By Aaron Smith
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Amazon is the new eBay … sort of.
Amazon has a new feature called “make an offer” that allows customers to place bids, rather than buy outright. But unlike Ebay, it’s a one to one bid where the customer haggles privately with the seller.
“The ‘make an offer’ feature is not an auction format,” said Amazon, in a press release. “The intention is to lower prices, and a customer negotiating with a seller will never pay more than the listed price.”
This works in the opposite of an auction, where the price goes up as multiple customers bid on an item.
The new Amazon feature launched Tuesday with 150,000 items classified as sports and entertainment collectibles, and collectible coins and art.
Sports items include a Dallas Cowboys helmet signed by Tony Romo, with a starting bid of $555.25 (down from $621.44) and a Green Bay Packers jersey signed by Brett Favre ($252.81, down from $274.69.)
Entertainment items include a signed nude photo of “Buffy of the Vampire Slayer” star Sarah Michelle Gellar, with a starting bid of $200, and a prop shotgun from the “Resident Evil” movies, starting at $1,995.
Coins include a 1938 buffalo nickel for $150. Art includes “Watermelon Jack,” an acrylic portrait resembling Jack Nicholson, in the green and pink tones of watermelon, for $30,000.
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