Wednesday, August 03, 2005

 

eBay is really smart

Here is a clever business tactic.

Jax

"Last month, I wrote that small is the new big. More demonstration of it: eBay is fast becoming one of the largest employers in America. Of course, it hardly employs anyone, but it enables a lot of people to employ themselves and run their own businesses: 724,000 people are using it as their full- or part-time employment, up 68 percent from a year go; another 1.5 million use it to supplement their income. Walmart is America's largest employer with 1.1 million workers. Sure, the eBay-self-employed don't have Walmart's crappy benefits and uniforms (if eBay were really smart, they'd institute group health insurance!) but all those folks are their own bosses. As industry gets bigger and bigger, small becomes more and more of an economic force."

Actually, as Jeff discovered, the eBay people are really smart, as they offer health benifits to their "Power Sellers" -- basically people who sell $1,000 or more a month and get good customer reviews. So thanks to eBay, you can have a job where you're your own boss, but you can still get the benefits of group-buying for health insurance. And lots of people do. I actually emailed the Amazon folks -- who have hundreds of thousands of "Associates" and "Afilliates" -- to ask if they were going to do the same thing, but the answer I got was rather vague and noncommittal. My guess is that if people care, market pressures will force Amazon to match eBay's offer. But there are already large (if undetermined) numbers of people making a living via Amazon, too. (Link)


# posted by Jacob @ 8/03/2005 02:38:00 p.m.
Digg!
Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?