Why Yahoo was always be minor league

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Posted By: TBob

It really is a shame there is not a competitor to eBay which would make them more responsible and consumer friendly. I had hopes Yahoo would be that competitor but Yahoo is a joke. I bid on a couple of Ty Cobb cards from a seller with no feedback who just signed up. After assuring myself the cards appeared legit (with a little help from my friends, as Ringo used to say) I bid. As the auctions wound down to the final minutes, the seller cancelled the bids and closed the auction. If this happened on eBay, you would suspect someone made the seller an offer he couldn't refuse. But here, it was just a closing because, I guess, the price wasn't high enough. He then "blacklisted" everyone who bid in the 2 auctions from bidding on his stuff on Yahoo. How weird is that??? I emailed Yahoo to ask them about it and was informed that if the seller has problems with a buyer, the buyer can be "blacklisted." End of story. Huh? No one even bought these cards. Too strange. Plus on Yahoo you can not communicate with the seller during the auction to ask about return policies, if the card has any creases, what the backs look like (no scans of those), etc. A really poor way to do business.
The vintage card section on Yahoo is replete with frauds and fakes, but every now and then I have found a legit seller like bullmuse who makes it worth while because the rest are such squirrels and no one likes to use the Yahoo auctions.
Oh well, I guess I can continue to bitch about eBay but it is the only saloon in town...

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

I gave up on Yahoo about 2 yrs ago. Too many reprints and not enough opportunites for bargains. Too bad because I agree with Bob, Ebay needs a competitor to right there ship.

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Posted By: dano

I post some stuff on yahoo, mostly vintage original but do have a few reprint items on as well but are marked reprints. I am offended that Bullmuse is the only decent seller and everyone else's stuff are fakes.

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Posted By: TBob

that bullmuse is the only seller I've dealt with who is solid. I am sure that there are others, but our paths haven't crossed. As far as most of the sellers on yahoo being squirrels, yes they are. Dano I am sure you are in the minority as most seem to be pretty irreputable (word?), non-reprint scam artists.

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Posted By: BcD

from scott brockelman for $65.00 !

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Posted By: Hankron

As far as businesses like eBay go, it's the law of inetertia. People stick with what they are used to, and have to be given clear and significant incentive to leave. To beat a popular service like eBay, you have to be markedly better. Even being just as good won't hack it. Many new businesses fail because all they are trying to do is to imitate the big guys.

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Posted By: Hankron

A few years back there was some eBay wanna be, fiancanced by one a very large media company. Full page advertisments were placed all over the place, including Tuff Stuff and Beckett. I figured I'd give it a try and place an item or two in their auctions. I tried to register, and it said it would email me with my password or whatever, and I never received the information to participate in the auction. About a week later I tried again, and was still given no info. A month later, the same. If their intent was to lure me away from eBay to their site, they weren't doing a good job.

A few monthes later, the auction site was pulled by the big media company due to financial losses and lack of participation.

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Posted By: Hankron

To me, one of the positive stories about the failure of Yahoo! and amazon.com auctions, is the power of the public. It doesn't matter if you are amongst the largest companies in the world, the(then) darlings of Wall Street and magazine covers, if the public doesn't want to use your auction services, they don't.

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Posted By: Hankron

One last story.

Now, I'm not a marketing or business model genius (I'm being modest, as I really am), but several years ago, when amazon.com's stock was at whatever hundred and Jeff Bezos was on the cover of every other Time magazine, Sotheby's went into partnership with amazon to run their online auctions through amazon's online auctions. At the time, I thought, "I don't care what is the financial incentive, stock options or how many hundreds amazon.com's stock is it, amazon's auctions suck. Sotheby's should skip amazon.com and get into partnership with eBay."

Suffice to say, that Sotheby's auctions at amazon.com was dud, and a couple of years later they started a partner ship with, guess who, eBay.

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Posted By: deadballera

I sold on Yahoo for years...and sell a few things now and then.

More recently there was a seller "CARDSOFFAME" who sold a bunch of legit T206's. The seller had some positive feedback from previous sales.

The problem is that the seller has not shipped any of the cards to anyone. I bought 13 cards and Yahoo won't do anything since none of the cards sold for more than $25 each. I know that Dan (R337man) bought one too and has not rec'd his card.

I hate getting ripped off like this !!!!!!!!!!!! ARRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHH