Futureshop: How the New Auction Culture Will Revolutionize the Way We Buy, Sell, and Get the Things We Really Want [Hardcover]

As an online merchant and someone who does not packrat things, I was intrigued by this book. Yes, I've used eBay.

Nissanoff's book is engaging, fact-filled, and well-written. He makes some very good points, and I would agree his book does predict some future trends. What I would do not agree with is the "revolutionary" part. In this review, I'm going hit a few of his ideas hard. Then, I'm going to tell you why this book is worth reading anyhow.

Here's the weakness of this book. Nissanoff's viewpoint is that of a C-level, suit-wearing, NYC-dwelling, wealthy individual. The typical consumer is not a senior executive, seldom wears a suit, lives outside NYC, and does not have closets filled with $800 skis or $200 neckties. In fact, the typical consumer doesn't own skis and is doing well to own even one $30 ties.

Nissanoff's encyclopedic knowledge of clothing styles and shoes is completely foreign to most of the population, as well. For the typical American--who works 40 hours out of each 50 hour week just to pay taxes--fashion is not a foremost thought. This is why, for example, Wal-Mart and K-Mart do brisk business selling polyester that masquerades as clothing.

Rare is the CEO who hasn't laid off workers. But the typical consumer never makes that decision and is not nearly as ruthless. The two groups are culturally from different planets, and that has implications for this book.

Nissanoff assumes people will rapidly exchange their older things for new ones once the secondary market becomes highly fluid. This assumption defies basic human nature.

People stay in jobs and marriages that don't work, though they have many other far better options--even in the "secondary market," if you will. How can we expect these same people to worry about minor things such as whether they have the latest fashion of necktie?

People keep books they will never read, not because they can't donate them to the library or sell them--but because they simply like having the books. The ability or inability to re-sell those books has no bearing on the situation.

Another issue he brought up was trading shoes on the secondary market. There will never be a significant market for used shoes, because of the nature of shoes. This has nothing to do with purchase price or style. Shoes take a "set" and wearing second-hand shoes is a sure way to court problems with your feet, knees, and back. Unless you like orthopedic surgery and the related medical bills, don't try to save money by swapping shoes.

Let's look at a secondary market that is already fluid: automobiles. Why do people keep an old car, even though they can easily afford another? People grow attached to their things. (Senior executives, by contrast, grow attached to their outsized salaries but not to the production people who make those salaries possible).

Example: Joan keeps her 10 year old clunker, dents and all. She has a pet name for it, and even talks to it. She's comfortable in it, and familiar with it. She goes on a trip and rents a new car, but she's unfamiliar with it and is not comfortable with the car. When she's back in "Old Betsy," she feels once again one with her vehicle. She could easily buy a 5 year old car, but she's loyal to the car she has now.

People keep old houseplants, old dishes, old glassware, old blankets, old furniture, and even old hairdos--not for monetary reasons but for other reasons.

So Nissanoff's theory that monetizing the contents of our closets will "revolutionize the way we buy, sell, and get the things we really want" doesn't fly. In fact, we have the things we really want--that's why we don't get rid of them.

But let's set aside the "revolutionary " part of his prediction and look at the wider consumer market. Will people change their behavior if the secondary market matures, as Nissanoff predicts it will? Yes. In fact, the issue with Nissanoff's central theory is not so much the theory itself as the degree.

People do monetize some of the things they no longer want--that's why we have yard sales, flea markets, deductible gifts to charity, and so on. A big problem with these methods of exchange is they are inefficient.

Having sold through eBay and through my own Websites, I know those methods are more efficient than traditional methods.

Online methods provide ease of use, reach, and speed. The difficulty of traditional methods does create a "barrier to entry" for many people. With that barrier gone, we can expect faster rates of "recycling" from closet to marketplace. But there are many other barriers, and online methods do not address all possible barriers. Not even close.

Where this book has value is it opens your mind to taking a fresh look at your accumulation of stuff. For most people, the big challenge is where to store stuff you aren't using and most likely never will. Why not let someone else use it? If we can separate ourselves from many of our things, we may find life a bit richer in other ways. And one way it can be richer is through additional cash from selling those things. We may choose to use that cash to upgrade, or to simply improve our financial situation. My personal perspective is "less is more"--the uncluttered life is a better life.

This book also reminds us, both directly and indirectly, that we can expect change. The book doesn't hold up eBay or Portero or any other particular exchange as the way everything is heading. It does look at who's out front now, and why. As things continue to change, those companies that adapt will be the "go to" places for the secondary markets.

While the increased ability to buy and sell in the secondary market is unlikely to be revolutionary, it will certainly be significant. Those who understand the rules--and the possibilities that are coming--stand to benefit. This book helps provide that understanding.

