Half.com does seem to duplicate what they're trying to do with eBay Stores (that is, fixed-price sales). But I agree, Half.com seems to get it right, and most CD's in eBay Stores are overpriced by comparison. Plus, eBay's Search function only seems to access Auctions right now, so they've evidently got some work to do before they can present a seamless product to buyers and sellers. A common problem when a big company acquires a smaller one's superior competing product...

I've been a Half.com seller for three years now and have built a lucrative business on that site. To say that the loss of half.com would be devastating to me would be an understatement. I'm handicapped, recently married, and the only way other than social security for me to survive is through my sales at half.com. It's the only thing that has kept me from living on the streets. Now they are closing. Ebay will have you believe that they are merely "integrating" into their site, but the fact still remains that half.com is being closed for good. There were a lot of good things and bad as well, as I suppose there are in any business, but for the most part, it worked and it afforded many people across the US a chance to lift their heads above water and make a decent wage. Well, the fact of the matter is, Ebay, this great big company who self admits of never doing no wrong, is and has been lying to us. It's not really hard to figure out yet I do have proof in the form of an admission from an employee working in the President's Office at Ebay. That in a bit, but first the obvious clues. Several years ago, you may remember that there were more than two choices when it came to satellite TV. DTV was the first to get started, and thus had a jump start on the market share. Then the others came along, Dish Network and Prime Star are two of the larger examples. Both Prime Star and the Dish Network seemed to flounder in the wake of the large business DTV was doing in bringing in new customers.Whereas the Dish Network still seems somehow to stay alive, Prime Star gave in when it was purchased by DirecTV a couple of years ago. Thus another big corporation not satisfied with it's share of the market, bullying it's way in by eliminating the competition. They succeeded and now boast the largest customer base for satellite services. Then came along broadband Internet services. The smaller cable companies were paving the way to the new higher speeds via cable lines. At&t then noting the potential started buying up the smaller cable companies and took over the major market share in the Broadband Internet services arena. They didn't do a great bang up job as they had hoped and AT&T soon gave way back to the cable companies. This is a great example how the bigger conglomerates lost out in the end, but it doesn't always work out that way. Now in Ebays case, not being content with the large portion of the Internet they do own, they tried to seek out an even larger portion of same. If you have been around for awhile on Ebay, you should remember that Bidpay was the integrated Credit Card payment service that ebay owned and used for completing many transactions through auctions. Then came along a company who offered the same services but at a cheaper price. That company was Paypal. Paypal soon took over as the CC service of choice. Ebay saw this and immediately made plans and succeeded in buying out Paypal. Now they are owned by Ebay so not only do you pay insertion fees to ebay, final value fees to ebay, but when you go to use your credit card, AGAIN ebay gets another piece of the pie. They virtually eliminated AGAIN the competition. Then ebay started noticing another fly in their soup. Half.com was generating great sales. It became more and more popular and Ebay soon realized that a lot of sales over at half.com were taking away their sales from ebay auctions, since many of ebays auctions are book, CDS , DVDS and Videos and Video Games. This could not be acceptable to ebay, so being the big brother of the Internet, they decided to do what they thought would give more credence to half.com, they bought them out. Then shortly thereafter, suddenly founder and president Josh Kopelman leaves half.com leaving the position now vacant. Ever wonder why he left? Well, you will see lots of stories why, but all one needs to do is think about it. Bought out, paid handsomely and perhaps knowing of ebays intentions and future, would you want to stick around to see the company you created destroyed? Which brings me to my most recent conversation with a contact I have within the Presidents Office over at ebay. The whitewash story is that they are trying to make an integration of half.com into a big and better ebay. They are trying to make accommodations over there for the thousands of half.com sellers who have built up their business and are not being left high and dry with tons of inventory. In my conversations with my contact at ebay, it was revealed to me that the only reason that half.com was being dismantled was because it was only this past year that half had started to turn a profit albeit a small one and this is something that ebay could and would not accept. They would rather not house a cash cow. The story turns out to be, that again, this was Ebays intent all along. They weren't happy with the loss of revenue brought about by half.coms existence, so again, as in the Paypal scenario, eliminated the competition. Ebay works on many levels in a successful manner. They are very popular and far exceed any revenue their next highest leading competitor, Yahoo Auctions, can muster up. Yet, the thing , speaking as a half.com seller, that works for me, is the ease and reliability of how their formula worked. I list an item for free, it sells and half takes their