Comments on: Do you think e-bay will eventually replace garage sales, antique stores and hometown auctions?

By: flingebunt

flingebunt — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:24:59 +0000

Online selling has made enourmous inroads into a lot of areas. Online selling of second hand goods is a good example. Many second hard book stores have closed shop and openned online versions.

However ecommerce simply becomes another way of selling, like advertising things for sale in the newspaper and providing a telephone number to call.

What we will see is a a degree of selling moving online. For example antique traders are likely to use more online selling methods and people looking for specific items will use online buying, however those that hang out in antique shops are likely to want to still do that. People really aren't that busy.
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By: M I

M I — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:01:59 +0000

yes. and it is definitely more convenient.
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By: Dreamer7787

Dreamer7787 — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:55:59 +0000

I doubt it. Granted you can get a lot of other people's "junk" from ebay, but more often people are on their for what they deem to be important things (clothes, computer games, school text books, ect). Where as at a garage sale people are more likely to pick up things that they don't need because their cheap and there (also no shipping costs for things bought at garage sales are a plus). For example, would you buy a McDonald's toy from ebay for your kid or would you be more likely to pick something like that up from a garage sale? Also selling everything on ebay would just get too time consuming. You'd constantly be posting items that would only sell for $.50 and the buyer would be getting ripped off through shipping.
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By: ladyjane

ladyjane — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:18:59 +0000

Definitely not. Ebay is not very good these days. Most stuff is too expensive, and half the time you never get what you pay for. A lot of people I know have been ripped off big time by Ebay sellers.
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By: jaskop1

jaskop1 — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:48:59 +0000

No. People will always want in person sales. The internet was supposed to replace news papers and magazines and it hasn't happened.
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By: Spider Pig

Spider Pig — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:30:59 +0000

NEVER. Many people lilke myself prefer to see things before we buy. And when we buy, we like to pay up front in cash and get the item right a way.
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By: disruption_grey

disruption_grey — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 10:04:59 +0000

Only if robots get smart enough to price stuff and post it online. Most people like to just be able to haul piles of junk out of the garage and have people pay to haul it away... and enjoy a bit of dickering besides. who wants to photograph and post all sorts of individual items and then deal with the shipping.
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By: Jens

Jens — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:25:59 +0000

No, at least not anytime soon. There's still a need for immediate locality in some aspects of non GNP business.
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