eBay: The good ol days

shagrotn77

As someone who's been an eBay member for almost 20 years now, I've seen a lot of changes over the years (seems like every new one they make is for the worse...but I digress). I thought it would be fun to take a look back at how eBay was in its infancy vs. today:

• You used to be able to leave feedback for ANYONE. So the first few feedbacks for people who joined in the late 90's were mostly family and friends
• There was no PayPal. You would send a check or money order and keep your fingers crossed
• You could see full bidder IDs on every item
• You could leave feedback for bidders
• Your email address could be your user name
• Seller fees were quite reasonable
• Fraud was rare
• eBay actually monitored and enforced shill bidding (rather than encouraging it like they do now)

I think you could bid on your own items in the beginning, too, but I obviously never did this so I don't know for sure. Chime in if you can think of anything else that's changed over the years.

dontippet

Yes, you certainly could bid on your own items. This was definitely before "Buy It Now" and probably before you could have a reserve price.

In the real early days, 1995ish, on the main page, they bragged on how many items and dollar volume they had done total on ebay, not just at that moment. The total of all ebay sales ever was well under $200,000.

waxman2745

@shagrotn77 said:

• There was no PayPal. You would send a check or money order and keep your fingers crossed

This

waxman2745

Some sellers (NESC was one) would say no PayPal for orders over $500, check or money order only

originalisbest

I remember starting out on eBay and being able to leave feedback for anyone for any reason, no silly transactions required! A friend and I left glowing endorsements for one another. I also remember going to the Post Office to drop off packages and get money orders by the handful.

Dand522612

Money orders ship immediately. Personal checks 7-10 day hold. So many auctions without even a picture!!!!

dontippet

Stamps was one of the biggest, if not the biggest, categories. It was very easy to review all of the new stamps auctions every day.

braddick

Beanie Babies were big seller too.
I started out using WebTV and thought I'd really hit the big time when I used a scanner to upload a photo.

galaxy27

i sure miss the days of drilling an unscrupulous buyer where it hurts most. now they can fleece a seller if they opt to and make them enjoy it.

what an exceptionally intellectual decision that was by the bay

PSARich

I just remember how exciting it was to be able to view and buy sports cards in an environment outside of the card shows and card shops. So many options that were not available before. However, back then grading was still in its infancy so most of what was available were ungraded cards that you couldn't check out in person. Therefore you had to be careful because of the liberal descriptions from the sellers and the scans were not of the quality we have today.

tonylags

Yeah, back than almost all auctions sold and sold fair for both buyer and seller, especially those .99 ones; recently I ran one with 676 items of which approximately 140 received bids and sold, not to mention with free shipping. Oh yeah, I took a bath on quite a few items.

swish54

First there was no tracking on packages, then it was in a disclaimer written by the seller that if you didn't pay extra for it and your item was lost/damaged it was on you being cheap.

seebelow

about what year did ebay start getting really active?
awesome recollections

jfkheat

I remember when Paypal first started. There were no Payapl fees and they paid you $5 to join. Ebay fees were 3%. I joined Ebay in May 1998.
James

coinspacks

I remember having to use a photo hosting website and do the HTML code to get my picture on eBay.

I used angelfire

OddRodz

Joined Jan 2, 2000. I totally freaked out. Agree with those above about another place to find things.

Unfortunately by the end of that day, I had purchased over 20 Jose Canseco on card Starting Lineups. I went nuts. literally nuts. Recall bidding on one, then seeing another,, and another and another and it was friggin endless. I had the world of Jose Canseco Starting Lineups at my fingertips. They were MINE.. ALL MINE.. so easily !!!

Of the 20+ Jose Canseco Starting Lineups purchased, paid by MO, I recall getting 13 of them. The rest .. well. I simply sent money ferr nuttin'.. but the chicks weren't free.

I wish I had invented ebay. That would be cool.

tonylags

They didn't limit your listings; in the early days I used to get emails all the time for list 20k-50k items for a .01 each, etc. They encouraged more listings

originalisbest

@Dand522612 said:
Money orders ship immediately. Personal checks 7-10 day hold. So many auctions without even a picture!!!!

