Over the years, eBay Inc. has slowly evolved from a sometimes-clunky auction site where people bid on real and junk collectibles, to an online retailer that seems to be positioning itself as a rival to Amazon.com Inc.
There were all sorts of issues with the bidding system since the so-called auctions were timed out and the person with the last millisecond bid would win. This is not how real auctions work. This flaw created limitations within the structure.
Old (L) and new: eBay updates its logo.
The giveaway that eBay EBAY +2.24% was not really much of an auction house appeared to me when the company bought a genuine auction company in 1999, Butterfield & Butterfield, and couldn’t go to the next level and compete with Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Instead, they appeared unable to manage or understand the actual auction business. They sold the business a few years later.
The company began to experiment more and more with a mechanism called “Buy It Now” which I first began to see about six years ago. Now it is estimated that over 75% of all sales on eBay are Buy it Now transactions.
It began as a quick way to jump the auction and get the item right off. It evolved into a retail price for items that were not really on auction and sold instead by small-time vendors.
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These are generally vendors with close contacts in China. Most of the Buy it Now items that I purchased from eBay are shipped directly from China to my doorstep. There is no warehousing of these items in the U.S. whatsoever.
Many of these items come via FedEx, which somewhere along the way has done a sweetheart deal with most of the large operations in China for low shipping rates that make this direct from China mechanism work.
This has all been good news for eBay, which recently cleaned up its logo to reflect the new streamlined business model of Buy it Now.
The question remains as to how far can eBay go as a conduit for Chinese goods and small American stores? I like what’s it is doing and people are talking more and more about buying from eBay as an alternative to Amazon
AMZN +0.40% .
Both Amazon and eBay have become inclusive bazaars for almost everything you’d want to buy. You can buy ham radio gear, inkjet supplies, books, and memorabilia as well as art and computer gear. Tripods? They’ve got them in droves.
Because both Amazon and eBay appear to be turning into conduits for every vendor imaginable, there is no telling where this is headed. But I can personally say that I still prefer the Amazon experience.
Amazon will indeed act as a vendor itself with large warehouses loaded with items for fast delivery. Its hugely successful Prime “club” makes most items available for free two-day shipping.
And the Prime membership also gives users free video downloads and other benefits that create exceptional customer loyalty. Amazon is my first go-to site for buying miscellaneous items of all sorts.
I cannot see this changing anytime soon. To me, eBay is the place for the most obscure of items, this has always been its specialty. And, to be honest, I never feel very comfortable buying through eBay.
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