A more expensive alternative to Half.com
Written: Dec 19 '03
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Amazon Marketplace seems like a good idea, but it's a duplicate of Half.com with less inventory control.
Amazon Marketplace is a forum for sellers to hawk used goods. Great! I'm all for it!
When you seek to purchase something from Amazon.com, you are usually shown offers from Amazon Marketplace that can be much cheaper than buying new. Sometimes. I think the forum is relatively new and untried as there are a few glitches.
First, you have the confusion between Amazon.com and Amazon Marketplace. You can add all these things to you "cart", but what you buy from Amazon.com and Amazon Marketplace are different - you must pay individual shipping for each Marketplace item whereas Amazon.com will usually give you free shipping if you spend over $25 in total. If you're buying a bunch of things, it's often cheaper to buy new stuff to save the $3-8 shipping per item from the Marketplace. You don't really see this important difference until you reach the checkout, and then you have to go back and re-search and recalculate to see if buying new is a better deal. In that sense Marketplace is more a hindrance than a help.
Next, there is not a good correlation between inventory and availability. I tried to buy several books from Marketplace only to find those items cancelled because, despite the listing, the item was not available. This was especially irritating as the books were not available via Amazon.com but only (supposedly) through Marketplace. This situation indicates to me that the software used to run Marketplace does not run in realtime, or even 2 day time, as I repeatedly tried to order, only to be cancelled.
Last, Marketplace is not all that much of a bargain. You can go to Half.com and find most of the items cheaper. I think Marketplace is Amazon.com's attempt to thwart Half.com, but in order to do this, it would have to offer cheaper prices and a clearer understanding of when you're dealing with Marketplace and when you're dealing with Amazon.com. On top of that, a better inventory control is needed.
I like the idea, but I think it's pretty much doomed as it has to compete with more established, better managed sites that are better set up to offer low prices. I can't quite see Amazon.com's motivation to offer Marketplace as it undercuts and undersells Amazon.com which makes Amazon.com lose out when it sells used stuff via its Marketplace. I guess it is trying to create site "stickiness", but when I know that there are other cheap sites out there and Amazon.com essentially advertises that fact through it's not-too-good Marketplace, I can't help but think that this thing is going the way of "new coke".
Let's see.
Recommended:
No
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Books
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Epinions.com ID:
mistsy
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Location: Austin, TX
Reviews written: 152
Trusted by: 38 members
About Me:
Old, cranky, but still, umm, trying to be hip (if it hasn't been replaced yet.)
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