General > General Technical Chat
Why can't I find anything interesting on eBay anymore?
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DiTBho:
So 10 years ago, typing in "evaluation board" followed by your vintage CPU/MPU of interest, the search engine usually returned a fantastic list of cool stuff for sale

- full kits
- books & paper datasheet
- debuggers

and it was great to type the code name of the niche development board like "YellowKnife", one of the things that have sold no more than 5000 units worldwide, and to see that, despite the rarity of super niche, eBay was still able to return listings!

And if eBay didn't return anything in the day, it was enough to wait a couple of days, at most a week, and you'd be satisfied!

What happens today?

if I type "IDT evaulation board" ... if I type "Malta evs" ... if I type "MIPS" ... why have I not seen anything for months and months?

If I type in parts of the road bike, they pity me ... like 160 USD for a water bottle??? that is not even thermal??? 400 UKP for a NOS crank set that is not even rare?!?

What is happening to eBay???  :-//
artag:
Every time they change the presentation of related items that they apparently want to sell me, they are less successful. Typically the 4 rows of items contain several repeats, several things I've just rejected, and occasionally one or two new items that I hadn't seen yet.

Apparently I'm not the sort of customer they want.

My best hits are usually found by looking at the 'other items' of sellers who had something mildly interesting. ebay never show me these unprompted, but they love to waste my time by duplicating entries in the lists.

It's time for an alternative. People would jump at something like the old ebay.

One thing though - I never sell there any more, too much risk of getting scammed. I guess a lot of the people I want to buy from think the same.

SiliconWizard:
When eBay's business was still primarily auctions, we could find all kinds of used/vintage/hard to find equipment.

Since it's been trying to become just a giant selling platform like Amazon, we get just a bunch of crap at now outrageous prices, and auctions seem to have become just a distraction for them now.

I've still bought CPUs and ECC RAM from decommissioned servers on eBay recently (most recent was fully working 128GB of DDR4 ECC RAM for about 120 EUR!), but otherwise I practically don't use it anymore.
DiTBho:
Alternatives to buy vintage CPUs/MPUs/DSPs and eval boards?
I've always wanted an IDT MIPS R2K evaluation board (1989)
jpanhalt:
Have you tried contacting eBay about that?  Don't waste your time.  No chat, no email, no phone are available to us gullible soon-to-be ex-buyers.  In other words, there is no way to communicate or even create a record other than with the seller.

Recent experience:
I very rarely return stuff.  Most recently, I bought a 1.5 kW VFD made in China with dealer in USA (California).  On the same day, I discovered the 2.2 kW version was available from same dealer at about the same price.  It was too late to cancel.  Dealer said to just return the 1.5 kW unit ("buyer pays return shipping").  I got the items quickly, and both were shipped from a warehouse in nearby NJ.  So I processed a return.  Package weighed less than 2 pounds, and retail USPS shipping to the NJ warehouse was about $10.50.  eBay wanted $67.57.  To me, a "return" means return to the shipping point.  The eBay price was apparently for return to China, but I have no way to confirm that without printing the label.  That's freight forwarding in my lexicon.  Fortunately, the seller has a location in California for me to ship to, which was only a couple of dollars more.

I have tried to contact eBay to explain, but only get their splash pages for buyers.  This is an evolving story.  If eBay still charges me $67.57 deducted from my refund, I anticipate further problems.  I can't fault the dealer.  I have bought from it in the past, and its service and communications are great.
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