LOL, I remember the pictureless auctions! Like a paper classified brought to my glowing monitor. LOL

originalisbest

@seebelow said:
about what year did ebay start getting really active?
awesome recollections

I joined in 1998, but it had been around a little while, I think I first heard of it in 1995/6?

addicted2ebay

Fraud was rare

O buyer protection my man it was not rare.

People were on tv court shows all the time over ebay fraud

tonylags

back than ebay & police cared; I bought a collection of several thousand cards in Arizona {I am in PA}, they never shipped item and had cashed my check. I filed charges at my local police, who called the Arizona PO and they Arizona PO had the person picked up. They picked up the person, told them they committed internet fraud, and gave them a week to send my cards. Needless to say, cards were finally shipped to me although when they arrived they were all 88-92 commons, maybe with a few 70's mixed in, stars were all bent in half. Wasn't the collection I bought, but since cards were shipped nothing else could be done.

prgsdw

When I joined eBay (June 1996) it wasn't yet called eBay. It was called AuctionWeb. LOL Great thread!
I used to upgrade my computer once or twice a year with parts from local computer shows. I remember the first things I sold on AuctionWeb (a motherboard, CPU and CPU fan) - sold for more than I had paid for them... Those were the days...

seablaster

@swish54 said:
First there was no tracking on packages, then it was in a disclaimer written by the seller that if you didn't pay extra for it and your item was lost/damaged it was on you being cheap.

This.

I remember $50 worth of insurance was $0.75 and damn near every seller had this disclaimer.

Brick

I remember knowing who you were bidding against. There were those who simply didn't know when to quit. When I was against them I usually dropped out before I would end up with winners regret.

seebelow

think i bought my first item in 2000-01.....recall a lot of other "auction houses" competing...any names of them that u remember?????.....the internet boom...redhat, etc

Dand522612

Teletrade was one I remember winning a few items from them sight unseen

@seebelow said:
think i bought my first item in 2000-01.....recall a lot of other "auction houses" competing...any names of them that u remember?????.....the internet boom...redhat, etc

FirstBeard

@Brick said:
I remember knowing who you were bidding against. There were those who simply didn't know when to quit. When I was against them I usually dropped out before I would end up with winners regret.

Joined in 1998, but was active on parents account in 1997. Knowing who was bidding on what was huge and actually a great tool not only for bidding strategies, but also for meeting likeminded collectors and finding other cool items/categories by searching their histories. Actually met some really cool people in the early days who were very willing to share knowledge and information.

This biggest mistake they made was buy-it-now. They totally took the magic out of what made the site so great to begin with.

jsanz

Ah the good ol days of ebay. I joined in Jan 2000.

-I still remember selling what I had left of my collection from late 80's-early 90's. I thought ebay would never last. It seemed crazy that people would send me money in the mail for cards based on trust and feedback. I was so happy to have a place to sell cards again. I used to do shows. I got rid of everything just in case ebay disappeared.
-After I realized ebay was for real I got the bug again and started buying and selling on ebay 2002-2005-ish. It was easy in those days to find something on ebay and flip it on ebay to make a nice little profit. I should have stuck with it and made it a real business.

I still sell on ebay for a totally different (non cards) business but it's tough to squeeze out a profit. It was very fair for both sides years ago. Now it seems titled in favor of the buyers and some take advantage of that. I like to say now that my goal on ebay is not to sell on ebay.

dontippet

Before ebay, I remember selling through Prodigy discussion boards in '91 and '92.

shagrotn77

@Dand522612 said:
Teletrade was one I remember winning a few items from them sight unseen

@seebelow said:
think i bought my first item in 2000-01.....recall a lot of other "auction houses" competing...any names of them that u remember?????.....the internet boom...redhat, etc

Ah, Teletrade. I used to buy from them and immediately flip for a profit on eBay practically on a weekly basis. I miss the days when you could find deals. Nowadays, nothing goes too low due to too many eyeballs or artificial inflation of bids.

