EBay Valet

by zengr • 12 years ago

108 85 12 years ago

ps4fanboy3• 12 years ago

ebay doing its hardest to be like amazon, while their actual auction experience is getting worse and worse.

They're doing that on purpose. I think a major turning point was discovering that "buy it now" auctions (i.e. normal, fixed-price sales) were massively more popular than auction auctions.

ps4fanboy3• 12 years ago

Thats because they failed to ever fix bid sniping, switching to dutch auctions would have been better for everyone.

Edit: Dutch auction is the wrong term and I cant track down the actual name. But essentially the auction gets extended by 10 minutes every time someone bids if the auction is going to end in less than 10 minutes.

ps4fanboy3• 12 years ago

Anecdote about eBay, I sold an iPad on the site about 3 years ago, it got bought "Buy it Now" 3 times in a row from fraudsters even after restricting countries and ratings ppl just refused to acutal pay for the goods.

However after one "Free" re-listing ebay demanded that I pay them, even though the item had not sold. So in effect ebay has created an economic model where they benefit from scammers and fraudsters.

I never sold anything on the site again.

machbio• 12 years ago

hardly any innovative things come out of ebay, nice to see something new... can other sellers become valet ? or is it the ebay itself serving as valet ?

zengr4• 12 years ago

"How do I become a valet? Valets are carefully screened for inclusion in the program. Requirements include, but are not limited to: (1) ability to list 100,000 listings each month, (2) storage capacity sufficient to hold and manage items received for at least 21 calendar days, (3) ability to list items across all eBay categories, (4) physical presence in all major metropolitan hubs in the U.S. and (5) demonstrated ability to reach Top Rated Seller status on eBay within 90 days of starting valet services. "

http://pages.ebay.com/sellforme/faq.html

kubiiii• 12 years ago

Local smaller valets would be something nice, since as a seller and buyer on ebay I enjoy the occasional local delivery of an item which spares the hassles, pollution and the costs of shipping. You can come accross assholes too but that's part of the charm.

stevewillows• 12 years ago

How do they expect people to post just over 4700 items per day?

vijayaggarwal2• 12 years ago

Will it not create conflict of interests? On one side, eBay should make their listing and selling processes as easy as possible for individuals, and on the other side keeping them somewhat difficult will promote Valet service.

jychang• 12 years ago

It would not be a conflict of interest if the Valet service does not generate more profit per sale after everything is factored in.

vijayaggarwal2• 12 years ago

I believe it is fair to assume that Valet service will be costlier for the user. So, if eBay makes the same profit on Valet as on direct selling, then eBay may not feel motivated to push through usability enhancements in direct selling, even though it is definitely beneficial for its users.

Of course, I am over-simplifying things, but I have been in a similar situation wherein the customers of our service started offering to pay us to help them use our service. Instead of accepting payments, we helped the users for free and took their problems as problems with the usability of our tool which we needed to fix. We believed that accepting paid service as a revenue channel would deviate us from making a good tool in the first place.

jakozaur• 12 years ago

Isn't amazon already doing something similar with "warehouse deals" and "fullified by Amazon?

aaronbrethorst• 12 years ago

Warehouse is all Amazon returns, AFAIK. But you can do used sales off of the main purchase page, and mail in your stuff to have it Fulfilled by Amazon. I've been looking into this quite a bit lately since I have about $7,000 of Canon gear to sell off.

I think I'll stick with Amazon. Ebay's 30% seems ridiculously steep.

zengr4• 12 years ago

For $7,000 of Canon gear, 30% is surely steep. I think you should just sell your stuff directly on ebay. They just charge 10%. I think ebay valet's customer base is people who have something around but don't know its value and just want to get rid of it.

eitally• 12 years ago

Do you happen to have either a 50mm 1.4 or 1.8, or a really wide zoom (10-32 or 16-35)? I might be interested.

awjr• 12 years ago

FBA is seller's stock distributed by Amazon with the same levels of commission. They just charge for storage and handling of the item at warehouse.

rahimnathwani• 12 years ago

Amazon has a trade-in store: http://www.amazon.com/Trade-In/b?node=2242532011

dsplatonov• 12 years ago

"If you send in something that valets can't sell, there's a return fee to have it sent back to you." Not very good for me if i send a big amount of items

aniketpant• 12 years ago

Interesting idea. Would love to see how it works out for them!

alaskamiller• 12 years ago

One of ebay's Cottage industry got absorbed into the mothership. I wonder if they made consideration for consolidating all the various auction listing businesses across the country.

anigbrowl• 12 years ago

You get 70% of the sale price if your things sell.