The main message that I got from the book was not how consumers can have a better life by trading in their old items. It was on page 150-153 were it points out that by not directly managing secondary markets for their products, companies are damaging their brands and leaving themselves open targets for counterfeiters.

Maybe, Tiffany and Company should drop their lawsuit against eBay and provide authentication services for secondary markets?...

jack

I'll say it right at the top. I found this book a fantastic read. I could hardly put it down. Why? Simply because it is the story of what happened in the very recent past, what is happening right now, and what will probably be happening in the future. About what? Well, about the way we purchase goods, use them to improve our lives, and our attitude toward the whole process of being a contemporary consumer. So, is this really important? You bet. The truth is, while many consider the consumer-culture as manifested today to be too "materialistic," and consider globalization -- the international market which is well on its way to fruition -- to be a decadent program of "exploitation" and "negative values," and, in general, to consider any "free market" economic policy to be the result of some conspiracy brought about by nasty "capitalists" -- there is one thing no one can deny. Most of us are living better lives than our ancestors, and for a longer time, and are enjoying the many benefits offered to us by a revolution in consumer technology. The technology? Why, the Internet, of course.

Daniel Nissanoff has written a valuable and most interesting book about the new "Auction Culture" and why and how it will revolutionize the way we buy, sell, and get the things we "really" want to have in order to improve our lives. In fact, much of that latter phraseology is the subtitle to his book entitled "FutureShop." Nissanoff is a man "in the know." An independent entrepreneur (in the true sense of that somewhat overused word), Nissanoff founded Partminer, one of the first successful online business-to-business exchanges and then, in 2004, founded Portero, a new online company which specializes in the resale of luxury goods and which is affiliated with that giant in the auction culture, good old eBay. Nissanoff's credentials in the area of Internet marketing are difficult to surpass.

If people had asked me ten years ago about my shopping practices, about how I went about purchasing those goods which I needed or wanted, I would have looked at them with some apprehension. What do you mean? I went into my little town or made a trip to the big city and went to a retail store and bought what I wanted. Or, maybe, sometimes, I bought some items from a mail-order catalog. That was about the limit of my (or anyone else's, for that matter) venture into consumerism. There wasn't, in most cases, a whole lot of choices for most people; some cities had large department stores and supermarkets, a lot did not. You were content with what was available (or maybe not).

Now we are all into a whole new (and vastly expanding) empire of Internet marketing, led by such gigantic merchandisers as Amazon.com and by selling and buying "facilitators" as eBay.com and its imitators. This is, in my humble opinion, a real modern "revolution" in marketing and Nissanoff tells the story and unveils the future prospects of where this revolution is going. We have, in his words, only "scratched the surface." There is more coming, lots more. He refers to this marketing phenomenon as the "auction culture," since many of us will not be as interested in permanently "owning" things, as in "using" them for a limited time and then selling them to someone else. It is in this way that many of us will be able to buy "luxury" goods, previously unaffordable to us, because we can resell them -- without a significant loss in our purchase price -- on the auction block, to someone else, who couldn't afford to purchase them new either. Talk about a win-win situation!

One of the really interesting chapters in Nissanoff's book (worth the price of the book itself!) is the story of eBay and how that website came into existence and developed. It was particularly interesting to me because eBay and the website with which I am associated (radicalacademy.com) sort of evolved in the same way, although eBay was online about two years before we were. The founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar, actually began with a program called AuctionWeb, which was a hobby for him and he wasn't interested in making money. Our website, which went online in January of 1998, was a hobby for us and we weren't interested in making money online either. Of course, eBay eventually became the premier website for the "auction culture," generating millions in revenue with tens of millions of customers. Our website, on the other hand -- which offers information and resources about philosophy, politics, and the human condition -- had to settle for just over 18.7 million page-views in 2005 and a few hundred bucks a month. But those few bucks pay the bills so we can stay online. No complaining here.

According to Nissanoff, most of us will undergo a transformation in attitude and buying practice. Having been an "accumulation society" for so long -- where "permanent ownership" of a product was so important --, we will now become committed to the phenomenon of "temporary ownership," a culture where we buy the goods we most want, even at prices we haven't been able to afford, and then sell them for optimal resale value when we are ready to trade up to the next best thing. We will, in effect, be able to lease the good life by becoming part of the "auction culture." And websites such as eBay and its imitators, plus subsidiary websites and outlets functioning as authenticators, repackagers, and selling consultants, will be always available to help us take the journey through the developing Internet retail marketplace.

If you're really interested in the new ways in which we may be purchasing products we deem important or essential to living the "good life," and you are into the Internet way of doing things, I think you will enjoy this book and benefit from it. "FutureShop" is a great read from a knowledgeable author.