SpinFadeSplash23

I remember running live auctions on AOL message boards. Good times.

garnettstyle

I bought cards from teletrade in the late 90's. Joined ebay in 2000. I miss the money order days. Didn't have to worry about buyers pulling paypal scams.

Dand522612

Teletradre always had the auction info in the SCD as an insert. Loved memorizing every ad in that ink laden behemoth of a “magazine” my fingers were black after reading. Guess I’m getting old...

59Horsehide

Been on ebay since March, 1997. When I first looked at baseball cards, they all fit on three pages or so with very few pictures to view.

Frozencaribou

I joined in 1998, and couldn't believe I could buy just about every single hockey card I had ever wanted in a matter of weeks. I bought a lot of really stupid stuff, looking back on it. My account was hacked in 2002 so I had to restart my eBay account, but the "about me" page associated with my hacked account was accessible through google searches for years afterward. That was a good lesson about the longevity of meaningless internet posts (such as this one).

brendanb438

Dec 12th 1997 is my join date. Damn those were the good ole days of eBay. I made some serious money that first year being 15, working at McDonalds and having a manager that let me buy all the Beanie Babies from the first series that I could to turn around and flip as sets on eBay at some crazy marked up price. I paid for my first car at 16 off of this.

brendanb438

Remember pretty much anything could be sold on eBay also. Nothing was taboo.

shagrotn77

@brendanb438 said:
Remember pretty much anything could be sold on eBay also. Nothing was taboo.

People used to sell used underwear on eBay. True story.

Allen

So many sellers used PWE shipping.

jay0791

"People used to sell used underwear on eBay" Yes thank you for buying that underwear.

I used to sell that underwear as concert worn Mick Jagger Hanes 20 years ago.
Now I sell his concert worn depends.

Selling Human hair was also big. Napoleon. G Washington...ect Now anything remotely like that is forbidden.

Back then you could see and contact anyone. I remember contacting 2nd place bidders and offering the same thing for less. I remember winning cards and being contacted by the under bidder to sell.

I remember being taken by a $1500 item and never receiving it. Back then ebay was useless and often had no recourse to do anything. I was contacted by 2 different police departments and still nothing can be done against a foreign scammer.
I remember buying a psa 8 1964 George Blanda RC from sundiegocollectibles and never receiving it and take their B.S. about filing insurance that they never did.
I remember buying $1500.00 worth of cards from DSLsports in California and never receiving them (again listening to piles of (B.S.) So now with buyer protection that has certainly helped. However, it has allowed a new generation of scammers to run wild on ebay

As a new way to sell stuff I sold cards I wished I never had. Local dealers would give you 10% (many still do) so a way to get more on ebay was welcome.

I remember seeing a psa 9 1955 Bowman Mike McCormack for $300 and saying, "who would be stupid enough to spend that much on a card." Unfortunately I'm not that stupid.

ElvisP

I joined in 1998. My total sales are over $350k now, of course I have none of that and probably spent $450k. Still wish I had bought that '61-62 Fleer basketball wax box for $15,000.

mrmopar

The best part of early eBay for me (early 1998 is when I joined) was opening up the world to your wantlists. So many cards that you could find that you'd never seen locally. Many deals to be had too and the thrill of the auction win. Now so many items start out as fixed price listing, often too high to bother with. There are still some finds, but it is mostly a garbage dumping ground and a way to sell box breaks and the newest issues as everyone races to land the newest pulls before they dry up forever.

Dodgerfanjohn

First for me not buying in a card shop was Howard’s in Ohio....they might have actually been a stamp shop or something. I remember their cards arriving and being the first cards I’d ever seen actually accurately graded. They had a catalog every month and you had to mail in or call to get the cards.

Then like others, I used teletrade a bit.

Then eBay I think in 2000 and that was the definitive game changer. First time I ever sold any of my cards. I had a fleer auto I pulled of a prospect at that time and was so happy when it sold for $30 or so.