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Posted By: davidcycleback

I had read that eBay used to be the envy of online sellers, as it never physically had or handled the merchandise. They made their money on stuff they never touched-- what a sweet deal! Other sellers, like amazon.com and Barnes and Noble, had the cumbersome and costly task of owning and handling the merchandise. Today, the situation has switched. As amazon owns and ships most of the merchandise, they have control over shipping time, authenticity, packaging, etc-- and their quality control is excellent. eBay on the other hand has had problems with these things and is at the mercy of the eBay sellers. Thus, eBay is trying to take more control over shipping, authenticity, etc by clamping down on the sellers. As amazon has increased its inventory-- food to vitamins to CDs to microscopes to clothes-- many every day customers prefer to go there for their needs. So much of ebay's back breaking competition hasn't come from auction houses, as many envisioned, but from online sellers who physically handle and control the merchandise.

eBay takes much of the responsibility for its quality control issues-- selling of fakes, shipping gouging, etc. As many of us noted through the years, they seemed to be in the business of allowing many known crooks on eBay. Crooks and shills and scams appeared to be good for their bottom line-- authentic or fake, eBay took the same percentage of the sale. For example, many collectors complained bitterly over the years to eBay about the sellers of the notorious 'cutout' cards. eBay not only allowed the complained about seller to continue to sell the cutouts, but assigned Power Seller status and even opened up a category for these cutout pieces of crap. eBay seemed to be catering to these particular sellers, not caring that the customers were being deceived out of money and gouged for shipping in the process, nor that many knowledgeable hobbyists regularly complained to eBay that eBay's customers were being scammed. Should it be a shocker that years later eBay discovers it has quality control issues with many of its customers, rather former customers? It's a safe guess that at least a few of these former customers were naive winners of the paper cutout 'cards' who later learned what they had really purchased.