eBay's largest seller is (drum roll please): christopher1428! who goes by the moniker Chris Riggs for President.
Not what you were expecting, huh? You thought I was going to say buy.com or maybe a big auto dealer. Nope. Well, let me walk you through what is going on here and I promise you, it will blow your mind.
Chris consistently keeps about 200 listings live on eBay in his store at the $200-600 range which is probably what this art actually trades at in the real world. The genius move is Chris keeps 5-10 listings running of the same stuff he's selling at lower prices in the $10-30m range. For example:
- Here's a green drizzle piece. This can be yours for $21m
- Here's more of a comic kind of piece for... $21m (I bet you can get a bulk discount if you buy both)
Now of course, if someone is going to goof off on eBay, they look for expensive stuff and buy it, and don't pay. I can 99.999999999% guarantee you that chris has never sold a $21m painting (meaning someone paid), but on eBay it's a regular occurrence for someone to 'commit to buy' one of these.
The UPIs are probably a pain for chris, but it does seem to drive a ton of traffic. A TON of traffic.
This has been going on for years....
I first noticed this (because of the top seller reports I maintain) that this wasn't really above board back in 2005 and thought it would be interesting to watch and see when/if eBay put a stop to it. Since then we've seen entire eBay regimes come and go, the feedback system changed constantly and new programs to raise the bar. We now have a money back guarantee and lots of other strides. But here's Chris, for 5 years now selling $21m paintings that nobody pays for. There's also a fair amount of blatant keyword spamming that he does, but I won't go into that.
My favorite part is that on many of the photos, Chris stealthily adds pictures that at first seem relevant (e.g. the first will be a close up), but then they degrade into party pictures and usually Chris or his friends are giving the finger. I'm sure after this eBay will take action, so I want to preserve some of these for posterity.
I've often wondered if this started out as a dare or a gag and they were shocked that a) the items weren't taken down and b) that people buy this stuff.
Whenever you see the top rated seller flag, that's me censoring out something in the photo you should go to eBay to see: (click these to enlarge) - remember, these are from LIVE eBay Listings! (as of 3/19/10)
(This last one is my favorite as it doesn't even have Chris in it (maybe that's his art back there), but check out the T-shirt on the guy on the left - the auction doesn't state if this offer is part of the auction or not - it seems to be $20 extra.)
Phew, that's enough of that - if you want more, Chris has a vibrant myspace page here.
What's your point?
As long as this kind of stuff is happening on eBay (and believe me, this is far from an isolated incident), eBay won't officially have solved their trust problems. All of the other changes are good and positive forward momentum, but they are lipstick on a pig (as we say here in NC) when you have flagrant things like this going on right under eBay's nose for the last 5+ yrs.
The eBay Seller's Tax and Legal Answer Book: Everything You Need to Know to Keep the Government Off Your Back and Out of Your Wallet
How to Buy, Sell, and Profit on eBay: Kick-Start Your Home-Based Business in Just Thirty Days
1000 Best eBay Success Secrets: Secrets From a Powerseller
Three Weeks to eBay Profits, Revised Edition: Go from Beginner to Successful Seller in Less than a Month (Three Weeks to Ebay Profits: Go from Beginner to Successful)
