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The Almighty Buck Businesses Communications The Internet Technology

eBay Will Now Price Match Amazon, Walmart and Others On Over 50,000 Items (techcrunch.com) 69

Posted by BeauHD from the money-back-guarantee dept.
eBay announced today a new Price Match Guarantee for over 50,000 items across its site -- promising that it will have the best deal online, or it will match the lowest price of a competitor. While only select items are available for this offer, "the move is a significant effort on eBay's part to ensure that it doesn't lose customers to Amazon, Walmart and other online stores as the market consolidates behind the industry's major players," reports TechCrunch. From the report: In order to qualify, the item must be one of the new, unopened items sold daily through eBay Deals, for starters. Deals are eBay's selection of "trending" inventory across all its categories -- like consumer electronics, home & garden, and fashion. The deals are also generally offered at 20 percent to 90 percent off, and are sourced from over 900 of eBay's trusted sellers. These sellers include both smaller merchants looking to grow their customer base as well as major consumer brands. At any time, eBay says there are "tens of thousands" of items offered through the Deals site, with featured deals updating at least once per day, beginning at 8 AM PT.
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eBay Will Now Price Match Amazon, Walmart and Others On Over 50,000 Items More

eBay Will Now Price Match Amazon, Walmart and Others On Over 50,000 Items

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  • Asterisk (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    *..plus $60 shipping. ... plus $50 import fees.

    • Yeah and 6 weeks to 8 months shipping ... I go to eBay for super low-price quasi-disposable stuff for my hobbies. I got some silicone heat-shrink tubing just to try it out, took almost two months to get here but there was no way I was paying more than 5$ in any case.

  • Quick! Who can lose money the fastest?!?
    • Ebay's plenty big enough to absorb the occasional price match on a loss leader. Hell, even my local Fry's electronics will price match Amazon. And Ebay's goal isn't to sell product anyway, it's to get other people to sell and take 10% of the proceeds.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mysidia ( 191772 )

        Who pays the loss, though? Is it eBay, or the merchant? I.E. Does this mean the Merchant's buy-it-now price is lowered for the order, or does eBay itself fork over the $$$ ?

    • Quick! Who can lose money the fastest?!?

      That is how free markets are supposed to work. Marginal surplus profit should be competed down to near zero.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by stooo ( 2202012 )

      Ebay increased their fees again last year. They have a crazy margin on stuff they don't sell themselves.

      • If you think eBay's margins are inflated, you clearly aren't familiar with Amazon's fees imposed on third-party sellers, which have been monkeyed with at least twice in the past year, and to the benefit of Amazon alone.
      • Oh, I don't know.. I got a lot of good deals from Ebay so far. (Depends what you are looking for. Don't rule out anybody!)

    • You here that sound in the distance ?

      That's the maniacal cackle of Alibaba.

      They are chineses.
      No matter what ebay and amazon try to do whil attempting to outcompete each other, alibaba will still manage to come up with something dramatically cheaper.
      Yes, the build quality will be horrendous, the time to failure will be counted in minutes, but still, it's going to be cheaper.

  • Paypal still required? (Score:3)

    by HornWumpus ( 783565 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @08:42PM (#54665603)

    If so, fuck off.

  • No Prime & that wonderful guaranteed ship time (Score:3)

    by SensitiveMale ( 155605 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @08:46PM (#54665619)

    One of the best things about Amazon is the "Will ship today if ordered in XX hours" time guarantee.
    Buying something from eBay doesn't guarantee when it'll ship & when it'll arrive.

    • unless its "fast and free". just like for amazon this only works for prime/amazon warehouse items

      F&F has been more reliable for me than Amazon "guaranteed" shipping (the shipping time is guaranteed but not the arrival.. lol - so many 1 day *shipping*/ 2 days *shipping* amazon items arrived late... the hour thing is just to incentivize you to buy and brings no real warranty. it might work, it might not.)

      • the hour thing is just to incentivize you to buy and brings no real warranty

        The hour thing is based on when the truck leaves and what warehouse the item will ship from. I mean sure, it may not be 100% accurate, but it's not arbitrary.

