The EBAY Stigma

You can not turn on a TV or radio today without hearing some comment or joke about ebay.com. But does the business world see ebay sellers as real businesses or as a bunch of Flea Market vendors?Certainly in the early days of ebay, sellers were considered the bums of business. Simply people selling used garage sale items and household junk to other people with some crazy auction addiction.

But today, a huge number of businesses are using ebay to feature their products new and used alike. Products that were once hard to find markets for are now being distributed worldwide using ebay as the showroom.

From car dealers to crafters, people are posting products on ebay to sell to the millions of ebay buyers.Now, with ebay acquiring Paypal.com, the largest online payment system it has taken them to a new level. Even in marketing our website system, many merchants operating in strip malls and office buildings are using Paypal and selling at least in part on ebay.

I have personal experiences with car dealers that sell more on ebay than directly off their lot. Of course ebay provides cover for bad products and opens the door for massive misrepresentation. A door that is hard to close when money is involved. With cars being big ticket items, its easy to stretch the truth and get a few bucks more than they are worth. But for the most part it has opened a market where more potential customers can locate unique and hard to get items.

I would like to say that selling at ebay makes you a Flea Market vendor. But having personally seen the people selling, I can not say anything bad about ebay being a mark on your business. We choose not to sell on ebay because we think it is a waste of time. But clearly the rest of the world does not.

We think that some people take ebay too seriously and ebay has become their God. Believing that ebay terms and conditions apply to Federal Law. Its is certainly annoying when someone cites the ebay rules as a legal precedent, and after you get done laughing you realize in their world ebay is the law.

I guess in any craze running out of control you get the extremists. But it seems like ebay got all of them at once. People that attend ebay conventions and conferences. People that live, breathe and eat ebay 24/7. People that wear ebay t-shirts to work and have ebay signs on their cars. ebay has a huge loyal following and they continue to build on that base.

It seems like in many cases, it is more about ebay than what they actually buy. The thrill of winning the bid, the rush of getting a great deal. Yet within all the hoopla, there is a serious buying market with billions of dollars to spend.

At one time you were labeled for selling on ebay. Now, people ask why you are not selling on ebay.