> Sellam Ismail wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 5 Jun 2001, Marvin wrote:
> >
> > > A new site has just opened up, http://www.sellyouritem.com. I've been
> > > thinking for a while that it would be a good idea to have an auction
> > > site for listmembers. This site currently has little traffic, and
> > > would make a GREAT semi-private :) site for listmembers to sell their
> >
> > Cool, but I'm just wondering why anyone in their right mind would attempt
> > to compete with eBay at this point?
>
> I fully agree!!!!! Going head to head against ebay is the height of
> stupidity at this point. However Ebay is continuing to do some pretty stupid
> things that are getting a number of sellers pretty pissed off. They are
> probably hoping to pick up enough business from that fallout to stay in
> business.
eBay is where Napster was right before the fall; everyone used Napster because
everyone used Napster. After Napster ran into problems and started filtering
people went elsewhere because Napster wasn't what they wanted.
eBay is changing. They've changed and grown in the past, but people were
either happy with the changes or they could live with the changes. But
now eBay is starting to restrict the users more and more, and people are
starting to ask around for alternatives.
One thing that's really upset me about eBay is they no longer allow people
to see other's email addresses. Just the other day I wanted to ask a
seller about their listing, but I couldn't because eBay had a problem with
the feature to send a message to the seller. Fortunately eBay warned me
that the feature wasn't working. I would not have been surprised had I
not received a warning and the user had not received my question.
The frequent downtimes are a pain, but the biggest pain is that almost
all the sellers use eBay because everyone uses eBay. Because of that,
if you are looking for some odd part and nobody you can ask has the
part, eBay is about your only option.
--
Eric Dittman
dittman_at_dittman.net
Received on Wed Jun 06 2001 - 00:42:40 BST