GSlusher

Blackberry’s 26 Advantages over iPhone

"Helps while driving,"

I sure hope not. I don't know where the author lives. If it's in New York, using a handheld cell phone while driving is a primary offense--that means that he can get a ticket for that, even if he has no other violations. It probably counts as a moving violation, raising your insurance premiums and putting your license at risk if you accumulate points.

eBay: Getting Something for Nothing

Re: "Free shipping means the buyer gets something for nothing.... or does it?"

Not if you build that into the price, which Amazon, Buy.com, and many other companies do. (Amazon offers free shipping on most orders over $25.) Have you tried to sell anything through Amazon Marketplace? It sets the shipping charge for you--a fixed rate per book, for example, regardless of the weight of the book. When I asked about that, the reply from Amazon was that I should include the total cost in my price.

eBay: Getting Something for Nothing

Another Perspective:

I use eBay as a buyer, though I will be selling some things soon. (I have sold a few things in the past.) So far, in 2008, I've bought over 420 items on eBay, some as much as $1,000 (lens a Canon SLR camera). More than half have been from "small" sellers and individuals. All told, I've bought over 1,500 items on eBay since 1999. My feedback rating is 100% positive.

From a BUYER'S perspective, the biggest problems I see are from sellers, not eBay. Most of the sellers I've dealt with have been quite good, but some were horrible and other sellers' behavior was so obvious and egregious that I wouldn't buy from them. Some problems verge on dishonesty, others may be the result of ignorance, greed, or just plain stupidity.

- Sellers who hype their descriptions, often violating eBays listing rules by including brand-names in titles and descriptions that are NOT what they're selling. (E.g., a photo filter might be by Sonia (Indian company), but the seller includes top brands like Hoya and Tiffen in the title.) For used items, the terms "mint" and <GAG!> "minty" are used for items with obvious wear and even missing pieces/parts.

- Sellers who use invisible tags/keywords by making the text white. I ran into one listing that had over 1,000 keywords this way. I reported it to eBay, but it was not removed.

- Sellers who charge exorbitant shipping fees--e.g., $15 to send a 2-oz item via first class mail in a cheap padded envelope (no insurance). They apparently do this to get around eBay's fees. Some set a small price like $0.99 for the item, then charge $9.99 for shipping.

- Sellers who don't ship for a week or longer, including one whose listings claim, "Fastest shipment on eBay!"--but who didn't ship my item for 9 business days.

- Sellers who sell things they don't have. One fairly large company, with its own website, listed some horse blankets on eBay. They took over a month to ship because the company didn't have them in stock. (In some states, I understand, that may be illegal.)

- Sellers who set unrealistic reserve or starting prices. Currently, there is a used book listed starting at $72, but which sells on Amazon new for $16. (And, no, it's not signed nor a rare first edition.) An artist listed a painting that didn't sell, so he/she RAISED the starting price, THREE times. It still hasn't sold, of course: sometimes, the Gods do set things right.

- Sellers who use stock photos they got from some website, rather than photos of the actual item they're selling, especially for used goods. Then, there are sellers whose photos are grossly out of focus and/or terribly exposed. (I found one dealer in antiques/collectibles whose photos were so bad that it was impossible to read the markings that the photos were supposed to show.)

- Sellers who appropriate not just bits and pieces, but entire pages from someone else's website as parts of their listings. Some sellers seem not to understand or, perhaps, not to care about copyright and trademark laws.

- Sellers who include looping scripts in their listings that cause browsers to hang up or seriously slow down.

- Sellers who use "checkout" services that add anywhere from 3 to 8 (yes, 8) additional steps for the buyer and end up at the PayPal site--and then open pop-under windows.

- Sellers who think that they have to use animated GIFs, grotesque borders, 72-point text in 17 colors, sounds that play with no way to cut them off (other than closing the page), huge photos (1000+ pixels wide), and "cutesy" stuff, like putting "L@@K!" in titles.

I won't complain about the listings from sellers in China that are difficult to understand because of poor translations, though the larger companies could hire someone who speaks/writes English well. However, many US sellers are almost as bad.

As I wrote, most of the sellers have been quite good, but I have to wonder how many who are complaining about poor sales have contributed mightily to that problem by their own actions.

FWIW, I use an auction-management program, Auction Hunter, which does pretty well in searches--it turns up listings by all levels/sorts of sellers, not just the power sellers.