Advantages
- Convenience meaning you can buy and sell items online, meaning that you can find virtually any product you want from an auction site, right from a computer.
- Low prices of items on auction sites, which gives buyers a chance to save money. A merchandise worth £100 can be sold at less than £10.
- Consumers will gain self-assurance as they participate.
- Allows the consumer to check the merchandise out before purchasing it.
Disadvantages
- Potential fraud - These days, bidders are still potentially at risk for being conned out of their money. They can bid, win and pay for their item and stand the chance of not receiving it. This can cause the seller to get a bad online reputation.
- Time Limits – some online auction have time limits Sometimes the bidding time is restricted to a couple of minutes or hours which may be insufficient depending on the product.
- Hackers – They can obtain your personal details and spend money from your credit card.
- Unreliable- Sometimes the product image may look good quality but when you receive it, it’s not what you expected giving false information saying that “it’s in good condition” when in reality it’s not. This leads to bad feedback on that particular seller.
Possible enhancements
Consumers should be able to eliminate any item they have up for sale at any time, provided that no offers have yet to be placed. There need to be options on sorting items in the completed tab. If we could sort by date sold, name of item, type of item and gold amount it would make it much easier to keep track of what is going on. There needs to be a system that prevents "sniping" (the practice of placing a last second bid).
Fitness for purpose
Online auctions purpose is to allow consumers to sell and buy merchandise of the internet whenever they feel like which in my opinion it does meet its purpose. Not all goods are sold quickly they surely do take time and can take up to several days for people to bid.
- Convenience meaning you can buy and sell items online, meaning that you can find virtually any product you want from an auction site, right from a computer.
- Low prices of items on auction sites, which gives buyers a chance to save money. A merchandise worth £100 can be sold at less than £10.
- Consumers will gain self-assurance as they participate.
- Allows the consumer to check the merchandise out before purchasing it.
Disadvantages
- Potential fraud - These days, bidders are still potentially at risk for being conned out of their money. They can bid, win and pay for their item and stand the chance of not receiving it. This can cause the seller to get a bad online reputation.
- Time Limits – some online auction have time limits Sometimes the bidding time is restricted to a couple of minutes or hours which may be insufficient depending on the product.
- Hackers – They can obtain your personal details and spend money from your credit card.
- Unreliable- Sometimes the product image may look good quality but when you receive it, it’s not what you expected giving false information saying that “it’s in good condition” when in reality it’s not. This leads to bad feedback on that particular seller.
Possible enhancements
Consumers should be able to eliminate any item they have up for sale at any time, provided that no offers have yet to be placed. There need to be options on sorting items in the completed tab. If we could sort by date sold, name of item, type of item and gold amount it would make it much easier to keep track of what is going on. There needs to be a system that prevents "sniping" (the practice of placing a last second bid).
Fitness for purpose
Online auctions purpose is to allow consumers to sell and buy merchandise of the internet whenever they feel like which in my opinion it does meet its purpose. Not all goods are sold quickly they surely do take time and can take up to several days for people to bid.