I thought it was a bit odd the way that recent personality profile in the Globe (eBay Canada’s Andrea Stairs takes pragmatic approach to business, life: The Globe and Mail Friday, Sep. 18, 2015) referred to ebay as a 'tech company peddling other sellers items' since I had never considered ebay as a place to buy 'tech stuf' that wasn't a backdoor tribute but, apparently, this is the new Yellow Brick Road. Please see:
http://www.ecommercebytes.com/cab/abn/y15/m09/i29/s02
I'll get you started:
"eBay launched a new research project in Australia called the eBay Innovation Lab to help it explore emerging technologies. The lab set up shop in Darling Harbour in Sydney, Australia over the weekend and invited people to interact with emerging technologies....
"'When we started at eBay there was no such thing as a smart phone, but just last year more than $28 billion worth of goods were sold via mobile on eBay globally," eBay said in a press release announcing the initiative. "The Fitbit was one of the top selling gifts on eBay last Christmas, but if you'd asked people 12 months before if they wanted to count their steps - they'd have said "no way!""....
My immediate reaction to this piece was one of incredulity... and then delicious irony. The 'pedlars of other peoples' stuff' will reinvent ebay as innovative tech-savvy fortune-telling now-trending geniuses. Wait, is there a plural form of genius? Maybe it's genie. Can I be the first to rub the magic latern so that I may have a wish granted? Maybe an ebay.canada-compatible shopping cart? Or listings that don't strip the UPCs on renewal? Or maybe not having my SYI page hijacked and stripped of data when I try to change the handling fees? A product catalogue with correct information in it?
Sorry, I suppose I've already used all my wishes.
