Whats with ebay?!

spadoosh

On here you see soo many complaints and criticisms of ebay.

From sellers : overprotects buyers, buyers not paying, neg feedback.

from buyers: slow dispatch, not as described etc etc


So why is it still soo popular and why is there lack of a decent alternative?

My personal gripe with it is that some people are massively unrealistic with their prices... why would i buy a second hand drill for 79.98 when the exact same drill in b&q is £49.98?? not including p&p

Had a few instances of buying there but only one of selling, which was a gift card i recieved that i wished to sell on (being a student) buyer claims item not recieved me being a noob have no post office reciept, £20 down the drain.

Basically why do people still use ebay and is there anything better?!

soolin

I think it all depends on markets, for me ebay is a great way of turning over business stock as I can showcase my items to millions of users worldwide for a relatively low fee. For my personal items the same thing applies really, and having spent a hot and bothered Sunday at a car boot to walk away with very little, I appreciate the fact that I can sell while sitting comfortably in my study at home and get better prices in many instances.

If it stopped working for me then I would just give up, I had to basically do that with my book business on Amazon last November when the market just seemed to collapse overnight.

AS for alternatives th every fact you only talked about ebay is rather the answer you will get from most people. For books there is Amazon and you might also look at Play. For nick nacks or other items most of the big competition fell years ago, we did have other auction sites but most just gave up and referred all their users to ebay.

RFW

Probably the lack of alternative (there are plenty but none as good) is down to people being lazy, Ebay is there and there isn't an overwhelming need for an alternative for most people.

A lot of the 'problems' would still be transferred if another comparable site came along, where there are endless buyers and sellers there will always be someone with a complaint.

As for unrealistic prices, it's a similar thing, amateur sellers and even some pros will list items at too high a price, sometimes that is a perpetuating circle. If I list something I'll generally look to be the cheapest, other sellers will look to find a price, if they see a drill listed at £79 they too will list at £79, they won't check to see if the other seller ever sells any. There is also the possibility that some sellers have paid too much for something, plenty of people try and become retailers, buy stock 'wholesale' and end up paying more than the retail price.