Thursday 15 March 2007

...isn't ebay a gift for the touters?

I saw an article in the Mirror the other day about Stella McCartney launching a budget clothing range in Australia as she did for H&M in the UK recently. There were the predictable people queuing over night, the scrummage as the doors were opened and then the grabbing began - all of the range was sold by 10am.

What was almost as predictable was that the items bought that morning would appear on ebay within the hour for twice the price. Ebay is seen by most as a kind of digital yard sale, minus the homemade rose perfume. And this is the side that most of us will have discovered whilst doing this latest assignment - hence the random collection of entirely worthless items that were picked up 'on the cheap' (though how do you put any price on a bag of stick insects!?). But the other side is that many of the items that appear on ebay are not a 'bargain'; in fact they are way over the high street price. There is even a review on ebay written by a customer warning people not to buy Primark clothing at over twice the high street price.

So whilst ebay has certainly made the dream of a global car boot sale a reality, don't believe that everything you find their is a good deal.