But when I worked at eBay in 2003, they had the mailroom put a sticker on every amazon box that said “Next time get it on eBay!”
And now the tide is swinging back a bit as people get fed up with fakes and commingling at Amazon. At least with eBay you know the product you’re getting is actually from the seller you bought it from.
The likelihood is generally higher, but I've received drop-shipped items from eBay that come directly from Amazon & Walmart warehouses. Took me by surprise at first, but it was still the lowest available price. Unsure if they are still cracking down on that.
eBay has always been fantastic for used/refurbished electronics compared to anything else.
But it makes me think -- Are they taking a hit on the sale to offer the item lower on eBay? I canceled Prime a few years back, but with a list of known eBay dropshippers, I can take advantage of Amazon Prime like prices at-cost (or lower) when compared to Amazon.com. And all without paying the Amazon Prime fee (obviously, I don't get the other benefits, but it's the 2 day shipping I'm primarily after!)
> The likelihood is generally higher, but I've received drop-shipped items from eBay that come directly from Amazon & Walmart warehouses. Took me by surprise at first, but it was still the lowest available price. Unsure if they are still cracking down on that.
> eBay has always been fantastic for used/refurbished electronics compared to anything else.
This is a method used to cash out stolen credit cards as well. Buy the item with a stolen card and ship to the unwitting purchaser. This is why they can afford to sell at a perceived loss.
Also a method used to make a few % margin on a discount code. Amazon and Walmart don't give out re-usable flat X% discount codes (AFAIK) though so that isn't the case for when something is drop shipped from those sellers.
But yes, this is a common method used to liquidate stolen CCs info.
you mean when eBay employees received a package from Amazon at the office?
That isn't actually happening at all. That comes across as what you wish were occurring. Unless you're referring to eBay's share of online commerce persistently contracting as they stagnate. It isn't a new problem, eBay as a force in ecommerce has been eroding for many years now.
It's why eBay has a $22b market cap and their market platform has entirely stopped growing. Their stock multiple is so low because nobody believes in their growth story (it doesn't have one). Over four years they've seen an average of about 6% annual growth, although that includes other non-auction businesses they had acquired. It's also why they're a juicy takeover target: the lack of growth gives them a cheap valuation, combined with good margins and a difficult to remove quasi-monopoly position in auctions. There is no future for eBay other than in the belly of someone larger, and soon.
Amazon of course has been going gangbusters on growth during that time, becoming ever more dominant in online retail. The exact opposite of what you're describing.
Why is that the only option? What's wrong with a stable, profitable company staying a stable, profitable company?
I rarely use Amazon for this reason, and order from Target, Walmart, and Ebay instead.
Amazon also plays games, like not letting you sort search results by "Best Selling."
This is a great video showing how stolen credit cards are laundered through eBay “Nina Kollars - Confessions of an Nespresso Money Mule”
Wait, how is this different with eBay compared to Amazon?
Amazon's checkout process is 99.99% in the Amazon context, only showing a "sold by" on the order page itself in a 12px font. There is no mention of the seller at all in Amazon's order notification emails.
So if two sellers are selling the same item, with the same exact SKU, and both send their inventory to Amazon to be warehoused and shipped, Amazon will happily send you either seller's item, depending on which is more convenient to send. (Perhaps seller A's stuff is in a warehouse closer to you.) This sounds good in theory, because all those products are identical, right? What if seller B's products are all counterfeit? So you buy from seller A who you think is legit (and for the example is), but you get seller B's fake crap, and seller A was powerless to stop it.
They could select the "Amazon barcode" option (instead of the default "Manufacturer barcode") under "Barcode preference" which prevents commingling (but requires the seller to apply seller-specific barcode labels to all units).