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).
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.
This seems to be a good example of a vintage A-11 military watch (it's listed as such). It looks correct. It's got pictures of the movement, which seems to be correct. The seller has almost perfect feedback. So no problem right?
It is 100% fake (or at least, a frankenwatch made from old and new parts). And this is for a watch worth, perhaps, $200.
The real problem with watches is that fakes are so difficult to recognize that buyer feedback means much less, since a buyer is unlikely to recognize the fake. And often a seller is unaware he's selling a fake, so deception can't be detected in the description or the title. For the watch above, I think the seller knows what he has, and has very carefully described it to imply that it is an original, while not technically lying (he only claims the CASE is original).
Could the watch manufacturer print a UUID on each of its parts that you consider irreplaceable if it had to be fixed? The watch could then be verified using the serial number and some online database?
Are there not slight differences in weights from the real to the fakes? The eBay service mentions like-new items so I'm kind of assuming specs would be available.
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?
I can spot fakes for sneakers, but I assume it's the same process. Material, spotting the stitchings, logos, etc. Certain things line up, there's a certain distance between stitches and logos, etc. With purses, some are easy to spot by looking at the pattern, loose threading, discoloration, etc. Once you have an eye for it, it's pretty easy to spot cause it stands out like a sore thumb.
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.
But, I think that most people do not want to buy a counterfeit on eBay. Ioffer provides much lower prices on fakes, oftentimes direct from China. For instance, on eBay, the average fake Chanel le boy still sells for over $1500, and a Celine mini luggage will sell for around $1400. There is no way that people are paying this kind of money knowingly for a counterfeit.
There are very few counterfeits that are 99.9% accurate. Most of the time I can spot a fake dress or bag on someone from <5 feet away. But, then again, I'm very familiar in this space.
Any proof to support the claim " I'm sure there is a small market for this."? I think there is a huge market for fake stuff in the US. Some people buy it intentionally, some dont. If you are paying $100 for an LV bag, its probably a fake or heavily used.
"Most of the time I can spot a fake dress or bag on someone from <5 feet away."
I'd be worried about survivorship bias. Perhaps you only "see" a sub-set of fakes (the un-convincing ones) and the good ones walk right on by. Isn't this problematic?
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).
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.
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.
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.
This was exactly what I was thinking too. In a weird way, eBay is competing with itself. There have always been companies where you can drop/ship your stuff off at and have them list it for you.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
True, but you could just as easily replace "lazy" with "busy." Are you a single mom with two kids and a full time job? Are you an office worker with an 8-7 job, lots of weekend work, and barely any time to run errands? Are you frequently on the road for work?
Whatever the case, there is a large category of people for whom selling on consignment has always made a lot of sense, even if their margins are terrible. Their economic substitute to selling on consignment is throwing things away. Better to make a few bucks per item than none.
Secondary consignment markets have been really big on eBay for many years now. Makes sense that eBay would recognize the pattern, and attempt to own a piece of it. Meanwhile, big-time and category-specialized consignment sellers are still going to do just fine.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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
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.
It's a new implementation of a common service. You have a point with the auction house providing the service it blurs some lines. Similar points have been brought up regarding some of Amazon's services. I think it will rely on eBay's willingness to shutdown bad vendors (something they aren't known for at the moment).
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.
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 ?
"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. "
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.
From the looks of it this is something they expect to be run by a small business with a few people.
Not many individuals have space in their home to store and turn over 100,000+ items in a month. Or have "Physical presence in all major metropolitan hubs in the US".
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.
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.
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.
While it does not frustrate me personally, it does seem rather pointless to list an item for several days or weeks when the actual sale takes place in the last five minutes, and to show a 'current price' which has little relevance to the final price.
Ebay might as well call it a sealed bid second price auction and be done with it.
By a Dutch auction, are you referring to a sealed second-bid auction, or are you referring to a second-item auction? Or are you actually referring to a descending price Dutch auction?[1] If you are referring to a sealed second-bid auction, you're right that it would definitely eliminate sniping, but it probably wouldn't be beneficial for eBay, so it's not going to happen.
First, with eBay's current bidding system items are already auctioned for a very full price, and it's better for eBay for prices to be high. Theoretically a sealed-second bid auction would cause people to provide their maximum willingness to pay, but as a matter of uninformed consumer behavior I wouldn't be surprised if prices were actually lower with sealed bids. Second, with the current system people are much more engaged with eBay than they would be with sealed-bids, because eBay gets to send them status updates on their auctions when they get outbid, which can cause them to either go back to the site and increase the bid (and potentially bid on something else while they are there), or bid on an alternative item which decreases the cycle rate for bidders. Third, bidders may actually prefer the current system, because they can know before the auction ends whether they have been knocked out or not and can move on to acquire goods through some other means.
Edit: Actually, it turns out that if everyone on eBay were using sniping, it's essentially the same as a sealed second-bid auction, economically, because of the proxy bidding (or very close, due to the way bid increments work). But time extension is a different issue. Given that prices would be open still, I would expect that the prices end up near the same place that they do with sniping. Potentially the prices would be slightly higher because all of the bids would be open rather than just the bids made before the deadline which could foment more competition, so that criticism doesn't apply.
In any case, from the consumer's perspective if you want to win the auction it doesn't really change your strategy. You should bid the maximum amount you would be willing to pay and make sure its more than anyone else would be willing to pay. With proxy bidding you can always win by paying too much. If you've ever lost because of sniping it's because you didn't set your bid high enough to beat the snipers. (What, you thought you would get a deal on an auction site? No, this is winner's curse territory.[2])
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.