to read this comment, I'm
| available for hire as your personal rage and frustration
| consultant.
| haunter wrote:
| I really like eBay, using it for more than 15 years I never had a
| problem.
|
| But I really wish it has some features that Aliexpress has.
|
| - Sort by order numbers aka how many times people bought the
| given item. This is immensely helpful on its own too but more
| sales have more reviews as well! So you can see more feedbacks.
|
| - Photo reviews. This is the killer feature to me on Aliexpress.
| Chinese online retail has a negative rep but I think I bought
| less fake stuff on Aliexpress than from Amazon actually. Or at
| least you know you are buying a fake which I don't mind in
| certain situations.
| analog31 wrote:
| eBay has been great for maintaining old bikes. My hunch is that
| if someone is offering a used item, it's because the item exists,
| they have access to it, and want to get rid of it ASAP. There's
| less temptation to counterfeit something that maybe only one
| other person in the world might want.
|
| I've also bought used industrial equipment on eBay, often for
| pennies on the dollar. Same deal.
|
| For stuff that isn't second hand, I don't know what would prompt
| a seller to choose between eBay and Amazon, but it probably comes
| down to subtle differences between their fee structures and other
| policies.
| walrus01 wrote:
| I sure hope people aren't going to the effort to counterfeit 10
| or 15 year old shimano, sram, avid and similar components. New
| stuff, sure, but ebay does seem to be great also for "new old
| stock" bike stuff.
| geoffeg wrote:
| I've been burned by eBay enough times at this point that I
| generally avoid using it unless I have no other choice. Is there
| a good alternative with fewer scams, better customer support and
| a better user experience?
| rektide wrote:
| I've done a ton of ebay purchasing across decades. Yeah, I've
| gotten the wrong product, I've gotten defective products, I've
| gotten misdescribed products. If I look at the product in a
| reasonable time, & find an issue, ebay has always made it
| right. Given how much value I get from ebay- how much wider the
| selection is & how reasonable the prices are for great used
| goods- I cant fathom your ask. Maybe you have some other
| priorities, but to me, it's easy to see who trustable, & when
| things arent right the seller usually fixes it quickly on their
| own, & ebay always steps in if not.
| etataetaet wrote:
| As of right now I honestly think eBay is better than amazon in
| many ways. Obviously getting anything used or rare is
| significantly easier but many other things are much cheaper [0].
| I also like that I can actually _see_ who I 'm buying from. On
| amazon Its difficult to tell if its amazon selling something or a
| private seller.
|
| Ebay also has good return policies. They almost always side with
| the buyer which makes it hard to create fake listings.
|
| [0] (First result on both platforms)
| https://www.amazon.com/Neiko-01407A-Electronic-Digital-Stain...
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/273909941047
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