Ebay and used product marketplaces.

[Chaosolous]

Does anyone here use them?

If so, what has your experience been, are the products usually quality?

[Sir Seanicus, Esq.]

Onlyfans

[Pocahawtness]

I use ebay a lot, but you have to take care. They allow anyone to sell, so there are good and bad sellers and good and bad products. You really have to know what you are buying if you don't want to get ripped off.

[CinnamonApples]

ebay, but only for stuff you cant buy new

[Vox]

eBay, thankfully most of my purchases have been as described.

[Crazy Tiger]

Never Ebay, but I've used one, yes. Always made the appointments to check the items before forking over money.

[TWPanda77]

I use ebay for some physical games and it is usually for older consoles. I am careful and always read the listing and look closely at the photographs. I will not bid on a listing with stock photographs and also not from sellers with a lot of negative feedback.

[kilésengati]

Greatly depends on the site and whether you are a buyer or seller.

You can still get screwed even if you use your brain and buyer's/seller's protection, but Ebay is the first C2C e-commerce site around and it shows they have the longest experience at that. From my experience: Many features, relatively transparent, good customer service. But I've heard some stories and thus think Ebay's system might put sellers at a disadvantage.

But compared to Ebay, small-ad sites like Craigslist and Kleinanzeigen are always a bit of gamble and sales on there often drag along or fall flat entirely, because half the people either lack enthusiasm or are a wee paranoid. Can't blame them, there are little to no safeguards in place on those sites.
Well, I could go on a rant about Kleinanzeigen, but to cut it short: The only reason I still use that steaming pile of a website occasionally is because it developed into the major platform to trade used music gear back when it was still owned by Ebay, when it was actually pretty decent. Imho, it didn't changed for the better. Unfortunately, people keep trading their gear on there and the prices people are asking for on Ebay are more often than not simply insane.

I find Allegro similar to Ebay, but it doesn't seem to have as many features and appears to be a bit rough around the edges. Also more focused on B2C. Well, at least their small-ads spinoff is still pretty decent for what it is.

I've never used Alibaba, as the useful stuff is only B2B and their B2C/C2C platform is filled with tad to the brim.

Amazon's C2C features and that of many other online retailers that usually do B2C and B2B seem very tacked-on and rather intransparent. I don't like them.

Some people apparently still conduct business through specialised forums. That certainly still is one way to sell and buy stuff. I suppose you need a lot of trust in the world to do that.

Don't know much about other platforms.


In general:

If an offer is too good to be true: You are gambling.
If someone starts playing games: Don't play with them.

Most importantly: Keep a cool head, sit on your hands and make informed choices.


Iirc, someone once actually managed to snatch a Porsche for 1€ at an auction, but then a legal battle insued. He eventually got the Porsche, but were the grey hairs really worth it?
On the other hand, someone made a decimal error when making a purchase offer and got screwed as well. Big oopsie!
Those are extreme examples, but good tales of caution. Always keep that in mind.