impressions - Ebay Anger.

There has been an uneasy relationship between myself and the virtual marketplace that is Ebay. I came to Ebay quite late in the day, sometime after it had already entered the public consciousness and seeped into popular culture. In fact I had mistaken Ebay for a retro-graphic site that had made a spoof version of Ebay so I imagined it as a more complicated version of an internet chat room. This error was only corrected about four years ago when I started working in a small Edinburgh antique shop whose ground floor was very stuffy, hot and dusty while the basement was cold, damp and prone to flooding. It also was famed for having the second worse toilet in Edinburgh, but I digress. My then employer was a fan of Ebay and used it to scout for all sorts of stuff and was quick to make a profit from it with little bother.

Since those dark days, I have bought an awfully lot of tat but have also sold some of my more useless junk to pack rats around the globe. I shall not reveal to you my Ebay identity name or even what my feedback number happens to be although I am proud to say that I have had no negative or even neutral feedback.

Now I assume that you are aware of the mechanics of Ebay. If you are one of those rare few who have not visited the site then all you need know is that it is not so much an electronic supermarket but an electronic car boot sale. A real car boot sale is often dirty, disorganized and possibly illegal unlike Ebay – after all it uses a sophisticated Boolean search engine so you can easily find that pirated copy of “Debby Does Dallas”.

Now since Ebay is one of the most popular internet sites, why am I going on about it on this small pedantic web blog of mine? Good question and one that I won’t answer but I will say that I have this love / hate relationship with it and it is that which I want to talk to you about today.

When I stumbled into this virtual arena of buyers and sellers, it felt like I had found the Mother of all curiosity shops into which I could search for all those strange and obscure items my imagination could invent reasons for me to purchase.

While my old boss bought art nouveau lighting, glass ware and difficult to find documents, I bought comics, assorted cigarette cards and reproduction photographs of 1920’s beauty pageants. Money well worth spent!

Now the reason I find that I have to wax lyrical and vent my spleen at the same time is as follows; some twit outbid me on a much needed book. In fact this was the second time I had been outbid and that both bids were illogical – they were willing to pay over the retail price (not including the overly exaggerated postage cost) for a second hand item. A quick search showed the same book on sale as new for less than there bid. So what was the logic behind that? In fact there has been similar nonsensical behavior, such as when one auction saw a small bidding war with the price being driven up while an identical item with a similar description and seller attracted no bidding at all. I am sure that if you are familiar with Ebay then you will have your own examples, perhaps even taking part in such extreme behavior yourself? I can well understand how internet buying can draw people in – but that still does not excuse stupid behavior!

So please take these words under advisement; think before you go crazy and click that mouse button!!! After all is that rusty Tonka Toy, Latoya CD or oversized Manchester United t-shirt really worth all that money? Let some other sucker forsake their hard earned cash in their endless pursuit of useless tat. Also spare a thought for the hapless student who needs to buy hard to find text books, out of print reference material and assorted documents.

Be seeing you… through the wrong side of the looking glass! Ha Ha Ha.