Great deals or hidden scam?

February 19, 2010 - 11:27 AM by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Technology 

The courts have ruled that the service is legal, but it still leaves a muddled taste in my mouth. I’m talking about Free.co.il, a popular Israeli auction site that works more like the Lotto than eBay.

You can’t help but be drawn in by Free.co.il’s home page which promises a Sony Playstation for NIS 99, a MacBook Air for NIS 299, and even a brand new Mazda 3 for a steal at only NIS 899. Who wouldn’t want to play with deals like these?

At first, it would be hard to distinguish Free.co.il from a traditional eBay-style auction site: you place your bids on items for sale and the highest bidder within the auction’s time frame wins. Unlike eBay, though, you have to pay for your bids. The cost of each bid varies; for the MacBook, it’s NIS 20 (about $5). It’s higher for bigger ticket items.

So, let’s say you bid 20 times to win that MacBook. You’ll pay NIS 20 x 20 or NIS 400 ($105). Then you pay the price of the unit (NIS 299 or $80), plus shipping of NIS 75 ($20) written in tiny letters on a separate page you have to click to see). Your total cost: NIS 774 ($206). That’s still way less than the retail price of NIS 8,899 ($2,400) at Apple’s Tel Aviv outlet, but it’s not the NIS 299 that was initially advertised.

And what if you don’t win? Then you lose the NIS 400 entirely. That’s how Free.co.il can offer such low prices.

Still, if you place your bids right (and there is a whole section on “bidding strategies” on the site), and you’re willing to stick with it and spend hours aggressively placing last minute bets, you will win eventually (hopefully for an item you actually want). So, even if you wind up spending NIS 2,000 bidding on several items before winning one that’s valued at NIS 10,000, you’re still getting the product at an 80% discount.

There’s one other trick Free.co.il has up its digital sleeve. If two people bid the same amount, both bids are canceled. That means that the highest “unique” bid wins. You can see who’s placing what bids, their initials and even where they live, but not the amount they’re spending. So you never really know if your bid is being burned or not.

Free.co.il is entirely in Hebrew, but there’s a thriving market of overseas competitors. Is this a good business? Investors seem to think so. One of Free.co.il’s rivals, Swoopo, has raised an astonishing $14 million.

It’s certainly compelling – who wouldn’t want an iPhone at a tenth of the retail price – though I don’t think I’d have the stomach for it (I usually chicken out and click the “Buy it Now” button on eBay). And it peeves me that Free.co.il buries those hefty shipping fees in hard-to-find small print – it makes me wonder what else are they hiding.

But if you’re willing to play by the rules, and you enjoy the thrill of the game, Free.co.il could the 21st century version of “The Price is Right.” All we need now is our own Israeli version of Bob Barker.

Tags: , , , ,

Nostalgia Sunday – eBay Within Reach

October 11, 2009 - 11:31 PM by · 3 Comments
Filed under: General, Israeliness, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture 

The big dinner table discussion in recent weeks has been, “When is eBay actually coming to Israel”? And while we still await the long-promised opening of Israel’s second IKEA like the coming of the Messiah (it is taking that long) it looks like eBay could make Neiman’s Nostalgic Notions on the Net a reality in the near future.

And about time, too. Last April, Ynet reported that eBay had launched a Hebrew-language interface. But even before that, as one might well imagine, enterprising Israelis were buying and selling second- (and first-) hand wares over sites like Yad 2 — and eBay as well. (For more on that, read blogger Dudu Cohen’s article or watch this Channel 10 news item from last year. Both only in Hebrew, unfortunately).

The question in all cases: how to receive remuneration in the absence of a full-service electronic payment and fund transfer system. In other words, how does one get paid (Illuminea’s Miriam Shwab wrote an excellent blog posting at the time) and even more significantly, how does one pay the Israeli tax authorities their share? And don’t think they aren’t wondering the exact same thing.

Last month came big news when PayPal announced it was launching Israeli operations… er… more or less. According to Globes, “Although eBay has a Hebrew-language site eBay Israel with product prices listed in both dollars and shekels, as well as a search function for popular items, Israeli buyers have only limited options for paying through PayPal. They have to open an account using an international credit card, but they cannot withdraw money accumulated in the account because PayPal has no agreement with Israeli commercial banks.” Again, this will likely be resolved at least by the time that IKEA in Rishon LeZion opens its doors.

All this is simply a preface to the mind-blowing notion that we Israelis will finally be able to unload our old crap to make way for new crap, just like everyone else in the western world! Imagine how great it will be to be able to buy and sell the following:

A limited edition Coca Cola bottle with Hebrew lettering and a Star of David on the neck.
star_of_david_cola_bottle

A decorative metal bowl manufactured by the PalBell company, which operated in Tel Aviv from 1939 to 1956 and set the standard for kitschy Judaica from the Holy Land.
PalBel_platter

Sheet music featuring lovely Seventies songstress Ilanit… hmmm…wonder how much I can get for my copy!
Ilanit_sheet_music

Or this lacquer wall plate etched with a picture of an Israeli dancer. I’m pretty sure my Aunt Sarah had two of these hanging in her rec room.
black_enamel_Israeli_dance_platter

And I can’t wait to unload the boatload I’ve got of these things!
yemenite_turquoise_pin

Oh, there is no end to the fun we’ll have, once we open up our little eBay store in dot-C-O-dot-I-L-land. But seriously, for those who are sincerely motivated and interested in learning more about eBay in Israel, go to the eBay global site, and select “Israel” under the “Country” drop-down menu. There’s a User Group as well. Any number of Israeli companies have sprung up to give courses and sell books about how to make money on eBay but its probably best — and cheapest — to start with this series of YouTube videos, again in Hebrew only.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Site by illuminea | Sitemap