eBay Mobile Challenge: Saving Time and Money While Stocking Up with the Half.com App

By Reena Jana
July 27, 2011

Half.com

The mobile app for Half.com, an eBay-owned company

Yes, it’s peak vacation season. Beyond packing clothes and tech gadgets, it’s also time to make sure you’ve got all of your summer reading, DVDs, driving tunes, and other on-the-road entertainment ready, too. This year, my husband, two small boys, Jack Russell terrier and I are gearing up for three full weeks at our family’s beach cottage in the Hamptons this August. And I’m faced with the challenge of stocking up on enough books, movies, CDs, and even video games for rainy days to last us through nearly a month away from our bustling New York neighborhood.

But my real challenge is that I don’t want to break the bank—buying a single Pixar DVD for my kids, for instance, can cost $20 at a typical retail outlet.

So I hit up Half.com, a site that allows you to purchase used or even new books, DVDs, CDs and video games at reduced prices from a variety of online sellers. Because it's an eBay-owned company, the site can link to your eBay account for a smooth log-in and purchasing process. (That way, you don’t have to type in your PayPal information every time you shop.) But not only is the checkout simple and the prices cheap—Half.com makes shopping for entertainment media simple, even if, like me, you aren’t sure what titles you want to purchase. Further, if you download the mobile app like I did, you can mimic the easy-to-navigate experience of shopping the site, but do so while on the go.

Half.com

Half.com home screen and login (use your eBay account for a speedy checkout)

Here's how I did it:

After you sign in to the Half.com mobile app, you’re immediately asked if you want to browse popular titles in books, music, movies (which also includes TV shows), and video games.

Half.com

You can even sort by categories such as popularity or rating (as in G or PG). This way, you can quickly pull up current titles without having to do too much homework.

Half.com

For instance, I thought I’d pick out some of-the-moment albums we could play in the car—which is actually a treat for us as we don’t drive in Manhattan—so I selected “Browse Popular Music.” The search function pulled up a couple of CDs by Adele, a singer who’s hot right now and whose songs could please the entire family. Adele’s albums started as low as $7.50 on Half.com, a decent bargain as new CDs and MP3 albums usually cost around $10. I also went on to browse Yo Gabba Gabba DVDs for the kids and fitness video games for the Wii for myself—just in case it pours and I won’t be able to run or swim. I was able to do all of this in a mere five minutes.

One of the coolest things about the mobile app is the ultra-convenient bar-code scanner that appears as an icon in the top right-hand corner of nearly every screen. If you’re at a friend’s house, say, and she has a book you want to buy for yourself, you can find the book’s barcode on its cover, and using your iPhone’s camera, scan it. Then the Half.com app will instantly pull up sales listings for this item.

Half.com

I did this when I saw a friend’s copy of the popular nonfiction book A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink and remembered that my husband’s been wanting to read for years. I discovered I could purchase a used paperback copy for only $1.72 right on the spot, even while standing in my buddy’s living room, right from my iPhone.

Half.com

The Half.com app also has social-media features that make shopping more, well, social. My mom had mentioned she wanted to read Tina Fey’s memoir Bossypants this summer, just as I do, too. We thought it might be fun to read it at the same time and talk about it on the phone while I’m on vacation. So I looked it up on my Half.com app, and found it in hardcover for only $10.95, which is even less than half-off the full $26.99 retail price of the book.

Half.com

I went ahead and got two copies, then hit the “Share” button on the app. It pulled up a screen that let me select whether I wanted to post the listing on Facebook or Twitter, or send an e-mail about it, along with a window to type a post or a note. I hit “e-mail” and then sent my mom a quick message telling her she’d be receiving her copy of Bossypants in the mail… and that while I am out at the beach, we could talk about the book on the phone as we read it together.
Half.com

But one of my favorite aspects of shopping for entertainment using the Half.com iPhone app is that I can later easily sell anything I bought, all on my iPhone, too. All I will need to do is use my eBay account (shoppers who don’t log in via eBay can complete a one-time registration process for Half.com sellers), and follow the instructions for entering product info, including how to upload stock photos of book, DVD, CD, and video-game covers. Selling—and therefore sharing—the titles I bought on Half.com is my goal for the last days of our vacation. That way other families can enjoy the books, music, movies, and games that we did this summer—and the experience of shopping via Half.com’s iPhone app, too.

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