Amazon Takes a Swing at Sports Collectibles Space

by: Ming the Merciless

Amazon is no better than ebay, and sellers should be wary of whatever Amazon does.

The odds are high, IMO, that "top sellers" mean the mall stores and even the leagues themselves.

I feel sorry for anyone already selling these items on Amazon. Amazon will swallow you up and then spit out the pieces.

Like ebay, Amazon is a corporate predator.

by: teddychan

It's a little late for that, Amazon. For years your site grew into the #1 outlet (yes, exceeding eBay) for fraudsters selling forged autographs, and when faced with this information, you ignored it.

by: teddychan

Joe Paterno autographed footballs for $49.99? Yeah, I'm sure those are legit.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/shops/storefront/index.html?ie=
UTF8&marketplaceID=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sellerID=ARPB7M7AUNLZY

by: FidoSysop

The word trust comes to mind here. Actually is should be the lack of trust.

Buying new merchandise from either of the a fore mentioned sites is pretty safe as both have decent buyer protection.

But for used collectibles i wouldn't trust anyone online no matter what site it's being offered on.

Like Rob Chesnutz one said about eBay, we do not have a product. We are in the trust business. I think they blew that a long time ago. );

by: Nan

Hmmm.  I am wondering whether this will spill over to the books category, where I have several author-signed books at Azon.  It will be interesting to see how far they will take this. Did somebody mention the Coins category?

I don't know if eBay will fall in line with Azon this time.  They would lose too much business from their BFF's the Chinese knock-off sellers.  Of course, I guess a COA could be knocked-off too.

by: Philip Cohen

"Unique Sports Collectibles:" This stuff is invariably all extremely overpriced, mass produced junk. I can't imagine why anyone would want to buy any of it new. If you are in to that sort of junk, wait until it's listed second hand on eBay and pick it up for one tenth of the original price.

by: yardboy

If you want to know the true story about fakes you should look at the following site.
ebay and psa/dna are exposed in many of the articles.
http://www.autographalert.com

by: teddychan

The interesting part of the announcement is that instead of the forgers on Amazon competing against small autograph dealers, now they will be competing directly against Amazon's own shiny new overpriced store. So I expect Amazon to suddenly devote attention to the flood of forgeries in its Marketplace after ignoring pleas to do so for the last few years.

by: teddychan

Regarding eBay, YES it was overrun by sellers of fake autographs for quite some time and earned a very bad reputation. But in recent years they have made a real effort to police their site. With autographs it's always an uphill battle, but at least eBay CARES about the problem, Amazon could NOT CARE LESS.

by: Philip Cohen

eBay cares about nothing but their bottom line; I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks otherwise is as delusional as eBay's chief headless turkey, John Donahoe.

eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking

by: teddychan

Of course eBay (and Amazon and almost every corporation) only cares about its bottom line. At least eBay finally realized that the damage to its reputation from fraud was larger than the FVF fees it was collecting from fraudulent transactions.

by: teddychan

Not surprised that Amazon listed JSA and PSA/DNA alongside Mounted, Steiner, Tri-Star and UDA, even though the latter companies actually conduct paid signings, while JSA and PSA/DNA basically throw darts at the wall and cut backroom deals with questionable dealers.