Ebay Assignment

For this assignment we were supposed to bid on an item on the auction site, Ebay. Ebay as it turns out, is a very true to life example of how capitalism in America works. On Ebay, just like in real life, a rise in demand causes prices to increase on a given item. The more interesting part of Ebay, is its significance as a free market where the sellers compete to have the lowest price in order to sell their item more successfully than their competition. Often times Ebay was not realistic because people would pay more for an item that they thought might be a safer bet when making a purchase on the Internet. An example of this, would be sneakers. Auctions that had more photos and information posted about the item generally would have a higher starting price and final cost to the highest bidder. The reason that this is not realistic, is because the same exact item can be priced differently simply because the seller chose to put it at a higher price, but the item is no better or no worse. The catch with Ebay being a free market auction site, is that the lowest price does not always mean that you get the same item. Items that may have been selling for $350 with one person, brand new, may be sold by another for $70, brand new. The catch, is that the item for $70 may be a knock off of the original and not of the same quality.

The item that I bid on was a pair of Jordan "Grape" V sneakers. When I found the auction their was one day left and it was priced at $175, plus $15 for shipping ($190 total). The problem that i had, was that I was working the next day and would not be around a computer to bid before the auction was up. In order to be able to purchase the sneakers, I used the program J- Bid Watcher which bid on the item for me a few seconds before the auction ended. Although nobody had bid on the item, I put my maximum bid amount at 190 just in case of a last minute bid. When i returned home from work late that night, i found that i had won the item at the price I had last seen, $175, $190 total. To pay for it, I used my paypal account which had my chase credit/debit card registered for quick purchasing. Pay- pal is what I always use and always will use on Ebay, because it makes fraud and being cheated out of money nearly impossible, which to me is why I don't have real worries when I am bidding on Ebay.

If you are bidding on Ebay, it is important to know what to look for on an auction page. On an item such as sneakers, look to see if the seller writes, explicitly that the item is 100% authentic. If the auction looks a bit sketchy, look at the sellers feedback to see if people are content with purchasing from this seller. Any negative feedback should make you question the authenticity of the seller, and maybe reconsidering buying an item from this seller would be a good option.