eBay bans other payment processors except Paypal

[anagrama]

Whoops, sorry. My bad.

[The Kron]

I'm a little surprised that people would be so enthusiastic to support Google if they launched an auction site.

I wouldn't see the situation differing from how ebay operate, Companies as large as these have huge expenses and will never be able to cater for a certain area of categories with any type of differential ability, Everything would be encompassed by a single set of rules and you'd have a customer service akin to ebay where the staff are expected to handle every category and police them by a single set of standards.

Why do people feel they need to always rely on an immediately large company or name?

For large companies its always about maximising profit, An auction site that try's to handle multiple types of product will always give the users a poorer state of service than something thats specialised and dedicated.

[Griking]

I'm a little surprised that people would be so enthusiastic to support Google if they launched an auction site.

I wouldn't see the situation differing from how ebay operate, Companies as large as these have huge expenses and will never be able to cater for a certain area of categories with any type of differential ability, Everything would be encompassed by a single set of rules and you'd have a customer service akin to ebay where the staff are expected to handle every category and police them by a single set of standards.

Why do people feel they need to always rely on an immediately large company or name?

For large companies its always about maximising profit, An auction site that try's to handle multiple types of product will always give the users a poorer state of service than something thats specialised and dedicated.

Just the fact that another company with name recognition that can offer a real threat to PayPal's monopoly exists would be a positive thing. Competition is always good for the consumer.

[The Kron]

I don't understand why people have such an over reliance on name recognition or blindly support large faceless companies, If something else is good but not an immediately established name does it not deserve a chance?

Whats good for the consumer is understanding that they themselves are the sole reason for an auction sites success and not limiting themselves to companies who can charge whatever they want will get them a better deal.

[ChronoTriggaFoo]

I don't understand why people have such an over reliance on name recognition or blindly support large faceless companies, If something else is good but not an immediately established name does it not deserve a chance?

Whats good for the consumer is understanding that they themselves are the sole reason for an auction sites success and not limiting themselves to companies who can charge whatever they want will get them a better deal.

Unfortunately, the mindset of most people that turn to eBay is "Profit NOW". People are not eager to be patient to wait for another online auction company to be successful. No other auction site could imagine to have the kind of traffic that eBay does to allow low starting prices. With Yahoo Auctions, most sellers are forced to begin their auctions with high bid prices because there is nowhere near the amount of traffic there that eBay has. This in turn leads to an ugly cycle, where people that turn to Yahoo Auctions are scared away by the higher starting prices.

Really hard task if you ask me. But I would definitely welcome a challenger to the monopoly that is eBay.

[Mangar]

Unfortunately, the mindset of most people that turn to eBay is "Profit NOW". People are not eager to be patient to wait for another online auction company to be successful.

Which is understandable. The average person couldn't care less about the politics involved. All they are looking to do is maximize profts, which is pretty much the idea of auctioning or selling an item in the first place. Ebay gives them that.

I'd also venture an opinion that Yahoo auctions failed because the site itself was clunky. I always felt that the auction aspect of Yahoo was poorly designed, and nowhere near as aesthetically pleasing as Ebay. They also didn't really advertise it, which is what any true Ebay competitor needs to do. If Google came out with an auction site, and used it's economic might to flood every form of media in a huge advertising blitz, offer low(or free rates for the launch) - Then Ebay may start to feel a dent. But unless that happens - I don't see how anyone at all could compete with Ebay. (Outside of the smaller niche auction sites, which allow items Ebay bans. IE: Playerauctions.com)

On another note: Is Videogameauctions.com actually doing fairly well? I don't know anybody who's really used it. I'm curious as the kind of traffic and profit(if any) they generate. Do many videogame buyers outside of forums like this even know about it?

[The Kron]

I've sold over 90 items now on videogameauctions.com, In some cases the final prices have been more than what the same items have gone for on ebay. None of my items have sold any items at prices I wasn't happy with. (Its free to use buy it now as well).

I seriously don't understand how people could have a hand up about supporting a fully working site that offers permanently free listings and infinately better customer service than ebay (especially as the site is ran by people who understand the videogame industry and every containing aspect), The site is ran as a dedicated service to benefit people and give that much needed option in the marketplace, If people don't give sites like this a chance then badly run (imho) sites like ebay will continue to take liberties and advantage of the consumers.

If peoples reservation is that it isn't ran by a huge conglomerate then people will never get a better option in the marketplace and it will continue to suffer from over bloated sites who dictate the market and not work to improve it.

I'd also venture an opinion that Yahoo auctions failed because the site itself was clunky.

Yahoo auctions failed because of the lack of maintenance and way the site was ran, Who honestly wants to look through a site where an amazingly high proportion of items were counterfit or just worthless spam. The people running the american side of Yahoo auctions didn't care that the site was flooded with absolute garbage.

[anagrama]

While I appreciate what VGA are doing, the reason why I still spend a lot more on eBay is nothing to do with one being owned by a conglomerate while the other is independent, but is simply the fact that eBay has a far wider selection of items and it's much easier to find bargains, since just about everyone on VGA knows what items are "worth" and are reluctant to let them go any cheaper. Also, a lot of these prices fail to take into account that eBay prices for most non-really rare stuff have been steadily falling over the last year or two and are much cheaper than they once were.
And, as I've said before, the lack of sellers fees just encourages people to list items with high starting prices and/or reserves rather than let the market decide what something is worth.

I do like the site and check it fairly regularly, but the simple fact is that there are very few auctions I feel inclined to bid on.