Protect online retail, says eBay

eBay is undertaking a fully-fledged media campaign in Australia, securing an interview with the prestigious ABC Lateline Business programme. The online auctioneer-and-budding-mall has used the platform – and an extraordinarily soft interview – to call for Australia’s competition regulator to intervene in online retail in …

[Philip Cohen]

An "infomercial"

A very disappointing coverage of this matter by the ABC; it was more like you’d expect in a paid “infomercial”.

The fact is, if anyone needs the protection of the ACCC, it is consumers, from the devious activities of this most unscrupulous eBay organization and its ugly daughter PayPal.

Enron / eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking.

[Nick 6]

mee tytle

A+++++++++ lobbying, would use again. Cash arrived well packed.

[JimC]

Or just possibly

Monopoly box shifter complaining about suppliers refusing to give them huge bulk discounts and forcing them to compete on even terms with other retailers...

[Robert Carnegie]

So resale price maintenance is illegal? Like prostitution?

If the offence that suppliers were committing against online retailers was to demand that they, the suppliers, be given the use of whores as part of the deal, then that six per cent of retailers are frequently asked to do this, and a further nineteen per cent only occasionally, would look dirtier. If one in four retailers is either occasionally or frequently propositioned - although we don't know if they actually do it, if they said so then they'd be incriminating themselves.

And of course the analogy is absurd - actually the suppliers are screwing the customers.

[batfastad]

Hate

eBay is a nightmare. Listing fees are so high, with compulsory free p&p on many low-margin categories.

Would love to see some competition in this space but unfortunately eBay have a habit of suing any competitors. I think a regulator should intervene in online retail in the UK!

[MacRat]

eBay is Retail?

eBay is nothing more than a fencing service for stolen or counterfeit goods.

[Neil Lewis]

Ebay may be unscrupulous...

...but they're not entirely wrong about about some suppliers being just as bad. If you've ever tried to sell on eBay anything made by Burberry, for example, then you'll appreciate the problem. As it stands, the supplier has only to complain the the goods *may* not be genuine and it becomes almost impossible to offer them for sale. The onus is put firmly on the seller, who has to jump through innumerable, impossible hoops to prove they are genuine items. There is no effort or proof required from the supplier. Under the guise of their 'Registered Rights Owner' system, eBay effectively helps suppliers like these to stifle any genuine retail competition. It's more than a little ironic that they now seem to want to find a way out of that to suit their own desire to move towards being an online shopping mall for retailers, rather than a way for any private individual to shift unwanted goods cheaply.

[ShaggyDoggy]

Google

Come on GOOGLEBAY let's have it