A couple weeks ago, online auction powerhouse eBay announced plans to adjust their fee structures, effectively taking a larger cut off the top of any proceeds going to sellers. This has outraged eBay sellers, to an extent not seen since the last time eBay raised their prices, and also every time before that. A handful of sellers have even started circulating a petition to boycott eBay entirely, a petition made significantly more comical if you imagine its subtitle reading “And this time we mean it!”
Speaking as Cracked’s resident e-business expert/nonsense spouting asshat, here’s my opinion on where this is going to go: nowhere. Here’s why: it’s fucking eBay. Any seller who is fed up with eBay and vows to go sell their wares on another internet auction site will quickly come to a pretty critical realization: there are no other internet auction sites. Oh, I’m sure there’s technically other places out there that have both an auction format and discounted goods, but let’s be serious here. Buyers go to eBay because that’s where the sellers are, and vice versa. There’s simply no other game in town. It’s a little like trying to have anal sex, except without any “of that ass stuff.”
Obviously a seller that’s angry enough can go and start their own web site, and hope that their customer base is dedicated enough to follow. I guess if you’ve established a reputation as the internet’s premiere resource for Third Reich marital aids, then you might have a bit of luck with that. But for most sellers, walking away from the millions of buyers on eBay isn’t an option. If we choose to unnecessarily extend the above metaphor, it would be like walking away from a really big ass sex orgy, with your ass sex needs as yet unsated.
While the issue of eBay’s fee structure is a writhing, sweaty one, we mustn’t forget eBay’s other much maligned decision to remove the ability for sellers to leave negative feedback on buyers. This seems grossly unfair until you consider for a second the fact that the feedback rating for buyers is essentially meaningless. Any seller will be happy to sell to a buyer that has a feedback score of zero. It’s essentially a risk free transaction for the seller – they don’t ship the item until they’ve received payment. The only feedback that’s ever of use on eBay is seller feedback, which if we go back to our anal sex metaphor…
…
… actually, let’s just stop there.
___
Chris Bucholz is a writer and a robot. His personal blog, robotmantheblog.com contains a great deal of other humor articles, all of dubious quality and taste.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under eBay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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February 13th, 2008 at 7:21 pm
This is exactly why i do all my online bidding through propertyroom.com, a police auction website. Talk about package deals, i can get a purse, a hatchet and a statue of jesus for $20!
No expensive hats though, but you can get five sheriff’s hats for $1:
http://www.propertyroom.com/itemdetails.aspx?l=4372432
February 13th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Speaking as a nine year user of Ebay. (don’t laugh, the entire mint 1977-83 Stars War collection I bought as a teenage was sold on e-Bay six years ago to a collector in Denmark for US $27,000) This was a healthy down payment on my current home and allowed me to furnish it. No, not in early Hoth.
Okay.
Here goes. E-Bay raises their fee and Duhhhhhhh I raise the rpice of my product to the buyer and nobody says anything, cause if you don’t want to pay X amount for something — someone else will!
No problem, here, folks. Move along, and by the way that is an expensive hat, I’m wearing. Mark Hamil signed it.
February 13th, 2008 at 8:23 am
See, Mustafa? That’s how it’s done.
February 13th, 2008 at 5:40 am
And that, my friends, is an expensive hat.
February 13th, 2008 at 5:40 am
Oh Patsy, you and your naive ways.
God didn’t create the internet.
Neither did Al Gore. You know who created the internet?
Vikings.
February 13th, 2008 at 2:41 am
boycott ebay? not unless god recreates the internet! and feedback is important. get real. positive feedback sells.
February 13th, 2008 at 2:14 am
I heard about this fee and feedback thing. let me say that i used to sell a lot on ebay, i had a set design company that did work for mtv for years and sold the props-often signed memorabilia on ebay afterward.
you’re right.. it’s a monopoly. ebay can do what they want. there is no real competition.
however, you’re wrong about the feedback issue-as a seller i do, as many do, care about the reputation of the buyer. it’s not as simple as you said-we get paid -so what. if it’s not a verified paypal member-or a postal money order-the only kind that cannot be stopped-good as cash, the buyer can mess up your sale after you’ve shipped and paypal will take their money back out of your account-this happens when thieves phish and bid with some other persons account-i lost the goods and the payment was reversed. all i could do is file a police report in my jurisdiction-which equals nothing. and i also place in my account prefs, like many sellers, no zero or neg feedback bidders allowed without contacting me for approval first, you can even configure it so they CAN’T bid if they are zero feedback. nothing worse than 10 credible bids only for some loser to win with no feedback and then you don’t get paid. this is not a good idea. also, it shows how fast they pay as well.. bad idea to remove feedback. it should be fair to both sides. fine, jack up the fees, but we need history on the bidder-esp on big ticket items.
February 13th, 2008 at 1:06 am
Wow, way to RUIN EVERYTHING Rob.
February 13th, 2008 at 12:03 am
Why is “buyer” and “seller” feedback seperate?
Have user feed back that covers both, if your a douch buyer, then no one will buy from you.
Problem solved.
February 12th, 2008 at 11:28 pm
You should be ashamed of yourself. You missed a perfect opportunity to refer to yourself as an ‘(expensive) asshat’. A phrase which must be mentioned in at least every cracked blog post or post comment section WITHOUT FAIL. I suggest you amend this article immediately.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:57 pm
When in rome, is that an expensive hat? Itallians have many expensive headwear.
February 12th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Thanks for the inspiration kingmonkey. you’ll always be the king….of my heart
February 12th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Where as “weiner poopie” is appropriate at any time and in any circumstance.
Weiner poopie !
There you go. It’s as simple as that
February 12th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Mustafa… you just got to feel it in your soul. You can’t guess, you can’t just spout it at random. You have to know, deep down in your soul, when that is an expensive hat. When you know it, you’ll know what to do.
February 12th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
How dare you claim that feedback on buyers isn’t important! When I take precious time away from bloggurbating about Hannah Montanna to purchase an item on eBay, I damn well better get a compliment from the seller. So what if the item that I’m bidding on is a life-size cardboard cutout of H.M.? So what if I’m gonna… Actually, I think I’ve said enough to get my point across. So there.
February 12th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
I’m confused…in anal sex, would the person who is receiving be the “buyer” or the “seller”? By the way, kingmonkey…I’m trying to incorporate the phrase “That’s an expensive hat” into my speech, but I simply don’t know when to use it…when is it appropriate to use that phrase?
February 12th, 2008 at 10:44 am
Wait a sec… you mean anal sex REQUIRES ‘ass stuff’?? I’m fuct.
February 12th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Fuck ebay, I hate ebay. Ebay took my wife hostage two years ago last Christmas and has yet to release her.
Names of Third Reich marital aids, The buzz bomb,The blitzkreiger,The V2 and the ever popular Hindenburg, sizes run from Hermann Goering to Hitler Youth.
February 12th, 2008 at 8:39 am
This is like those circulated emails enticing peolpe not to buy gasoline on a certain day to protest the rising cost. It serves no purpose, and unless you want to radically alter the way you live, it’ll never happen anyway.
eBay has become such a monopoly, like Google, that you’re right, there’s really nowhere else to go. Effectively, there’s only one way to solve this problem: send in Rambo.
Now THAT would be an exepensive hat.