    • I actually joined Prime today, and some of the items I ordered gave me the "free same day shipping" option, so I selected that. Later I received an email saying the items would actually be delivered tomorrow. No such guarantee there.
  • Having dealt with eBay on a bad purchase, it seems strange that anyone would prefer purchasing something from eBay at the same price, especially if they have to jump through hoops to perform the pricematch. For items that are more likely to be counterfeit, like memory cards, it is actually more advantageous to purchase them from a reputable retailer, and extremely difficult to prove to eBay that you received a counterfeit item.

    • it seems strange that anyone would prefer purchasing something from eBay at the same price

      I don't see why anyone would. Amazon is quick and reliable. eBay is slow and flakey, but sometimes cheap. There is no way I would buy from eBay over Amazon unless eBay offered a significantly lower price.

    • Many times an item will be available on eBay (for possibly a bit cheaper) with free shipping without any $25 minimum. That's the reason to use eBay.

    • Having dealt with eBay on a bad purchase,

      Every time I've had a bad purchase, eBay has sided with me. Literally every time. And I regularly purchase from the cheapest sellers in China.

  • So does this mean... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    when I sell something new on ebay that they can reduce the price I sold it for? The ~10% they already take in selling fees and with PayPal already mean I'm losing money. This move means the will lose me as a seller.

    • Re:So does this mean... (Score:4, Informative)

      by omnichad ( 1198475 ) on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @09:20PM (#54665767) Homepage

      No - they got sellers to sign on to this. Which is fine with the bigger sellers that would sign on. Lower profit beats a lost sale any day for them.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Sales on ebay were great, untill they changed search.
      My ebay store sales dropped 95 percent in one month.
      Attemped to call a few times, got no help.
      After seveal months of little sales, stopped selling on ebay.
      They still owe me some cash,
      Around same time started selling on Amazon.
      Sales were fantastic, started expanding, put on some help.
      Then the economy tanked aroung 2008, still had good-enough sales but:
      Something strange started happening on Amazon.
      No matter what lower price I had others sold cheaper.
      I had a

  • Pepperidge farms remembers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @08:54PM (#54665647)

    Remember when... Ebay was for auctions?

    • Still is. Got a Pioneer DEH-150MP car stereo for 20 bucks last week.

      Compared to Amazon, Ebay is a "pleasant" experience: faster page loads, better product filtering, more convenient "collections", etc. - with the caveat of generally longer delivery times.

      • I've bought tons of stuff over the years from ebay, from small solar panels and electronics from China, to parts for my refrigerator or dishwasher. I've NEVER had a problem. Maybe I'm the luckiest guy on the web... who knows.

        • The only problem I've had on eBay were a few attempts to get a discounted Windows license. Every time was a scam. Never had an issue with an actual physical good.

  • So...slashdot is where online retailers post ads at no cost, solicit consumer feedback on shopping deals. I had slashdot bookmarked under tech/science. Long past time to change that.

  • It isn't a deal. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    A deal requires the consent of two people to a transacton.
    Before that it is an offer.

    Why would any serious company think I would want to buy anything from anyone who doesn't even understand basic english?

  • If your price is higher, that's price gouging.
    If your price is lower, that's predatory pricing.
    If your price is the same, that's collusion. ;-)
  • sounds like little more than a marketting push. rarely if ever do I find ebay is the cheapest for anything (except where you can expect the real item to be substituted for a fake).
  • I was bidding $8 for a straw hat, bought it for $7.50 That's nice

  • for the same price I can buy from amazon, may I ask? (no bestbuy in Germany)

  • Doesn't matter (Score:3)

    by nehumanuscrede ( 624750 ) on Thursday June 22, 2017 @08:02AM (#54667487)

    eBay requires PayPal.

    Thus, eBay can charge HALF of what Amazon does and I still would not use them.

    When PayPal is regulated like any other financial institution vs being allowed to do whatever they want with no concequences, I may change my mind.

    Maybe.

  • You know, when I go to order online, I like to choose the vendor that has the most hoops to jump through, with an added risk of getting totally screwed.

    I stopped using ebay when some asshat said they shipped me something, but didn't, and I ended up paying for it anyways.

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