Remember the good old days when mom would take you to GAP to help you pick out all your clothes? Or when your dad took you to the comic book store to pick up some baseball cards? I sure do, and no matter what anyone says, they were some great times. Yet these days in our society, more and more shopping is done online, taking away this in-store face-to-face activity. One place in particular where thousands of people go online to search for items they may desire is eBay. eBay has exploded in popularity over the past five to ten years, and many people I know will go to eBay first to take care of their shopping needs. eBay displays many Social Network Analysis properties, including interpersonal ties, shared focus, common purpose, and reciprocity.
eBay is truly a community of its own; many other sites have attempted to mimic its success, yet none have come close to eclipsing it. The first SNA factor related to eBay is interpersonal ties. It is sometimes hard to remember that you are dealing with real people because eBay is so efficient with buying and selling. Yet when you win a bid, it forces interaction with a buyer or seller. You share personal information with them including where you may live, your phone number, and credit card information. Here’s a link to my relatively new eBay profile:
http://my.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MyEbay&CurrentPage=MyeBayMyAccounts&FClassic=true&ssPageName=STRK:ME:MAX
In addition, you leave feedback on this person after the transaction is completed, and if you like them this much you can even add them to your list of “Favorite Sellers.” While a degree of anonymity remains without photos, you feel more connected with users you do business with more often, and you gain a sense of respect and loyalty towards some users.
Many users on eBay have a shared focus and a common purpose. The focus and purpose clearly are to buy or sell items primarily, as that is the main function of the site. Therefore, most if not all eBay users share common focus and purpose. One of the more important attributes related to eBay is reciprocity, as it plays a large role. When you win an item, you have a certain amount of time to pay for it. Yet if a buyer pays for the item quickly, within a few hours of the winning bid for example, most buyers feel a sense of gratitude and reciprocate by immediately sending the item. The fast payment led to faster shipping. On the other hand, if someone waits a few days, the seller may not feel obligated to reciprocate with fast shipping. In addition, giving positive feedback to a seller will most likely cause the seller to respond with good feedback to you. If someone leaves bad feedback on a seller, the seller might feel insulted and negatively reciprocate by giving negative feedback as well. Therefore, reciprocity plays a very large role on eBay.
Obviously, since eBay is limited to the internet and the online community (unless there are any “We Sell You Stuff on eBay” stores like the one in “40 Year Old Virgin), eBay would not be possible without CMC. Some of our parents still cannot fathom the idea of buying a pair of shoes at the click of a button. They still will trudge to the Roosevelt Field mall to pick out what they need, and there is nothing wrong with that. Yet CMC has made it possible for faster, and sometimes more efficient purchases online with sites like eBay.
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6 comments:
Great topic and coverage.
Despite an absence of any FtF interaction, an egocentric network of buyers and sellers forms via eBay.
Social Networking Analysis may show to eBay to have many of the key ingredients -- healthy doses of common ground and a vital reciprocity between members -- it seems to me that the deindividualization and task-oriented activity does make eBay a colder environment compared to other sites. As you say, "eBay is so efficient with buying and selling" that you forget you are dealing with real people. This is true! Typically, only after purchase does any interaction take place, usually in the form of a brief information-heavy email. No chit chat. Rarely even a "how are you."
Still, eBay users are compelled to care deeply about their own ratings, and therefore must recognize that interpersonal, person-to-person communication is vital. And this means users are ultimately invested in creating a community -- out of their investment comes the social capital that eBay thrives off of.
Ebay has grown to such an extent and I can say that it has become such a huge part of my life as well. The community that it has been able to form is really mind blowing. Just the common ground that everyone shares to find and supply items for relatively bargain prices helps make it so successful. The feedback that is left for each user after either buying or selling an item develops ties between them and helps form relationships. For instance, if a user has a really good feedback or you’ve dealt with a user many times with positive experiences then you feel more comfortable with them. The reciprocity also is a major factor in the buying and selling. I can’t count how many times I’ve sent a payment for an item late and received the item just as late. That clearly shows the community aspects of Ebay with respect and an understanding between users.
hey jacob, great post. it's funny because as I was reading your post, i saw a commercial for ebay. "Shop victoriously!", ah, i love it. but anyways, i liked your linking of ebay to the SNA properties. I would have never thought of that connection. i am an ebayer myself, and reciprocity is present everywhere. i always like to pay right away after winning an item to get that positive feedback.
I really liked this post because it brought me back to a time when I used to run a very small ebay business. Back in high school I ran a 1 person business on there where I would buy in bulk and resell. I never really thought about the profile part to much, partly because back then it was only a name and ratings for the most part. Oh and the feedback part, I never ever left negative feedback for anyone. I knew they would just leave a negative comment back, even if my service was flawless. This brings up an interesting point about ebay and online shopping. When you buy from somone or sell to someone and they have lots of positive feedback, should be really deserve all of it? Kinda deceptive to me, you think yours working with a great person but when in fact you may not be. I think the high amount of CMC and lack of FtF communication helps to enfoced this issue about incorrect feedback. Good post I enjoyed it.
Well, this is an interesting approach to eBay. I thought you did well in associating the social network ideals to eBay. In your blog, reciprocity was certainly evident. However, I wonder how extensive reciprocity is in the eBay community? Does is lead to very much self-disclosure? Does it form a large discrepency between strong and weak ties? (not to say that this is necessary for a community) Anyways, I found your post to be really good at describing to shared focus. It seems that everyone is focused on the product beng bought or sold and not so much on the individuals. Good post!!!
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