Hi-Living
Encyclopedia
Hi-Living is a Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

n online
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 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...

 website
Website
A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

 and shopping mall
Shopping mall
A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

 where people from all around the world buy and sell goods and services.

History

Hi-Living was founded in 1996 by Baek Seung Hyeok as "Hi" and "Living", parts of a larger personal site. Originally, the site belonged to Internet Life Consumer Group, a consulting firm. Hi-Living is headquartered in Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...

, Korea
Korea
Korea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...

.

Items and Services

Collectibles
Collectible
A collectable or collectible is any object regarded as being of value or interest to a collector . There are numerous types of collectables and terms to denote those types. An antique is a collectable that is old...

, appliances
Home appliance
Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. Home appliances can be classified into:*Major appliances, or White goods*Small appliances, or Brown goods...

, chemicals, and other miscellaneous items are listed, bought, and sold on the Hi-Living website. Hi-Living has revolutionized the collectibles market by bringing together buyers and sellers. Large Korean companies sell their newest products and offer services using competitive auctions and fixed-priced storefronts. Regional searches of the database make shipping slightly more rapid or cheaper. Software developers can create applications that integrate with the marketplace
Marketplace
A marketplace is the space, actual, virtual or metaphorical, in which a market operates. The term is also used in a trademark law context to denote the actual consumer environment, ie. the 'real world' in which products and services are provided and consumed.-Marketplaces and street markets:A...

 through the Hi-Living Service by joining the developers program. There are thousands of members in the Hi-Living Developers Program, comprising a broad range of companies creating software applications to support Hi-Living buyers and sellers, as well as Hi-Living Affiliate Systems.

Controversy

There has also been controversy regarding items put up for bid that violate ethical standards. Once, a man offered one of his kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...

s for auction on Hi-Living, attempting to profit from the potentially lucrative market for transplantable human organs
Organ transplant
Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...

. On other occasions, people and even entire towns have been listed, often as a joke. In general, auctions that violate its terms of service agreement are removed quickly. Hi-Living is also an easy place for unscrupulous sellers to market counterfeit
Counterfeit
To counterfeit means to illegally imitate something. Counterfeit products are often produced with the intent to take advantage of the superior value of the imitated product...

 merchandise, which can be difficult for novice buyers to distinguish without careful study of the auction description.

Profit and Transactions

Hi-Living generates revenue from sellers, who pay both a fee based on the selling price of each item and a fee based on the starting price, and from advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...

. In 2005 it was announced that Hi-Living would increase fees it charges to sellers, which caused such controversy among users that the CEO emailed
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

 all Hi-Living users with news that other fees would be decreased.

Hi-Living does not handle goods, nor does it manage the buyer-seller payments, except through its subsidiary shopping mall credit. Instead, much like newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...

 want-ads, sellers rely on the buyers' good faith to make payment, and buyers rely on the sellers' good faith to actually deliver the goods intact. To encourage fidelity, Hi-Living maintains, rates, and publicly displays the post-transaction feedback from all users, whether they buy or sell. The buyer is encouraged to examine the sellers' feedback profile before bidding to see their trustworthiness. Sellers with high ratings generally have more bids and garner higher bids. However, it is possible for sellers to make their feedback private and just leave a numbered rating (number of positive, negative, and neutral feedback with a positive feedback percentage), which means that bidders and sellers cannot see the comments other users have left. Hi-Living also has a significant affiliate program, and affiliates can place product images and links on their web sites.

See also

  • Electronic commerce
    Electronic commerce
    Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, eCommerce or e-comm, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. However, the term may refer to more than just buying and selling products online...

  • Online auction business model
    Online auction business model
    The online auction business model is one in which participants bid for products and services over the Internet. The functionality of buying and selling in an auction format is made possible through auction software which regulates the various processes involved.Several types of online auctions are...

  • Shopping mall
    Shopping mall
    A shopping mall, shopping centre, shopping arcade, shopping precinct or simply mall is one or more buildings forming a complex of shops representing merchandisers, with interconnecting walkways enabling visitors to easily walk from unit to unit, along with a parking area — a modern, indoor version...

  • Chemical
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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