Finding on Ebay

A Short Introduction on eBay

eBay is an American internet company that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. In addition to its original U.S. website, eBay has established localized websites in several other countries. To expand their market, eBay launched its Business & Industrial category in 2005 to break into the industrial surplus business where rare and valuable items are sold. For their European markets, eBay also opened its new eBay Express site in 2006 which operates as a standard Internet shopping site for consumers with United States addresses (eBay Express). The highlight of this feature is that consumers can pick selected items mirrored in eBay and purchase them from multiple sellers using a shopping cart. The UK version was also launched (eBay Express UK) but differs from the US version by only offering brand new items from pre-vetted business sellers. Following that, the German version was launched later in the year (eBay Express Germany). eBay Inc also owns PayPal, Skype, and other businesses.

Below are the topics that will be covered:
1) Purposes
2) Key Characteristics
3) Designs
4) Potential
5) Strength
6) Weaknesses
Special highlights

Purposes:
eBay.com is an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy n sell goods and services.
More of a trading post between consumers.

Key Characteristics:
· Selling/buying of 1st and 2nd hand goods.

· Fees – How eBay operates and profit as a business. It charges an Insertion Fee to list the item that is on auction. If the item does not sell then user will be charged for the insertion fee. However, users can still re-list their item for a second time and if it sells then the second insertion fee is refunded. If it’s still not sold for the second time then eBay will be charging for listing two auctions. The minimum insertion fee is at $0.30 and a maximum insertion fee of $4.80. Then when the auction closes another fee is charged, which is called a Final Value Fee. This depends on the closing price of the auction. For example if the auction ends at less than $25 the fee is 5.25% of the closing price.

· Features on eBay, including some tutorials and the live help link, require extra plug-ins and downloads do help user to surf through the site effortlessly.

· Millions of collectibles, appliances, computers, furniture, equipments, vehicles and other various items are listed,

· eBay added an eBay Community Wiki and eBay Blogs to its Community Content for consumers to interact among each other through the use of Discussion boards, Groups, Answer Centre, Chat Rooms and Reviews & Guides.

· In mobile aspects, it has eBay Mobile that offer SMS alerts, a WAP site, and J2ME clients that are available in certain markets.

Designs:
The design of this site is generally simple. It does not have much fanciful designs. At the same time it uses simple yet cognitive and logical way of searching for a particular item.
The navigation allows users to access pervious sub-sections that they are in, so for example if the user is in the "Baby Locks" section and wants to go back to the previous two sections, "Baby" section, the user can just click on it and eBay automatically loads back to that page.
Home > Buy > Baby > Baby Safety & Health > Baby Locks

This also provides a good way to display which sections the users has been through and to go back if a wrong selection has been made.

There isn’t much to describe about the color theme of eBay only that it is quite traditional. However, it is very well categorize into sections or boxes and lessen confusion for users.

Potential:
· eBay uses PayPal system.

· Send funds to a seller using credit card, Bank Deposit, Bank Deposit Express, Bank Drafts, Cash On Delivery, Money Orders, Personal Cheques/ Bank Cheques

· eBay accepts a PayPal but there are many means to purchase items there. Besides, PayPal Buyer Protection helps you in the event that you do not receive your item or the item is significantly different from its description in the seller's listing, eligible transactions will receive coverage up to $200 at no additional cost

Strength:
· Searching – While looking for a particular item user can search the item in a search box give on the top. Alternatively, an item can be searched by the category that it is in.

· Consumer could at any point in time email the seller regarding the items that is being auctioned. There is an “ask seller a question” link on each auction where you can get in touch with the seller through eBay’s mail system.

· There is also a place where feedback is left on a buyer or seller when the transaction is complete. This is like an eBay member’s report card. Users can leave a comment for each transaction that they gone through and that comment must be labeled positive, negative or neutral. This will assist either the buyer or seller to gauge whether it is a mild or great risk doing business with the other party.

· There is a category for “Everything Else”

· eBay is very user-friendly. Online tutorials for both buyers and sellers are provided, although purchasing and bidding on the merchandise is really self-explanatory.

· eBay also has a function that allows you to compare between the items that users have interest in, which will aid the user in deciding which one is a better buy.

Weaknesses
· Bidding loophole – This is a review that was written by a faithful user of eBay and I find that it is a loophole although it helps bidders to get what they want without competing with other bidders.
“You can enter your highest bid and have eBay keep bidding on your behalf, but I usually just make a note of when the auction ends, and wait to place my bid til the last few seconds, this is called a snipe, this way you can come in and get your item without alerting the other bidder that there is competition, because the way the eBay system works, in order to drive up the price the seller has to pay them for the Final Value Assessment, they e-mail all other bidders the second you outbid them, so if you announce your presence by bidding right away, you could easily end up in a "trench war" with other bidders, and not getting a good deal.”

Whether this is true or not, I’ve not tried it but it’s worth a try for those of you who are into auctions.

· eBay biggest boon may also be its biggest bane. With so many vendors vying for their items to be sold, it is possible that some items might easily be overlooked. Items in some categories move very quickly, but others can be posted for weeks at a time and not receive a single bid. Like when buying and selling stocks, you should look for the most active ones.

Special highlights
· There won’t be shipping charges if it is delivered to host country