cut and sends me the rest bi-monthly directly deposited to my bank account. Nothing could be more simpler and expeditious. Yes, it still was a lot of work on my part, buying new inventory, evaluating and listing, and filling the hundreds of order per week, but it was satisfying, economically rewarding and fun at the same time. With ebay, you list, if it doesn't sell you re-list (and pay again) and then when it does sell, make the arrangements for payment etc. etc. and the cycle begins over and over again. Consider this. You have say 2000 pieces in your inventory. You list each one, no small feat by any stretch of the imagination and you have 7 days hoping that it will sell in that period of time. If it doesn't, well, ebay has their cut already. You'd be amazed to find out that wall over 50 per cent of listings on ebay do not sell at all. You then go back and re list again. Imagine having to do this 2000 times per week! The amount of work is staggering. Then going back and figuring out what was sold , what wasn't,what needed to be re listed, coordinating and keeping track of who ordered what, which quick way could postage be generated by the many different ways an address would be supplied to you. No uniformity whatsoever as was presented when you used half.com. An email would come into your email client, you simply find the item in your stock, cut and paste the address into stamps.com software, print , place postage on envelope and you're done. I could do this at a rate of perhaps a hundred orders per hour. I defy any ebay seller to move that quickly. Can't be done. Their is no uniformity. Emails come in a a variety of different manners depending solely on how the buyer is used to taking care of purchases. Some contact you right away after auction, some not so soon, and some not at all. Then depending on how they pay you, Paypal, money orders, check, Bidpoint, the choices are limitless. Well, you can imagine the confusion that could arise with sellers who offer the type of content such as cds, dvds, book etc. Who bought what, where to send, who paid, who didn't yet, who needs to be reminded. All of this is automated at half. You sell an item, you know that the item has already been paid for. You confirm, and the total minus fees are automatically placed into your half.com account. All I had to do was fill orders and confirm. With ebay, you have to be accountant, shipper, customer service and much much more. Let's face it, their is no efficient way to do what we do at ebay. The work would be multiplied greatly and the profits would be much smaller. Making it only a fools game. What we need to do, is first wise up and not trust or believe that Eaby is this great service who only has their customers interest at heart. Greed is the only motivating factor here and to protect ourselves we need to fight back. We need to let Ebay know that we can and will not accept the lies and the manipulation. The only ones benefiting from half.coms demise is ebay itself. Certainly it is not us. When I heard the news, I cried. I am devastated that my sole source of income has in one quick decision, been eliminated. Not only will it leave me with thousands of dollars of inventory and equipment that I heavily invested in and thus have to be liquidated at greatly reduced discounts, it has me afraid of the future. My future, my familys future. I'm recently married, four months, now I don't know what I'm going to do .One thought is to sue ebay. To try and force some kind of injunction to prevent them from closing down half.com. Another is to try to convince to Ebay that they are making a great mistake that will affect thousands of peoples lives and offer suggestions to improve the service so that it won't cause ebay to lose money. I doubt very much any suggestions that I had would even be considered. . The last was to figure out a way, now that there will be a large hole left by half's absence, to start a new half.com under a different name of course but offering the same services. I don't know if the rumors are true how ebay was sued or threatened for using the same type of copyrighted formula patented by another, but I find it hard to believe that anyone can Patent a formula for selling. Sears certainly can't Sue K-Mart for having "sales" . Blockbuster can't sue other stores from renting videos thus patenting the idea of rentals. Patents for such things shouldn't be issued. All in all though, we need to fight. We can't just allow these things to happen because companies with more money than God make it so. We are human beings. We breathe , we cry, we bleed and we suffer. Ebay needs to take heed of the Microsoft haters of the world. Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last ten years, you know how many people have a great disdain for Billy and his "take over the world" company. How many times do they have to be sued and go in and out of courts before they realize that they are not the center of the universe. Ebay is quickly becoming that same type of company. They do not own the Internet . To me, the Internet is owned by the people, not big business, and it should remain that way. Any comments? Any ideas or suggestions? Are you a programer and think you can create a similar or better working formula than half.com? Let's talk. Let's create the marketplace that will not only give ebay a run for their money, we can make it a place that can be seen as the prime example of how people don't give up on their dreams and let big business run and destroy their lives. Let's show the world that we can make a difference, because if we can't, if we don't we have nothing left to call our own. Write to me. Let me know you are listening and agree and let me know that you care. Let's do this together and WIN!!!!

