[LINK] Ebay vrs Bricks

Craig Sanders cas at taz.net.au
Mon Jan 24 21:55:35 AEDT 2011


On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 08:33:23PM +1100, Michael Skeggs mike at bystander.net wrote:
> On 24 January 2011 19:07, Craig Sanders <cas at taz.net.au> wrote:
> > and, IMO, the industry needs regulation to safeguard buyers'
> > interests.
>
> I don't think I agree. One of the major reasons ebay is so successful
> in the example Stephen cites is that is an avenue for mums and dads or
> small businesses to sell stuff at low mark up.
>
> Increase regulation and a lot of sellers wouldn't bother, driving up
> prices.

i was talking about the online retail *industry* (as in businesses and
companies), not "virtual garage sales" of people selling their old stuff
on ebay or cottage-industry level scroungers and virtual junk shops.

not much need and almost no point in trying to regulate those kinds of
sales.

actual businesses, though, need to be held accountable and they need to
be held to reasonably high standards of a) honest & accuracy in their
advertising (model numbers, specs, stock levels, etc), b) delivery
standards (if the customer asks for and pays for Aust Post, then that's
what they get, not some courier co. who only delivers during BH and has
their depot in the middle of nowhere), and c) problem resolution (all
businesses will have occasional problems - it's how frequent they are
and how they are handled which matters. caveat emptor is meant to be a
warning, not an excuse).


> Ebay has a (somewhat flawed for sellers) feedback mechanism, plus

one major improvement that ebay could make is to require sellers to give
feedback as soon as they receive the money. probably the only way to
enforce this is to invalidate any *positive* feedback received by the
seller if they haven't yet given feedback to the buyer. i suspect that
a fair amount of the positive feedback some sellers get is from buyers
trying to either suck up to or not antagonise the seller who (still) has
BOTH their money and their goods or who is simply withholding feedback
until they get a positive.

and it seems quite common for sellers to punish buyers by giving
negative feedback in response to neutral or negative feedback rather
than in response to how well the buyer lived up to their side of the
bargain (i.e. how fast they paid).


> standard protections if you pay by credit card, so I would suggest
> buyers are already quite well protected.

ebay's buyer protection sounds nice in theory, but it's pretty useless
in practice. all the seller has to do is disagree with what the buyer
says and ebay will believe them, take their side, and consider the
matter closed. since it's not worth the expense or stress of suing
anyone for small amounts (i.e. anything under about $5-$10K), you lose.

in my experience, ebay's "buyer protection" goes like this:

variation 1:

me to ebay: "i didn't get the thing i ordered and paid for (proof provided)"
ebay to seller: "customer says you didn't send the goods"
seller to ebay: "yes i did (no proof provided)"
ebay to me: "seller disputes your claim.  end of story.  no further correspondence will be entered into. tough luck".

variation 2:

me to ebay: "goods received were faulty/not what i ordered.  contacted seller, he said to send back for refund.  sent back (proof provided incl. aust post receipt). seller refuses to refund."
ebay to seller: "customer says you didn't send refund"
seller to ebay: "i didn't receive the returned goods (no proof provided)"
ebay to me: "seller disputes your claim.  end of story.  no further correspondence will be entered into. tough luck".


so, now i treat ebay as akin to gambling. i only order stuff that is low
dollar value, so i can afford to just write-off the purchase if i
don't get it.

BTW, don't misunderstand me - most ebay sellers i've dealt with are
great: honest, reliable, fast to send what you order. i've had far more
positive, no-hassle experiences with ebay purchases than problems.

but some ebay sellers are slack, some are incompetent and/or stupid,
and some are the scum of the earth. and, again, it's how problems are
handled (by ebay AND by the seller) that really matters.


> Ebay has a number of problems, but I don't think inadequate regard for
> buyer's interests is one of them.

i do.

believing that ebay cares about buyers' interests is like believing that
real estate agents care about buyers' interests (or worse, tenants'
interests). they're the SELLER'S agents, not the buyer's (and if they
act against their sellers' interests, then they're probably breaking the
law in some way).

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>



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