Online Living, Technology

eBay: more and more useless everday!

Back in the day, eBay was awesome.  Remember when you got super-good deals, from average Joes selling stuff out of their home?  I do…I bought an awful lot of electronics off of eBay, and sold quite a bit too.  Even back in 2003, though, I saw troubling signs, signaling the direction eBay was going.
I was selling an old laptop, with the intention of purchasing a new one.  Some guy offers me an extra $200 over my reserve if I end the bidding early.  Being quite naive about online scams, at the time, I said, “Sure!” and did just that.  I exchange the emails at work, and his final email instructs me, quite urgently, to ship it that very day.  I saw the money in Paypal, so I was planning on doing just that.  Thankfully, I had to stay at work a bit late that day, and didn’t get to the post office in time.  When I got home, I saw an email from Paypal, stating that the funds were fraudulent, and to not send the item.
I never heard from the guy again, obviously, but that was only the beginning of my troubles.  A near scam later on a purchase (took 2 weeks for the person to send it), and many many buyers who didn’t read the full listing concerning condition of a used item, and I was quite frustrated.
It’s been well over a year since I’ve used ebay, but when we found ourselves with a good deal of new-looking clothes that our daughter had outgrown, we decided to list them, and see what we could get.
We used to make this a regular habit, with most things selling, just a couple of years ago . . . but when I looked at the listings in the little girls categories, it’s mostly junk, mostly with no bids, and mostly sold by junkshop businesses with tons of other junk auction listings.
With eBay’s recent changes, (including allowing major businesses to list with no fee) it really isn’t the big neighborhood market it once was, and is either too pricey, or too scarey to deal with in any meaningful way.  We sold the books and DVD’s on, and are giving away the clothes.  Why pay fees when there’s little chance that anyone is even looking anymore? (Especially when other people don’t pay those fees to begin with.)
I declare eBay a has-been website…you heard it here first.  It’s already turned into that old shopping mall in town…the one with dollar stores, and cheap knockoffs, that’s really gone downhill since the newer and larger mall opened. . .  Only in this case, the newer mall is the increasingly competitive online retail market, which is more attractive now, than ever, considering eBay’s higher prices and fees.