Shake-Up in 2nd Hand Sales
July 13, 2005
Lately I've been feeling a bit sorry for Irish site, Buy & Sell. Ebay has entered the Irish market and with its strong brand and let's face it, user friendly technology driven site, and it's sure to win lots of customers from Buy & Sell. That site has been referring lately to its new look and functions - as a very new visitor - I'm stunned. The look is pure 1999 and the functionality? Er, I can't get the saving searches or clip ads to work.
On the other hand, check this out - Fundable - a peer-to-peer service that lets people pool money to buy objects. Similar to an online auction, a group action has its own page, describing how much money will be collected and what the money will do. It has only been in business since May, but so far, Fundable seems to attract a mix of fundraisers and tech savvy group buyers (for example, 10 people just completed a group buy for a USD 1,100 HP server; each person ponied up USD 110, for which they will receive 10GB of server space, 1GB bandwidth per month, and at least 1 year of hosting. The deal was initiated by 'Louie').
Maybe Fundable will give eBay a run for its money.
By the way, happy birthday to Amazon. It's 10 years old today. Hurray!