Gary - sorry to read of your business being affected by this pending move. Hopefully between now and the time half.com bites it you can come up with another online solution that will keep you running along.

In our eBay auction selling we haven't experienced the "more than 50% of listings" don't sell phenomenon that you described. We haven't sold a ton of items either, though, so maybe the numbers/percentages described in your comments pan out after a certain number of transactions.

As for half.com I checked them out a couple times as a customer and perhaps I didn't search for the right things because I didn't think the deals were all that great. There were good deals, as I remember, but nothing that was like some of the deals one can get on the right eBay auctions if they play things right. As for Amazon zshops, we've done some biz there and been happy.

Lastly, just a friendly unrelated observation: if you mix a carriage return in your comments from time to time then it will be easier to read.

Best of luck to you and your biz online :)

Gary, I have the impression there is a lot less ripping off going on on Half.com than on eBay. I've been recommending Half.com to new users of auction and auction type services mainly for that reason.

For one thing, big sellers did not have sweetheart deals to get their negatives removed as they do at eBay. Novices actually believe eBay's profile listings are true. That allows big sellers to get away with a lot. After all, they only need to play each new user for a sucker once.

Unfortunately, now that eBay owns PayPal, I fear its Microsoftication is well underway.

Gary, thanks for this - that's a lot of great "inside" info that helps fill out the details of this odd situation. I really hope something turns out for the positive for you - perhaps the transition of Half into Ebay will turn up other opportunities for you.

I have noticed since Ebay took over Half that getting action taken on bad sellers is nearly impossible - just like it is on Ebay. What a shame. I've found myself stuck with several bad purchases in the past few months and it's taken many, many weeks to get the situations straightened out - *if* Half bothers to get involved.

In general, my experiences with Half are good. I really only have experience buying CDs, but most people have been honest about the condition of their goods. It's the few that weren't honest and sent irreparably damaged discs and the ensuing struggle to get my money back that soured me on Half. As a result, my spending there has indeed nose-dived as of lately. And I really loved finding something cheap and actually paying more for shipping than the actual disc. That's a bargain - but only if the disc works!

Hi,

Just reading the comments left by other people in reference to Half.com being shut down. I sell on Ebay and on Half.com.

Most of the books listed on Half.com will never get sold on Ebay. Besides I would never pay 30 cents to list a 75 cent book. I have about 600 books listed right now on half.com and deciding what to do with my inventory of my listed books and my 1500 other books that still have to be listed. I am hoping someone will come to the rescue and either start a similar business or maybe there is another one out there that is similar to Half.com.

I did find this business that looks similar but I need to research it more http://www.biblio.com/index.php

There is no way I will get an Ebay store or try to list all these books on Ebay!!!!

This is horrible that ebay will be shutting down half.com. For me I like the fixed price format, and the ability to list and only pay once my iutem is sold. I dont like being charged if my item does not sell in a week. Once half.com is shut down, I think I'll buy and sell used merchandise on amazon.com. They also have a market place very similiar to half.com. Amazon is smart. They see the need to a auction site and a fixed prices site.

I sell on both. They each have their strengths. It will be a shame to lose Half.com Ebay is offering a store where items can sit indefinitely. Only the store account costs $9.95 per month - that's $120 per year, plus a monthly fee for every item listed in the store. And that's assuming nothing sells, because there's another fee for every item sold. That just won't do for me. If anyone finds an alternative, PLEASE share it here.

i used to be signed up for amazon.coms used bookselling, but i didnt get many sales with it so i gave it up. that was a few years ago, im going to look into it again. the only problem is that half.com and ebay are both so well known, that they will get all the hits over amazon or biblio...

As an evil capitalist, I like Ebay, though I think their business practices are anti-cometitive, and anti-consumer.

If you have an issue with what they do, try finding a number to call them or e-mail them.

They are a 800 pound gorillla and do pretty much what they want.