This will be a short post, in point form. Because the subject of eBay is a damned boring one.
The history of eBay as per Mat:
- 2003 – eBay seems cool, amazing way of getting a bargain
- “Buy it now?” – surely that defeats the object of an auction?
- Hmm, teaming up with evil Paypal. Paypal evil because they pretend to be bank. Paypal not real bank. Paypal not registered with FSA. Paypal naughty people with bad reputation for freezing people’s accounts and denying them access to their own funds.
- Wait, I am required to offer Paypal? Two sets of fees. Kidding?!
- Wait, I am now required only to use Paypal? But – *voice wells up with tears* – they still aren’t even registered with the FSA …
… three years later …
- Hrmm, at least I can still use this thing as a buyer to consume disgustingly cheap electronic accessories from Korea or Japan
- What’s that you say? A replacement battery for my camera that lasted 4 times as long as my original Canon one, costing less than a tenth in price including delivery from Taiwan?! A USB cable car charger thingy for £0.26 plus £0.85 postage? All hail the global free market! (Gah, I hope nobody was … like … tortured or abused during its production. Right?)
- I find the security features of this site increasingly … draconian? Verify by SMS text message every time I log in? Automatically logged out after 10 seconds of inactivity? Purlease!
… final straw …
- Ok I really need to sell something. Start writing auction. Craft the wording. Wait, I haven’t checked the fees in 7 years. Let me check the fees.
- TEN PERCENT of final value? As in, TEN? 10%?
- PLUS AN INSERTION FEE?
- Plus other fees for screwing with my listing, allowing big photos, and making it purple and bold and shit?
It appears there are alternatives to the monolithic beast that is eBay. I shall be investigating those.
Maybe even one that allows me to interact in such a way with my customer so as to allow them to actually pay me with real money?
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