Dan Rutter applies the lesson of George Akerlof’s used-car classic “The Market for Lemons” to the endless mountains of crap on eBay. He explains why certain products there, such as memory cards and power supplies, are doomed to be in poor nick: because most consumers don’t know and can’t tell the difference between a good one and a bad one.
“An awful lot of markets these days have a very strong lemon scent,” Rutter writes. “There’s almost always someone willing to sell garbage, and there’s often also the critical “quality uncertainty” among buyers.”
So on eBay, where it’s impossible to verify the quality of a product, sloppy counterfeits and damaged stock inexorably drive out quality merchandise. One specific: most 500W power supplies sold there can only handle a 200W load.
Lemon-fresh power supplies [Dan's Data]
I bought a hard disk case on eBay once.
When it came to me, I realized it wasn’t going to be useful to me, ‘cos they advertised it as SATA, when it was a IDE casing…
I’ve never used eBay to buy electronic apparel since, just to buy used music or rare singles.
On the other hand, my boyfriend got to buy a good camera, pretty cheap and pretty useful.
eBay / PayPal has a rather powerful and streamlined anti-fraud process, since exactly this sort of behavior would undermine their business model. (Lack of such sophistication was the basis of the criticisms against Google rolling out their Checkout service.) Just make sure your purchase is below the insurance PayPal offers from that seller ($200 or $2000, depending) and you’re certain to get your money back if the item is not as advertised (such as a 200W power supply sold as a 500W one).
I’ve used eBay consistently since the 1990s when people would jokingly try to auction the Ark of the Covenant, and I’ve only ever had two problems. Once someone never delivered the item, and PayPal refunded my money. Once someone sent me a damaged printer tray, and when I called up the seller they quickly replaced it with a new one.
Warning people about fraud / lemons is a legitimate and necessary part of the caveat emptor process or markets, but don’t get the impression that most people are trying to rip you off. As long as you carefully read the item listing, you’re highly likely to get exactly what you bid for.
p.s. eBay’s new page layout is annoying as all fuck.
It’s not really an issue of fraud policies, though. The problem is that most buyers would never realize they got a 200W power supply to begin with. A lemon is either good enough for their undemanding needs, or only fails under circumstances where they can’t identify it as the source of the problem — and the nature of eBay is conducive to a “lemon market” of this sort.
I understand the logic of slamming eBay for stuff like this, but as an eBay buyer and seller since 1998 I must say they have really gone out of their way nowadays to make it easier to report junk like this.
And I honestly don’t see it any worse than local PC sellers over-pricing cheap/outdated parts to buyers. There’s a place a few blocks down from me that does a brisk business selling out-dated crap.
You know what the real issue is? Despite the fact that technology is cheaper than ever and better quality, there is an intrinsic human instinct to “hunt” for something better.
Nowadays you don’t need to hunt. Most consumers need to understand that.
Also, now that I think about it, who would ever buy a component like a power supply and not know the details or do research? A full blown machine, yeah that makes sense. But a power supply?
Hmm… does this line of inquiry extend to, say, Monster Cable?
Heh. I’ve bought maybe 15 things on ebay, and as it turns out a 500W power supply was one of them. I think I got it for $15, yet it has worked flawlessly for years. Guess I got one of the lucky ones.