30% commission, and the valet's incentives are for a quick sale rather than the best price, if the behavior of existing bulk listers is anything to go by. These people are usually not especially knowledgeable about the items they sell and so have a poor grasp of pricing - often good for me as informed buyer, but a real pain in the ass for sellers.

roel_v• 12 years ago

The alternative is 'throw out not completely useless stuff because I can't be arsed to sell it'. It's win win the way I see it, I'd dump half a truck of stuff on their dock if they'd offer this in Europe.

josh64• 12 years ago

Almost the same here, except I keep it in a box in the shed. For example I have a Nexus 10 that I never use and I can't be arsed selling it but would happily sell it through eBay valet.

atwebb3• 12 years ago

Are there not currently businesses that do exactly this? You drop things off and they list them. I ran one for a while (albeit in the states).

sirdogealot• 12 years ago

I remember ebay consignment stores that existed locally years ago. They took on the order of 50-60% of the total sale price.

It was a horrible deal, and every single one I knew of is now closed for business.

isomorphic• 12 years ago

You can't set your own price, and you only get a two-week run. On the other hand, you don't have to deal with the cesspool that is being a seller on eBay.

I wonder how eBay will deal with the "yes, please iPad to vacant lot near warehouse Miami" folks, other than immediately transferring buyer's funds without the possibility for reversal. If they did that for ordinary sellers, I'd quite happily ship my iPad to the sketchy address and go on my merry way.

sinzone• 12 years ago

FOBO (YC2011) has a similar model and it takes only a 15% fee. http://www.fobo.net/

zengr4• 12 years ago

Unfortunately its only in SF and you can just list Electronics.

kidlogic2• 12 years ago

Gone! (Techstars company) has been testing in a few areas and is not specific: http://thegoneapp.com/

Affiliated as they are my friends and have a solid team

davedx• 12 years ago

Goes to show how seller-hostile EBay is if they need to provide a service like this.

Imagine if you needed to provide a "valet service" for your SaaS. Wouldn't that say something about your UX?

awendt• 12 years ago

This has nothing to do with UX. Yes, eBay has a terrible UX but some people have stuff to sell and no time on their hands.

Does Instamotor exist because of the terrible UX of car dealerships?

pessimizer• 12 years ago

some people have stuff to sell and no time on their hands.

The quality of ebay's UX is the main determinant of how much time you need to have on your hands to sell something on ebay.

Does Instamotor exist because of the terrible UX of car dealerships?

Yes.

kidlogic2• 12 years ago

the Gone! app does this for you, but it's even easier and you don't have to ship anything out (they'll supply and even pick up the boxes for you).

definitely worth a try, but eBay Valet is interesting: http://thegoneapp.com/

jefreier• 12 years ago

I wonder what the username(s) are for the Valets, is that public yet?

sjtrny2• 12 years ago

40 year old virgin did it first https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEHD6jHXt58

hellweaver666• 12 years ago

well... the "we sell your stuff on eBay" type shops have been around for ages. I don't think that movie invented them.

sjtrny2• 12 years ago

Oh really? I thought it was a unique idea. Thanks to you I would never have know others had also thought about and created such a business. You have thoroughly changed my perspective on the world.

mootothemax• 12 years ago

New or like-new designer shoes and handbags: Brands like Hugo Boss, Gucci, Nine West, Ralph Lauren

I wonder if eBay are potentially setting themselves up for a massive headache with this.

There is a quite staggering number of people who falsely believe that their counterfeit designer items are genuine.

pling3• 12 years ago

Rather more worrying, perhaps that eBay won't be able to tell the difference between a genuine and counterfeit item and end buyers will end up being screwed by the protection policies in place because "they obviously verified the item themselves". If you've ever fought a dispute with eBay, it's a battle that leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth.

However, I don't have a problem with eBay as a third party as the benefit of the larger market and capital gain versus the risk pays off[1], but when it comes to being the middleman as well, the buyer and the seller have a lot more to lose.

[1] There are always chancers, fraudsters and complete muppets (idiots).

beambot• 12 years ago

FWIW... this is exactly why we launched Lollipuff (YC W13): https://www.lollipuff.com/

eBay is notoriously plagued with fakes. For some designer brands, fakes can account for 75% (or more) of the items sold [1,2].

The key for Lollipuff: We have brand experts authenticate each and every item -- ie. real, human experts augmented with sophisticated software to make things scalable. We like to think of it as "eBay without the fakes", or if you prefer "Palantir for designer goods" (software-augmented humans).

