ebait

Gumtree. Facebook sales pages.

But these are local. They don't have the same difficulties about people posting stuff off and not getting paid, or vice versa.

I've got piles of old stuff lying around that I want to sell. (Just got to get a tuit.) What's the best way of doing that?

That case is still ongoing, but I'm hopeful we'll sort it out amicably.

eBay is a textbook "natural monopoly": buyers want the widest choice of goods/services from the greatest number of sellers; sellers want the greatest number of potential bidders.

Consider eg if A wants to sell a used angle grinder. On eBay A can expect to get GBP 25 after net (after all fees and charges). Why would A list it on another site - even one with no fees at all - if A can expect to get only GBP 15 net there there are so few potential bidders?

That's why what might have been potential competitors mostly advertise stuff for fixed prices.

Because it would take *massive* amounts of start up capital to even register on the radar.

There are already alternatives to ebay; etsy, ebid etc. How often do you go to those for your first search?

Ebay's market capitalisation is $41 bn. A competitor could develop the software and infrastructure for say $100m. That would make it worth a competitor's while to spend say $20 bn to attract ebay's customers away. You could do an awful lot of attracting with just $1 bn.

In practice, a competitor would probably go for a different business model, so as not to compete head to head.

Amazon marketplace is my preferred option for buying stuff. A different business model, but highly successful.

Indeed, they would probably find it hard raising any money in the first place if the business model demanded taking on an entrenched player like that.

Yup, I find myself using them for a reasonable amount of stuff that previously would have been ebay.

...and being realisitc, its going to have to be a business with the scale of Amazon to make serious inroads to ebay's market share.

that's just luck though

mostly these sellers are in anonymous warehouses in places like Doncaster

fine if you live in Doncaster, but not much use for the rest of us

tim

Another one was getting some multitool blades advertised as OK for nails etc. The Bosch one had done about 8 nails then decided to quit. The new ones

- well! - one nail and done. Did the return bit via email and discoversd that the place was about a mile or so from the town centre, so got the OK to deliver by hand. Day after dropping off the package I had the money credited. It's the sort of place that I'd use again. Hole-in-the-wall on and industrial estate and stacked with every tool I'd ever want.

Thanks for that. I was just confused about the Amazon packaging and yes, it was branded parcel tape advertising Amazon Prime.