Science Addiction

While eBay has offered fixed price sales under its Half.com banner for many years, for the first time eBay has announced eBay Express, which allows buyers to buy an item without the auction process. It also features a single shopping cart and check out process for items bought from multiple sellers.

This puts them up in direct competition with similar services from “Amazon”:http://www.amazon.com and to a certain extent, from Google (with “Base”:http://base.google.com and “Froogle”:http://froogle.google.com). I’ve used Half for years now and actually prefer it over the auction format because some things are not always in demand. Sales that are not time-dependent (unlike auctions, which are) allow you to have something for sale for a long time; so a potential buyer can find you days, months or years later if you still have that item for sale.