Amarok Blog

About two years ago I started using eBay to satisfy my hunger for books. I love reading books, and when a friend recommended to try eBay because it's a "cheap and fun way of buying books", I became intrigued and tried it. Turned out, eBay was a paradise for book lovers indeed. Every week I would buy one book, mostly English language literature which is hard to obtain here in Germany. I bought from private auctions exclusively, and with a bit of luck and good timing rarely paid more than 1 or 2 Euros per book. Usually, after two or three days I would receive my little package in the mail. I was in heaven.

Those were the good times. Nowadays, things look drastically different on ebay.de:




"Sofort & Neu" means "Buy now & Unused", and this is the heart of the problem: There are hardly any real private auctions left on eBay. Instead, the majority of auctions are really just sales, mostly from commercial book traders. As you can see, the prices are often ridiculously high: 28,90 Euro for one book, you'd think the thing was printed on gold. At this point it's easier and cheaper to just go to Amazon and buy the book there.

Whatever happened to private auctions? Once upon a time eBay was synonymous with "The internet auction house". Nowadays, it's just a shopping marketplace.


I want my old eBay back.