Comment by magduf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by magduf | Hacker News Reader

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This is bad news IMO. I get a lot of great deals on things on Ebay that I wouldn't find on Amazon, or that would require me to be a Prime member to not get socked with a high shipping charge without buying a bunch of other stuff, or would require me to wait a long time to get it because I'm not a Prime member.

I get all my cellphones on Ebay, for instance: I get high-end models when they're about 2 years old, from high-volume sellers who specialize in refurbished/used cellphones. People are always jealous of my nice phones, thinking I spent $800+ when I usually only spend $100-150.

Many times, if I want something that's only $10 or $20, Ebay is the way to go because I don't have to wait long to get it, and don't have to get $50 worth of stuff to get the "free" shipping, so Ebay ends up being a better deal.

Also, avoiding Chinese sellers is easy on Ebay: just click the box that says "North American sellers only" (or "US sellers only") and you don't have to worry about stuff being shipped from far away and taking a month. Amazon doesn't make it quite so obvious, nor do they allow you to actually exclude such sellers with a search.

Of course, Ebay lets you buy stuff (usually used, or perhaps secondhand but never-used) from non-commercial/individual sellers. Amazon has removed the ability for individuals to resell their stuff unless you sign up for a special seller's account for $35/year.

> just click the box that says "North American sellers only"

That doesn't necessarily block Chinese sellers. There is one seller named X-Channel that is based out of China. They sell used phones as new, they lie on many of their listings about the devices the sell -- they have a terrible reputation that is well-earned. They have at least 3 different seller accounts on Ebay doing the same scam: two of them, 'x-channel' and 'lotus-online' I can recall of the top of my head.

They must have an address in NYC they use for Ebay's billing purposes or where they distribute the imports, but the items they sell are the shadiest crap from China that you'd want to avoid by ticking Ebay's 'north america only' box.

Anyway, my point is that the 'North American-only' box can be gamed, and is not a surefire way to avoid the Chinese scam sellers.

You basically gave the reason for its decline. Somewhere along the way it changed from being a place for people to sell their second-hand stuff to a storefront for cheap Chinese goods. For most people it is too hard to sort through the mess and find actual good deals.

That description sounds much like Amazon, except you have to change the "for people to sell their second-hand stuff" to "for merchants to sell their genuine products", and modify "cheap Chinese goods" to "cheap Chinese goods and counterfeits".

> This is bad news IMO. I get a lot of great deals on things on Ebay

I wouldn't worry. This is nothing close to existential. Large companies like this use a downturn or bad quarter as an excuse to cull weak performers or just stop the unchecked needless growth that successful companies tend to have when no one's paying attention.

  ...or just stop the unchecked needless growth that
  successful companies tend to have when no one's paying
  attention

Could you expand on this portion? What is 'unchecked needless growth'?

A company with the means to do so will grow, as much out of principle or reflex as necessity. Middle managers hire as many as they can justify. The people at the top watching the bottom line are many levels removed from the $200/hr contractor doing trivial or unimportant work so they don't know to fix it. The middle manager/director has more to gain by increasing their head count than by being efficient.

And while hiring is easy, firing and laying off is hard. So the path of least resistance of an org is to grow larger than it needs to be, as long as there's profit or investment to feed it.

> What is 'unchecked needless growth'?

This is one of the most “HN” things I’ve ever read here. Thank you for making my day :)

One assumes it's growth of the staff and associated expenses, not growth in revenue, profit or customer base.

Is it bad news? 300 doesn't even sound like that many for eBay -- but the article provided no context for their size. According to wikipedia they have (Had?) 14,100 employees.

> People are always jealous of my nice phones, thinking I spent $800+ when I usually only spend $100-150.

Assumption on your part. I see people that really do spend $800+ on their phones and I don't think jealousy ever entered into the equation, more like 'wow, they can't handle money'.

Maybe their jealousy is just in your head?

The people who are jealous have either cheap, crappy phones, or very old (older than my 2yo flagships) phones. Yes, they are jealous because they can't afford $1000 phones. They're not like frugal people like you, who think spending $1k on a phone is ridiculous. Most people simply don't think that way; they would buy $1k phones if they had a lot more disposable income, and the only reason they buy crappy $100 (new) phones with pre-paid plans is because that's what they can afford.

The jealousy isn't in my head. What's wrong in your head is that you assume that most people think the way you do about money management. They don't.

I'm jealous of his 2 year old phone. My iPhone 6s is so slowwww....

I just figured out a way in which Apple could make a couple of billion with 10 minutes of developer time. There are those little taglines at the end of emails sent from iPhones: 'Sent with my iPhone', they should change that into 'Sent with my iPhone 6'.

That wouldn't even take a developers time- its configuration.

Nexus 5x... It is a long slow death.

I'm sure those sellers would find Shopify or something to offer their stuff.

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