What's the story with online auctions?There is nothing like the auction website eBay for generating ridiculous marketplace tales. Last month a pregnant Canadian attempted to sell the naming rights of her second child as she had recently split from her husband and said she could not bear to do it alone.
She might have done better to lower the starting bid of $8,000 (€6,171), however, as the auction ended last week without a single bid. Then there was the Australian who posted his life for sale at the beginning of the year. The deal included his name, phone number, belongings, friends and potential lovers.
Stories such as these go a long way to creating the impression that eBay is made up of oddballs selling ridiculous stuff to other oddballs. While there is certainly some truth to this, eBay did not grow into a €35 billion company in less than a decade by simply facilitating the trade in genial madness.
With an Irish person reportedly buying something on the site every 20 seconds, it has become the first port of call for many canny consumers in search of everything from household furniture to computer equipment to baby buggies and vintage clothes.
Having bought an oak diningroom table in last year's sales for €1,000, one eBay shopper PriceWatchspoke to was dismayed to learn that matching chairs would cost €300 each. With a set of six costing almost double the price of the table, she decided to go online where she found six solid oak Victorian chairs in perfect condition.
She bought the lot in an auction for €350 and after adding the €150 delivery charge from the UK, the total was still €1,300 less than new chairs in Dublin. And they were delivered to her door nearly two months earlier than the department store could have managed.
It's not just in auctions that eBay bargains can be found. While it's great for second-hand items, good value is also to be found in the millions of brand new products populating its virtual shelves and selling for fixed "buy-it-now" prices.
MP3 players and their accessories can be sourced for half nothing - iPod speakers which currently sell for over €100 in Ireland can be bought and shipped from the Far East for a tenth of that price.
And a Canon digital SLR camera from the US currently has a "buy it now" price of €693, similar to its cost in Ireland. However the eBay deal also includes a tripod, an additional 70mm-300mm lens, extra memory and a camera bag, with a total value of more than €500.
This is very good value even including the duty which Customs and Excise might slap on if your parcel is stopped and examined.
While eBay can seem like a foolproof way to circumvent rip-off prices, fraudulent practices and a general mistrust of internet transactions mean many people are happier to pay higher high street prices than place their trust in the site. To combat this, eBay Ireland recently announced a range of measures which, it says, are aimed at protecting buyers from fraudulent behaviour.
The site says an increase in what it calls "bad experiences" in recent months can be blamed on "a very small proportion of sellers who are failing to deliver a positive buyer experience".
It has been forced to acknowledge that people are being ripped off by counterfeiters, scam artists making bogus offers and people lying about where the goods they sell are being sent from in order to charge over the odds for postage.
One change eBay will introduce on its Irish site this month focuses on how bidder information is displayed. Previously, anyone could look at the bidding history of any item and access the contact details of everyone involved in the auction. Now, however, on listings where the selling price exceeds €150, only the seller can see who's bidding on what.
EBay was forced to introduce this measure because fraudsters were using the information gleaned from auctions to contact disappointed bidders pretending to be the original seller offering the item at a lower price. Once the delighted buyer had transferred the money, often via Western Union, the "second chance seller" would of course disappear.
Although making bidders anonymous will reduce these second chance offers scams, there is a downside. It will also facilitate "shilling", the practice which sees a seller bid for their own items to force up the price. While it is against eBay rules, it will be harder to police if all bids are kept anonymous.
The site has also promised to reinforce existing policies to stop sellers charging excessive postage and to prevent them lying about where they are based. And there are also plans to improve its feedback in order to give good sellers "a real chance to shine, and buyers the opportunity to really choose between sellers, based on the level of service they provide".
EBay is also taking measures to stop the trade of counterfeit goods and says it will demand seller verification for certain types of items that have been frequently reported as being fake including garments carring labels such as Prada, Gucci and Armani. Although, anyone who thinks that they've really managed to snap up a genuine Prada coat for €30 on the site is probably so naive as to need a good deal more protection than eBay can ever afford them.
