Half.com is a subsidiary of eBay

EBay

eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

, in which sellers offer items at fixed prices, usually items that have a UPC

Universal Product Code

The Universal Product Code is a barcode symbology , that is widely used in North America, and in countries including the UK, Australia, and New Zealand for tracking trade items in stores. Its most common form, the UPC-A, consists of 12 numerical digits, which are uniquely assigned to each trade item...

, ISBN or other kind of SKU

Stock Keeping Unit

→A stock-keeping unit or SKU is a number or code used to identify each unique product or item for sale in a store or other business.It is a unique identifier for each distinct product and service that can be purchased...

, rather than rare, old or collectible items. The items available on half.com are limited to books, textbooks, music, movies, video games, and video game consoles.

There are no fees to list items on Half.com, but rather the company takes a commission

Commission (remuneration)

The payment of commission as remuneration for services rendered or products sold is a common way to reward sales people. Payments often will be calculated on the basis of a percentage of the goods sold...

 of every completed sale. As of January 2009, the commission is 15% if the fixed selling price is $50 or less, 12.5% if the price is more than $50 but less than $100.01, 10% if the price is more than $100 but less than $250.01, 7.5% if the price is more than $250 but less than $500.01, and 5% if the price is more than $500. The company does not prorate commissions, so if you sell an item for $100.00 the commission paid is $12.50 (12.5%) while if you sell an item for $100.01 the commission paid is $10.00 (10%).

The seller is responsible for shipping any item within three business days of a sale and paying the actual shipping costs. A shipping and handling fee is added to the transaction and is (partially) credited to the seller as a reimbursement. The buyer can choose either USPS Media Mail or expedited delivery. Depending on the weight of the item, the reimbursement amount may often be less than the actual shipping costs. For example, the current shipping reimbursement for any DVD sent USPS Media Mail is $2.39. On the other hand, the reimbursement amount may exceed the actual shipping costs. In this case, many sellers will offer a "free upgrade" to first class shipping, which is not much more expensive than media mail for small items such as CDs.

Half.com was founded in 1999 by American entrepreneur Josh Kopelman

Josh Kopelman

Joshua Kopelman is an American entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and philanthropist.Kopelman is best known as the founder of Half.com, a fixed price marketplace connecting buyers and sellers of used books, movies and music products. In 2000, Kopelman sold Half.com to EBay for US $350...

 (Infonautics, Turntide, Comcast

Comcast

Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...

 Interactive Capital, First Round Capital

First Round Capital

First Round Capital is a venture capital firm that specializes in providing seed-stage funding to technology companies. Managed by Josh Kopelman, Chris Fralic, Rob Hayes and Howard L. Morgan, the Philadelphia-based company typically provides seed-stage investment that ranges from $250,000 to $500,000...

) and Sunny Balijepalli (more recently founded cuts.com). As an advertising gimmick, the company paid the town of Halfway, Oregon

Halfway, Oregon

Halfway is a city in Baker County, Oregon, United States. This town took its name from the location of its post office, on the Alexander Stalker ranch, half way between Pine and Cornucopia...

 US$100,000 and donated 20 new computers to change its name to Half.com, Oregon.

eBay purchased Half.com in 2000 for roughly $350 million, integrating its user management system, buyer/seller feedback, and account information into eBay. Like its parent company, Half.com is not a retail site and has no physical stock or inventory. Rather, the site offers a place for individual sellers to list their items and potential buyers a central location in which to view them, offering both a standardized transaction and money exchange process. Unlike its parent, Half.com is not an auction

Auction

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder...

 site; sellers offer their wares at a bid price of their choosing. Like Amazon.com

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

, Half.com plays a large role in the used textbook

Textbook

A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...

 and CD

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 markets. eBay planned to integrate Half.com into eBay and eventually close down Half.com. Many of the features that made listing media items such as CDs & DVDs quick and easy have been integrated into eBay, but eBay chose to keep Half.com running separate primarily for the textbook

Textbook

A textbook or coursebook is a manual of instruction in any branch of study. Textbooks are produced according to the demands of educational institutions...

 market.

Buyers need to have a credit card on file, as Half.com does not accept PayPal

PayPal

PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....

 at this time. Sellers are paid by pre-arranged deposits into a designated personal checking account.

Sellers do the bidding

Half provides a platform where sellers competitively "bid" against one another, based on Universal Product Code

Universal Product Code

The Universal Product Code is a barcode symbology , that is widely used in North America, and in countries including the UK, Australia, and New Zealand for tracking trade items in stores. Its most common form, the UPC-A, consists of 12 numerical digits, which are uniquely assigned to each trade item...

. The seller can see the average sale price and most recent sale price for any particular item to determine the selling price desired. A potential buyer sees the available inventory for any particular item and can choose the seller. This is the opposite of eBay

EBay

eBay Inc. is an American internet consumer-to-consumer corporation that manages eBay.com, an online auction and shopping website in which people and businesses buy and sell a broad variety of goods and services worldwide...

where buyers bid against one another. The Pre-Order feature allows buyers to set a price and quality rating of a particular item they would like to buy. Sellers see the pre-order listed when they put an item up for sale and may sell it to the buyer if they agree with the buyer's price. This is the exact opposite of what happens on eBay's site.

Features

• The "quality rating" of an item (Brand New, Like New, Very Good, Good and Acceptable), is disclosed to buyers before order placement, along with a text description entered by the seller. These ratings indicate whether or not, in the case of a CD, for example the artwork/inserts will accompany the CD, a part of the product which is often missing on used CD web purchases elsewhere. The condition of the CD is also clearly described.
• The feedback about each individual seller is disclosed before order placement, linking the eBay feedback system, which allows the buyer to choose their merchant.
• Buyers can sort the search results of available CDs (Performer by Best Selling, Price, Alphabetical or Release Date).
• CDs and many older video games can commonly be found at the entry level of US .75.
• Standardized shipping prices across all merchants.

External links

• Half.com (or half.eBay.com), official website
• http://pages.half.ebay.com/help/seller/getpaid.html, Half.com Commissions