Slowman wrote:
i thought about adding ebay, but decided not to,
because ebay is not a retailer. it's a compendium of odd options, and i bought a pair of shoes from ebay only to find out they were counterfeit. so, no ebay.
Amazon is a compendium of odd options too, with the difference being that you can buy at least some things directly from Amazon itself. There is a lot more (it seems anyways) third party sellers and Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) sellers these days though.
Just as an example I chose the Hoka Clifton 5 in Charcoal Gray/True Blue in men's size 9 more or less at random. It's available from seven different sellers, none of which are Amazon itself. Five are FBA, two are merchant fulfilled. So I would argue that both Amazon and Ebay are more or less selling platforms rather than retailers, although I think the business world still classifies Amazon as a retailer. I would also point out that some manufacturers and major retailers (across various categories, not just running shoes) have Ebay stores too.
Items on Amazon can be just as questionable as items on Ebay, and there are some items (printer ink and food or anything with an expiration date) that I generally won't buy on Amazon either because I'm not 100% sure what I'll get and would rather not deal with the headache of returns. Both platforms seem to be pretty buyer-friendly, so if you get something that seems counterfeit or otherwise misrepresented it's not hard to get your money back. I guess one other difference between the two is that you don't have Joe Schmoe cleaning out his house and selling things on Amazon, but the stuff you're buying on Amazon can be sourced from anywhere too. I mean, you might be buying something (not running shoes necessarily) that was sitting on the clearance shelf in Walmart a couple of weeks ago.
I also find it funny that you call Ebay a "compendium of odd options" but lump them all into one because of one bad experience.
I mean I don't care what options are or are not in the poll but just wanted to point that out.