HW 8

ebay

• I chose to add a link to ebay because I find it useful in finding things for less money then in stores.


• Ebay is an online auction. It links buyers to sellers (and sellers to buyers) of virtually everything. It allows people to buy things that might be more costly else ware, or in many case it allows people to buy collectibles that they could not find someplace else.


• Ebay gets its information from people that sign up to use the sight, and post goods for auction. People can provide feedback for particular users, to help keep the site honest. In addition, ebay has the right to kick a user off ebay if they have too much negative feedback.


• Ebay organizes information in a way that makes it easy for the user to find what he/she is looking for. The user can type in a key search word and narrow it down by selecting one of ebay’s search categories. The user can also search only by category. Ebay also allows the user to arrange the search results in different ways (price, date, etc.).

Competing website: Overstock.com

• Overstock.com and ebay both have a very similar auction system. However, in addition to the auction, Overstock.com acquires new goods at wholesale prices and sells them. This provides customers with a choice of how they want to do their shopping; they can either participate in an auction, or get good prices on products with less risk then an auction.