phenomenal ebay phenomenon

Why would I say that? You may wonder.

Well, for starters, it changed our way of living, that's right, not just buying and selling, but living in general. It is the one and only market place where you can source your entire shopping lists from, while sitting in your very room without stepping outside the house.

Another amazing factor about eBay is the opportunity it creates for individuals worldwide. I would say it certainly helped government to lower their unemployed rate substantially, not just a government, but for all countries that runs an eBay site in their own language.

EBay has broadened existing market significantly, it has also paved way for a whole new section, to commodities creativity. That's right, you can sell things as creative as one's imagination can be, as long as it stays within the legal boundary. Thousands of people started to sell Welsh water, Scottish soil, new york trash, bags of air, longest chip, virginity, even surprises!

Of course there is a dark side to every story. As well as providing a convenient global market place, it also attracted huge amount of attention from con man, fraudster and other "clever" criminals. Thanks to them, eBay no longer exists simply as a market place, it evolved to an online community, it started to provide policing powers, became financial regulators, market monitor, stats generator, info database.

First eBay posed as an "incredible" threat to local business and high street retailers, of course they would think that way, they have been conducting business in the same way for so long, and became slow in reaction and adaptability. Their concerns were real, pricing all of sudden become the most sensitive part of their business, ultimately that squeezed everyone's profit margin by a great deal. Slowly but surely, they began to change and evolve around eBay phenomenon, and start to use their brain to explore new ways to turn the situation into their advantage.

There is an old Chinese proverb "when wind starts to blow, some will start building shelters, while some will start building windmills", it cannot be more precious in describing the effect of eBay. Can't beat it? Join it!

What has eBay changed in us consumers? There is good and bad. The good things are lower price, better options, easier shopping channel, and we no longer chuck things we don't use anymore, we turn them into chunks of cash while give others bargains of their life time! The bad sides are become victimised, not every eBayer has pleasant experience dealing online, poor customer service if at all, hassle in return and refund, and the worst of all, it made us lazy, real lazy.

I have not once but many times found same products cheaper elsewhere, either from the shops or other online retailers, yet everyone seems to be buying from eBay, it's gradually replacing the words such as "shopping", "shop", "shopper".

To prove my theory, I have sold a number of items on eBay, which you can either get it cheaper from local shops, supermarkets, or simply google it, you'll find cheaper alternative.

I'm not in anyway complaining, just a little sorry for those lazy buggers.