VIC-20: A common eBay item?

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sun May 08, 2005 3:22 am

Despite local competition from established sites like Tradera and QXL, eBay has since one or a few weeks ago finally opened a Swedish(1)edition: http://www.ebay.se. We'll see if eBay can make an impact.

And among the first batch of items, what do we find if not a broken VIC-20? No bids with four days to go, maybe something for one of the Stockholm based members?

http://www.ebay.se/viItem?ItemId=6766528525

(1) Compared to their previous, differently layouted, almost pathetic Ebaysweden site which did not accept the Swedish currency despite being the native currency to both buyers and sellers..

Boray · Post by **Boray** » Sun May 08, 2005 4:53 am

Intresting! Thanks!

/Anders

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun May 08, 2005 8:09 am

Considering the number of Swedes on the internet, ebay should have done this years ago before the competition got a foothold!

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sun May 08, 2005 10:13 am

Maybe even a common Scandinavian/Nordic trading place, if Sweden alone is too small. On the other hand, in population comparable countries like Austria, Belgium and Switzerland they have been around for a while, despite also having sites in Germany, Holland and France. Anyway, now it is running and maybe the market is big enough for two or three auction sites.

What I think is interesting about eBay is that they seem to have different categorization and subcategories from country to country. Maybe it depends on which kind of items are traded, but one would assume that most people around the world have the same needs to buy and sell things.

As an interesting side note is that currently they have no C64, Spectrum or Amiga items, only this VIC-20.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Sun May 08, 2005 12:14 pm

Legality may be the issue. Some items may not be legal from country to country. I know slot machines and other gambling items are not legal is certain american states. Perhaps legal restraints kept ebay out of Sweden so long.

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Sun May 08, 2005 1:28 pm

To illustrate what I meant, here is an example.

On ebay.com, you expect to find VIC-20 stuff in either of those groups(among other places):

Computers & Networking > Vintage Computing Products > Commodore
Video Games > Systems > Commodore
Video Games > Games > Commodore
Video Games > Accessories > Commodore

On ebay.co.uk however, I can only find two relevant groups:

Computing > Vintage Computing
PC & Video Gaming > Vintage Gaming > Commodore

On ebay.de, you have the following groups:

PC- & Videospiele > Konsolen > Commodore
PC- & Videospiele > PC- & Videospiele > Commodore
PC- & Videospiele > Zubehör > Commodore
Computer > Klassische Computer > VC-20
Computer > Klassische Computer > Commodore

The latter even has three sub-categories for hardware, accessories and other. I know some of this may be cross-listing for people who don't know where to look, but to me it looks like US and German Commodore dealers have more reason to fine tune their auctions than those pesky UK people who only play ZX Spectrum anyway..

For comparison, on the newly opened Swedish eBay site, they currently are listing all kinds of computers, video games, HIFI equipment, DVD players and other stuff in one big master category. Within each subcategory, there is zero further detail, so XBOX and VIC-20 will appear side by side. Of course it can change by time, but I would have thought that they learned what kind of categories they need to break down into.

Post by **Jeff-20** » Tue May 10, 2005 8:53 pm

very observant. I mostly just use the search features so I hardly notice the subdivisions. I had assumed most people do the same.