Rob,
no, I have not used or checked into Amazon auctions so far. I browsed for books, though. That part of AMZN is excellent. But sorry, I can't say anything about their auctions area.
As to the outages, I really consider this a short-term blip. I mean if this particular item couldn't close when it was supposed to, it's not a real biggie, is it? You just sell/buy it 2 days later, plus apparently EBAY gave the affected sellers a credit. Good move IMO.
I don't think this outage stuff will long-term put off people to transact business on EBAY. If you go the local supermarket, but all the machines to weigh the vegetables and fruit are broken that day... Is this really a reason to never come back? Probably not, I'd say, especially if you think this store usually has the best selection potatoes anyway. You find a short-term workaround, but you'll check in later again, or not?
If anything the EBAY site break-downs tell me rather they were overwhelmed with user traffic, although I read somewhere (can't recall) that it was due to some software patch that didn't work, and not so much because of heavy traffic. I could be wrong on this one, though.
Anyway, EBAY is in it's infancy, as the whole 'Net still is. We are using it, but there are still many, many people not using it. So this will all mature, and EBAY with it. Again, the idea is great and they are profitable. Their site is enjoyable and easy to use. They are branching out internationally (U.K. and Germany already). If they execute well, this will be a great business in the future.
I'm long from $125 from a couple of weeks ago, but I'm not concerned at this point as to their future.
greetings,
Thomas |
