Has eBay Set Craigslist in Its Sights?

October 7, 2008 at 5:45 am PT

It is ironic that a company whose core business has been caught in a perpetual slowdown has seemingly set its sights on another business–one where the established leader gives away the bulk of its services for free. But that appears to be the case for the online auction pioneer, eBay Inc.

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Tagged with: Craigslist, eBay, frontpage, Therese Poletti

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http://allthingsd.com/ Eric Welch

eBay keeps making moves that drive people elsewhere.

They increase the cost of using their service. They refuse to allow other forms of payment besides PayPal. (They’re banning checks and money orders, so reports are saying.) Now they buy Bill-Me-Later, after banning it from their site.

They change the comments rules to favor big sellers. And now this. I never even heard of their classified listings. I’m certainly not going to give it a try when Craigslist is ubiquitous.

eBay has a lot to learn about customers. Maybe users need to send eBay a wake up call – a la Howard Beal.

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