6 replies to this topic

[Curt Vendel]

If you are sick and tired of Ebay and have some computer equipment 10years of older, then visit the Vintage Computer Marketplace:


http://marketplace.vintage.org


This is run by Sellam Ismail who runs the Vintage Computer Festival and VintageTECH Consulting Services, this is a GREAT new place to sell/buy/trade or auction your older Atari, Amiga, Commodore and other vintage computers and accessories.



Curt

[bjk7382]

Is it really that great for atari stuff? I typed in atari in the search line and only got 6 results? When you type atari into ebay you get 7486. I think I will stick to ebay

[FND]

bjk7382 said:

Is it really that great for atari stuff? I typed in atari in the search line and only got 6 results? When you type atari into ebay you get 7486. I think I will stick to ebay

That is exactly why Ebay is so poor at customer satisfaction they have
such a large advantage in user base, a new start up auction site has a
near impossible chance to lure new users.

We need to try and help break the hold ebay has on both sellers and users.
I believe the game buying/selling community does make up a big enough
part of ebay's profits that a marked loose of users would be noticed.

I for one will give it a try with a few 2600 prototypes and see what happens

fnd

[Curt Vendel]

See... thats the whole point, it needs some input from users... what I am trying is a balance of things, I've been posting both to ebay and to Vintage Marketplace and I've done quite well on both fronts, while Vintage Marketplace may only have about 500+ users on it right now, its still quite active and stuff I've auctioned or just sold have done so very quickly and in two cases, they auctioned higher then I expected, so its certainly worth a shot, but also its worth watching to see if anything cool shows up. It certainly has a nice interface then Yahoo auctions and bidnow.



Curt

[Albert]

I do agree that an alternative to eBay for video game (or at least classic gaming) related items would be nice. The entire business with eBay shutting down many auctions on a whim is getting ridiculous. It's also far too easy for people to abuse the system by getting auctions ended early as a means of harassment.

eBay certainly is the juggernaut and has the vast majority of the online auction market, but there are many things they do very poorly and it's only a matter of time before someone comes along with a much-improved system. Even barring that, in the same sense that there are online communities around various interests, I expect we'll see many auction sites that cater to those interests. A video game-centric auction site could offer many advantages over eBay's more generic system that has to support virtually every type of auction imaginable.

..Al

[tyranthraxus]

There is a possibility if a company with money and a good plan could
snag a share of ebay's profits. I read this article on ebay that their
system is a bit crippled because its built upon their old system when
it was used to trade beanie babies 10 or so years ago. Its hobbled in
the same way that Windows XP is because its based upon the old MS
DOS. So potentially a better auction system could be devised but getting
people to pull away from ebay is the hard part. Aiming for a serious
collector market of some sort would be the best step.

[goatdan]

tyranthraxus said:

There is a possibility if a company with money and a good plan could snag a share of ebay's profits. I read this article on ebay that their system is a bit crippled because its built upon their old system when it was used to trade beanie babies 10 or so years ago. Its hobbled in the same way that Windows XP is because its based upon the old MS DOS. So potentially a better auction system could be devised but getting people to pull away from ebay is the hard part. Aiming for a serious collector market of some sort would be the best step.

eBay is unfortunately huge not because of their system, but in spite of it. Simply because eBay has 213805123846103947+ people signed up for it, it automatically makes it the best place to sell your goods. They have a monopoly that is definitely not benefiting the marketplace, but they can have it because it is almost necessary.

I h hate eBay, but I will still use them once in a while to get rid of things that I know will fetch good money there