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Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

nytimes.com

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Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#101

Post by bproven »

DrScump wrote: post #28
cm2187 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with all of your points plus the UI is massively inconsistent, not just in term of format, but different pages will give you different message count or items sold count, or one page will tell you you received a message and the message page will show nothing, it looks like something quickly hacked together in php in the old days. And I am not even talking about consistency between browser and iOS UI in term of i…

...revealing everyone’s max bid limit, then cancelling the bid It's deliberate and common. This is why I, as most sellers, do only fixed-price listings anymore.

Yep - I had zero problems with fixed price on ebay with over a hundred listings. I sold my entire comic collection (over 2500 books) over the course of a year. The best compromise between auction and fixed price is setting fixed price with a "make an offer" option - then set the make offer option to reject all the low ballers automatically. :)

I avoid auction like the plague.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#102

Post by nimblegorilla »

pravda wrote: post #100
orbitingpluto wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the last two years, I've found that about 1 in 4 of my purchases from China will never arrive. Obtaining refunds is an easy process but frustrating. Many of the sellers will have rankings that make them seem trustworthy only to disappear completely. And we can also lay blame on the western hemisphere. Canada and USA postal systems bear the brunt of the costs of "free" delivery. They will give these packages low pr…

>about 1 in 4 of my purchases from China will never arrive. What country you in? For me (in USA), the non-arrival rate is well under 1%. >Canada and USA postal systems bear the brunt of the costs of "free" delivery. That makes no sense. You have either been infected by propaganda, or are a propagandist yourself.

The US postal system does bear much of the cost: https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2017/11/05/how-the-...

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#103

Post by pavs »

steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

I have never used eBay to buy anything. Though visited the site several times to look up random items. Regarding "Collections", I just visited their websites out of curiosity and looks like it's right on the front page and very prominent unless I am missing something.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#104

Post by e40 »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #70
steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

Interesting that the public perception of trust has degraded so much as a seller. I've been a member since 2003 and buy small bits and bobs on there most weeks and go through phases of occasionally selling things maybe a couple of times a year when I need space / money - most recently an old computer and some guitar pedals. I've only ever had a problem as a seller twice in all those years - one scammer insisting the…

My impression is that if you sell something of higher value, the scammers come out in droves. I tried to sell a DSLR through them, and the same scammer kept winning the auction and it took weeks to get out from under that bogus bid. I ended up selling on craigslist. Yeah, I had a few scammers, but they are easier to identify on CL, IMO.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#105

Post by kachurovskiy »

Happy to share my experience with ebay.de in Germany as a seller and buyer.

Started selling some old tech/appliances I don't need anymore on eBay: last month 4 items for 250 EUR total, before that a few more items for ~400 EUR total.

Items went for 50-70% of the original price, and then eBay took their commission which at times was quite steep at ~15% of the selling price. It was still worth it since for most items I couldn't find any takers locally on Kleinanzeigen (Craigslist analog).

eBay has annoying limits for new sellers so to sell my old Sony camera I had to wait a month after selling my old Canon DSLR. It's impossible to contact a human support for this issue. They raised my limits automatically recently though.

Don't remember any problems with my buyers or when I bought something. Some of it I shouldn't have bought at all but that's a different story :-D Looking forward to clearing more of those storage boxes.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#106

Post by dsfyu404ed »

oldcynic wrote: post #99
tim333 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's good and bad in the UI. Some of the features like being able to search for items in a set price range are very handy and don't seem to be available on other sites.

Most of their UI changes have been user hostile or added dark patterns. For instance where once you got local items and sellers by default, now it defaults to international and you have to change a setting to exclude overseas sellers. Almost everyone will want to shop nationally first. It's the same arrogant "knowing better" seen in Facebook's show recent posts constantly resetting. Picking out one feature that they…

> Almost everyone will want to shop nationally first. It's the same arrogant "knowing better" seen in Facebook's show recent posts constantly resetting.

A lot of people want to shop price first then see how much cost would increase by buying from someone already on the same continent.

Including shipping when sorting by price is the opposite of user-hostile and they've done this since forever, most online retailers don't do this.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#107

Post by [deleted] »

Jaruzel wrote: post #29
steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

This is anecdotal, because it's only my experience from being a long time eBay user (buying and selling). 1 Buying on ebay is nice and safe because eBay protects the buyer and will almost always rule in the buyers favour. 2. Selling on eBay is fraught with problems: The Seller is not protected from scams at all. It's easy for a buyer to buy something, and they can flag to eBay that their account was compromised. Beca…

[deleted]

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#108

Post by ianamartin »

DrScump wrote: post #25
steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

Their UI is so bad, they have to use a phony mockup app in their TV commercials. Watch the commercials where a woman sees a fashion item on the street and then buys it on eBay. Just try doing anything like that on the actual site. Their entire query mechanism has had severe breakages for years . You couldn't possibly construct a search that could isolate a particular shoe or handbag or whatever without traversing tho…

The fake ui for an ad seems like a pretty red herring. I’m not saying you’re wrong. That just seems like flimsy evidence. I mean, maybe they use a fake UI in the ad because it’s so good.

On a completely different note: the internet of commerce things has always felt like some sick mashup EvE Online and game of thrones. Not only is scamming and awful behavior allowed, it is encouraged by the way rules are enforced. The net is dark and full of terrors

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#109

Post by behringer »

setquk wrote: post #67
pjc50 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If there’s any risk of something packing up, sell it spares or repair. Doesn’t affect the final value. This is rather surprising, as I'd expect this to halve the prices of items.

I was too. If you list it as "spares/repair only because no returns on XYZ" then it doesn't affect final value. I use this when selling vintage equipment because while fit for purpose at the point of sale it could blow up a week down the line with a new issue (as any second hand goods) or the buyer could meddle with it neither of which is my problem.

That may be true in general but if I were to receive a broken item and it was listed as working but no returns, I'd file a claim anyway. Sometimes I do pass these up too if the item is available from another seller.

Re: Want to Understand What Ails the Modern Internet? Look at eBay

#110

Post by H1Supreme »

cm2187 wrote: post #27
steven2012 wrote: post #21

I use eBay frequently. I have only bought things, but I want to sell things, however I'm terrified of getting scammed. And eBay does nothing to ameliorate those fears. I got as close as taking pictures, writing a description, and stopped at the last step before putting my item for sale. Everything I've read suggests that it's simply not worth it to try to sell things because you have no protection from scammers. As a…

Agree with all of your points plus the UI is massively inconsistent, not just in term of format, but different pages will give you different message count or items sold count, or one page will tell you you received a message and the message page will show nothing, it looks like something quickly hacked together in php in the old days. And I am not even talking about consistency between browser and iOS UI in term of i…

> One fake account winning an auction I was selling then failing to pay

I feel like auctions should be auto-pay. Or, at least have an option to list them that way. This reminds me of the time I was selling football tickets and someone did this. I had to scramble to sell these things after the person bid and never paid.

Tickets are obviously worth nothing after the event. It was a major headache, and I almost didn't sell them at all.

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