Half.com / eBay Transition

May 22nd, 2004

I have been buying and selling on half.com for over 5 years, but this summer they will be closing the doors. Mike Aufricht, VP and General Manager of Half.com spelled it out at the Towhall Forum,

"On July 13, 2004 buyers and sellers will no longer be able to transact on Half.com. Up until July 13, you will be able to list and transact on Half as you do today. On July 13, new user registration will end, inventory will not be able to be loaded on the site and users coming to Half.com will be redirected to eBay. Half will continue to exist as a redirect as long as buyers are coming to Half.com, so we can hold onto as many of them as possible. You will, however, be able to access the "My Account" section of Half.com until October 13, 2004."

Ebay is now beginning to fold many half.com features into its system, such as Pre-Filled Item Information, a Fixed-Price Selling Format, and eBay Stores, and is urging sellers to move their inventories over to eBay. However, I am not convinced that the features will fully replace the convenience of selling at half.com.

What I loved as a seller at half.com was the ability get rid of all of my old VHS tapes, CDs, and books that are taking up space in my closet with very little effort or expense. I listed many items years ago and very slowly they've been sold. eBay charges a listing fee which must continually be re-paid if an item does not sell. On low-priced items that have taken years to sell, this fee would have added up making it financially impossible for me to make even the slightest profit. As such I've gone through and lowered all of the prices on all of my listings at half.com, and the sales are starting to pick up.

I hope to be able to unload the rest of my stuff before the July 13th deadline, so I may even drop the prices again. I'll keep you posted.

Comments

  1. Mom
    May 26, 2004 11:22 PM

    I'm glad you got your stuff sold before they sold.
    Sounds like you're losing a good friend!

Comments

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