eBay Mess

[mintacular]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

Adam makes a good point, but I've been wondering: why does ebay want to get rid of the auction format? Why is a fixed price site to their advantage? Is it too costly to run the auction software?

It's easy for us to sit here and say ebay is really stupid to make the changes they have made, but the fact is a good deal of thought is put into these decisions. And it is done because the company believes it will make them more profitable. But why? That's what escapes me.

Just b/c this decision has been made doesn't mean eBay it works for the consumer or that their "research process" was conducted accurately. There are many companies (like Enron) that make poor decisions and pay for it--getting too big can contribute to MORE errors, not less.

There are two options of what happened here in my opinion:
1) Some wonk in corporate has no idea how collectors search/buy cards & proposed this reconfiguration to save $ on server space, etc.
2) This was a strategic & deliberate choice to kill off auctions/small sellers in their continued transition to fixed BINS/stores

I'm leaning towards option 2 at this point. The consequence of this change will immediately kill penny auctions which no doubt hurts the big seller who offers the same product in their stores, but at a higher price. Also notice the new seach options which allows you to easily search for specific sellers. To me, this option further confirms my suspicions regarding WHY this change was implemented.