Online Auction
Imagine you recently cleaned out and reorganized your garage and now find yourself with many items in good condition but no longer needed. You are thinking about trying to sell some items on eBay® but do not know anything about online auctions.
Access the eBay® website at http://www.ebay.com/ to learn about their online auction system. Click on the Help tab in the upper right and choose Learning Center from the pull down menu. The site offers several tutorials to help prospective sellers and buyers learn about and use the auction system. The recommended tutorials are listed on the left. Most of the tutorials contain links to additional information.
Write a 200-word paragraph addressing the following: Briefly describe how eBay® works. What advantages and disadvantages do you think eBay® offers to small-scale sellers and large-scale sellers? Based on what you have learned, if you wanted to start an electronic retail (e-tail) business, would you use eBay®? Explain your reasoning.
Online Auction
There are two ways to buy on eBay. With Buy It Now, you pay a fixed price and buy the item immediately, or you can bid on an item and try to win it for a lower price in an auction. On some listings you can also make an offer of the price you would like to pay. On eBay, sellers create listings for their items which include the item description, photos, and payment and shipping options. Unlike standard retail facilities such as malls and outlet centers, eBay has no scope requirements, so as a small seller you can really make out large. The disadvantage with eBay is that its policies dictate and require you to take only certain kinds of payments, limit what keywords you can use and the inability to sell digital goods.
