eBay is an online marketplace that offers its users a platform for selling and buying of products. The website allows sellers to post items for sale and the buyer goes ahead to place competitive bids to purchase the products. Once the auction has begun and a potential buyer has placed their bid, it confirms that the buyer is interested to form a binding contract to buy. The contract would be considered complete if the seller has selected the buyer's bid and the buyer accepts to pay the agreed amount. Therefore, personal bids placed during the auction are open to competitive counter-offers and do not represent a legally binding contract. The actual sale contract involves the buyer and the seller, but eBay is there to facilitate pricing, sourcing, listing, and shipping of the products purchased.
For a contract to be legally binding, it has to complete the following three steps; offer, acceptance, and consideration. For instance, when a seller posts the product to be sold, the auction process starts and the buyers make their offer of the product. When a buyer places their bid, it shows a possible acceptance of the price set by the seller. The bidding process continues and buyers place competitive bids until the auction ends when the highest bidder is selected. The bidder must meet seller's price stipulations for them to be considered the winner. However, since the whole process happens on online environment, buyers and sellers must identify themselves through registration for an eBay account, which includes personal details.
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A legal binding contract is established once the buyer accepts to pay for the good under specified considerations. The buyer must send payment considerations to the seller in an acceptable form before the contract is sealed. The seller holds the right to specify the acceptable form of payment that and also timeframe that should be allocated for the entire transaction. If the seller and the buyer fail to reach an acceptable consideration, legal contract ceases to exist.
In eBay, the payment is processed by the third party, in which most of the time Paypal is used. Paypal monitors the payment process and is open for any grievances from both the seller and the buyer if at all the terms and condition of the sale was not followed. For instance, if the seller sends a product that was not agreed on, the buyer can contact PayPal for a reversal of the money. However, the buyer ha to provide evidence and indicate what was not met in the already agreed sale. In this case, Paypal plays the role of an arbiter and therefore eliminate a situation whereby one of the parties involved can head to court in case the sale agreement was not met.
Before a buyer makes the final decision to buy the product on eBay, the seller has to present a valid offer. Some of the essential aspects of the valid offer include committed, communicated, and definite terms. The seller needs to communicate all the details about the product for the buyer to accept or reject it. The information communicated should be truth and that reflect on the features of the product. The listing needs to include definite terms such as timing, price, and acceptable manner. In eBay, there are some categories of products that do not create a legally-binding contract. Such products include real estates and motor vehicles and when the buyer is selected as the winning bidder, the seller and the buyer can exchange additional contact before the sale is completed. The reason why these products do not have a formal contract is that they are subject to different laws and they are highly priced.
