What is your opinion regarding the efficiency and free market principles of these organizations?
Ah, an interesting question. I would think that a pawn shop rates highest on free market principles, except to the degree that it’s regulated by the state and Fed. gov’t. Ebay and craigslist are further limited as to what they can sell - of the 2 I think craigslist is the freeist.
As for efficiency I’m not sure of the criterion for judgement. Ebay certainly sells the most items. Craigslist is certainly the cheapest place to sell. Pawn shops probably return the most for a given investment.
For the criterion, I’m talking about the efficiency of these markets compared to other markets, like malls, plazas, etc.
I’ve asked some of my leftist colleagues about their opinion on these markets, and they disliked all of them (especially pawn shops) because they “put capital gain at a higher value than satisfying the economic needs of themselves and the buyer”. Pawn Stars on the History Channel was used as an example of how cutthroat and miserly some Pawn Shop workers can be.
These guys are in business to make a profit and a living for themselves, not to indulge the seller’s asking price fantasy. They’re the ones who will be taking on the long-term risk of having an item potentially sitting on a shelf for years before it is sold and a profit can be recouped from a sale. This is all about time-preference, interest in effect. You can’t blame them for having tight margins.
The needs of the buyer are satisfied, or else that person wouldn’t be a buyer.
I would’ve said something similar, but I think they meant that either the buyer or seller will take advantage of the other and try to get as much money as possible. Any articles out there that I can point them towards in regards to this issue?
That’s what most people do during an exchange. They maximize what they can get. This can be monetary, or even emotional, in form.
I generally only use Ebay when I’m searching for out of print records. In some of those auctions I’ve actually got “stressed” to the point of constantly updating the auction every 5 seconds in the last minute trying to see if I was outbid. You haven’t actually been shopping till you are increasing your bid in the last 5 seconds of an auction by $15+ with 10 other bidders.
As far as online shopping I use Amazon. They seem to have everything.
eBay is mini statist.
I don’t undestand how ebay mimics a state
It’s not a state in the proper sense, but it does act on power given to it by IP laws. Anyway, eBay started struggling and began to raise fees on its customer, the eBay sellers. eBay eventually made it so that PayPal (which it owns) was the only form of payment, or you could contract with a third-party credit card services provider (which is pretty much pointless). It should suffice to say that eBay’s actions to maintain its stock price, rather than service its customers (the sellers), has actually hurt itself further.
So ebay restricted the method of payment to one company, to which they can control? Smells like the Fed to me
eBay used to be very laissez-faire but they have gotten very involved in transactions and how sellers must act, and how disputes are settled.
I’m not well versed in eBay’s history, but wasn’t part of the reason for the conversion to PayPal due to seller fraud so that eBay could insure transactions and trust for buyers?
There was fraud on both sides, but eBay put a lot of blame on the sellers. I think they did it because they weren’t getting a cut of the payment fees.
Not true. (13 year eBay seller speaking) They only allow advertisement of Paypal on the auctions, but you can use other services (some Paypal imitators). Contrary to popular opinion, they did not end payment via money order either, but wanted to minimize it due to the difficulty of recovering funds when a seller screwed a buyer - and subsequently, sometimes ebay covered the difference in a dispute.
That said, I wish eBay had more competitors. Yahoo Auctions, when it still operated in the US, always had a meager usage. eBay tends to act like they are the only game in town, and by and large, they are; Amazon mainly deals in new items, but eBay’s real meat is in its used/antique auctions.
And I have never used Craigslist. Always seemed more shady to me.