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Technology Stocks : eBay - Superb Internet Business Model -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Antique who wrote (3400)	6/7/1999 1:13:00 PM
From: mrknowitall	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7772

Hi, Antique - the statement about the four re-listings being required to take action against a deadbeat comes from e-bay - I asked because I had some concerns that ebay is exposing itself to scams. They don't even track a deadbeat until their system sees four requests from sellers to relist items that the deadbeat user failed to pay for - in other words, when the sellers ask for credits and identify him or her. E-bay doesn't track feedback for determining what a deadbeat is and unless a listing credit is requested four times for the same person, nothing happens. Good or bad, what appears to happen is that sellers go to the next bidder on the list and often doesn't relist the item because they don't want to wait for another week. I don't think I can agree with you on your real auction analogy - in the real world, you do know when the auction is but you don't necessarily know when a particular item is going to be bid on, nor do you know how long it it will take to close that item. You're also already in the auction when you're bidding, not in your car - if you're in a traffic jam you don't even get to bid. That would be the equivalent of not being able to access the net - not something affected by the ebay forced close. The forced close is a fast-bidder (they call them snipers) boon but it certainly can't be considered positive for sellers and I see it as lost revenue (commissions) for e-bay. I'm not a seller on ebay, I've just watched it from an investor standpoint, so I'm not sure why a reserve would have any affect on last minute bidding. In fact, something tells me you're better off not bidding on a reserve item and waiting until it fails to sell, then contacting the seller directly to make a deal. I'm still curious how much "sideband" business takes place as a result of ebay but without any revenue going to ebay. Mr. K.