[1] https://www.lollipuff.com/blog/41/ebays-counterfeit-epidemic...

[2] https://www.lollipuff.com/blog/123/ebays-counterfeit-epidemi...

001sky2• 12 years ago

Conceptually, how do you guys triage the fakes? The spectrum of quality seems so broad, in that they are convincing enough to be worn on the red carpet (and presumably picked by stylists) etc. Or are all those shots authentic pieces that were then used in fake listings?

briancpotter2• 12 years ago

I notice you don't offer support for watches. Are there any plans to expand to that? I operate a similar website (http://www.haberdashboard.com) where I just implemented a watch search, and it is ASTONISHING how difficult paring out the fakes is.

I'm impressed by how much engagement you've built over such a small number of items. Is there a reason you don't seem to have implemented typical search filters like size, price etc? It seems difficult to find anything if I'm just browsing, so I assume I'm missing something as to how people are using the site.

lifeformed• 12 years ago

Is there still a market for fake-but-good items? If you had a designer purse that was 99.99% indistinguishable from a real one, could you still sell it to people at a big discount, informing them that it's a fake? I wonder if there are people who would gladly knowingly buy a good-quality counterfeit one. You'd still get the social benefit of designer goods, since no one else will know.

bangbang• 12 years ago

I wonder if this will depress the market. Perhaps they will start all items at $1.

DigitalSea2• 12 years ago

This is not going to end well for eBay, I can see it now. Some fake items are surprisingly good, you'll be reading stories of people being ripped off because valets were told they were given designer brand items only for them to be discovered as fakes later on. Somewhat cool idea I will admit, but when you're dealing with e-commerce and allowing users to get other people to sell their items, it'll open up a rather complex wound.

easytiger• 12 years ago

Isn't this just a rebranding of something that already existed? This service has existed for a long time.

DigitalSea2• 12 years ago

eBay Valet is a new application. Easy there, tiger. Unless I'm misinformed, it is a new service leveraging eBay's existing auction/commerce platform.

amalag• 12 years ago

Not only that but they are simply doing it with pre-paid shipping boxes. People are just going to send them junk.

dendory• 12 years ago

I think the most likely outcome of this is valet items being given preferential treatment on eBay. Just wait until your items are a tiny spot at the bottom while the valet items take the main spots, and that 30% commission will be the least of your issues.

ekianjo• 12 years ago

Seems like the Appstore 30% fee model is becoming standard everywhere now. That's not a very positive thing...

Cthulhu_• 12 years ago

Depends. For lazy people it's an easy way to get rid of their stuff without the hassle of packaging, getting scammed, etc.

jzwinck• 12 years ago

If you think 30% is high, I would like to introduce to you Getty Images, the juggernaut of stock photography. They take 50% now.

4ndr3vv• 12 years ago

Compare ebay to 'real' auction houses; ebay has always had very low sales fees. 30% brings it much more in line with the bricks and moratar auction houses sales costs.

pling3• 12 years ago

You mean like auctions are now? eBay is just a storefront now.

I do pretty well (£600+ a month) out of just buying items in auctions which are rather well hidden then selling them via the storefront/buy it now process.

coob• 12 years ago

What kind of items are you trading?

azernik• 12 years ago

I've seen quite a few local businesses in the LA area that do this already; maybe eBay can do it better, but they won't get to eat the entire market by just showing up.

Thirsty• 12 years ago

Some of the valet-service users will become regulars sellers. Some people who would never use ebay might become users because of this.

uptown• 12 years ago

"Valets accept like-new items worth $40 or more"

So are they committing to getting you at least $40 on what you're selling?

resurge• 12 years ago

70% of that, no? So $28.

    You get 70% of the sale price if your things sell.

Waevian• 12 years ago

Like some people mentioned already, I mostly worried about the pricing of items. Looks like to me like they will poorly judge value of items.

Overall, this is not the worst idea eBay had so far, I would love to see how this plays out.

ghobs91• 12 years ago

30% commission on top of lower than market pricing in order to sell quickly. Sounds like a steep price to pay for some added convenience that should be part of the experience from the start.

On top of that, like others have said, it's not far fetched for eBay to give Valet listings higher priority in search results, due to their higher profit margins. Punishing users for wanting a streamlined experience, not cool.

I've been dealing with these pain points as both a buyer and seller for over 10 years, and I'm willing to bet I'm not alone here. I'm currently building a p2p marketplace app, and plan to enlist the features of startups like Shyp to make it an all around awesome experience. If anyone has input, feature requests, or would even like to join me, let me know, I'm all ears :)

EBay Valet

Related Stories