eBay has been around now for 10 years (that has gone quick) but in all that time have we had any decent competition for this auction site that seems to have worldwide dominance now?
I don’t think we have, more to the point I think it’s a really bad thing that we don’t have any competition for eBay as any industry that has one company as a monopoly can end up doing ( and charging) exactly what they want, this can only be bad for everyone apart from eBay’s deep pockets.
So how can anyone compete with eBay? Well from now on it is going to be very hard as they have grown so big over the last 10 years. I think everyone has left it too late to try and tackle eBay as even large high street organisations have started to use eBay instead of trying to compete with it. I use eBay at lot personally and my company also does a lot of work for people that wish to use eBay as a selling platform for their business. I work for an IT Support company that provides e-commerce websites for clients in London and it is amazing how many of them want modules and add-ons to make the most of eBay, in fact most of them are more concerned about the look of their eBay store as opposed to the look of their shiny new website. It’s amazing how it has changed things over the last 10 years.
But I think eBay takes advantage of how big it is. For example, how the hell can a company with over 15000 members of staff worldwide manage to have such shocking customer service? Their service is truly dreadful and I have never heard anyone have a good word to say about them when it comes to sorting out disputes or problems with buyer/sellers. In short, once they have their money they don’t give a damn about you or your problem. Once I had an issue with eBay and I emailed them to explain the problem, the response I received May as well have been automated because they completely ignored anything I said to them, they also manage to break their own terms and conditions sometimes and this is truly unforgivable for a company so big. I also think there is something morally wrong with eBay owning the company that takes all the online payments from everyone, interestingly enough PayPal’s customer service is rubbish aswell.
Will we ever see a rival to eBay? I think things cannot carry on how they are that’s for sure, and if they do people will ultimately get fed up with eBay should they carry on how they have been for the last 5 years at least. Maybe they take the attitude that for every upset customer there are 50 happy ones so anyone with an issue is irrelevant to them.
I hope someone with investment can have a go at rivalling eBay, maybe then there will be a more level playing field and good customer service will prevail.
Resources;
IT Support Company that we use for advice on how to create custom HTML templates for Ebay shops. It is getting so popular now that we are considering getting someone in-house full time to create templates.
