cpsqlrwn

an eBay apologist among us.... Horrors!!!

jeepr

This!

I even had a delivery confirmation on my flake buyer. He claimed he didn't receive the item and they arbitrarily refunded his money from my account.

pitbull007

My wife left ebay for selling and is now selling on etsy she`s actually doing WAY better.
I beleive their catch to stop selling things made in China is that the item has to be custom hand made or anything Vintage over 20 years, It seems more orientated towards women but that might soon change with more people leaving ebay for etsy,
Etsy has this thing called treasury where one would start one, name it and add other sellers items to it.
It does work and generates more traffic and sales.
From what I understand listings for Canada cost you 20 cents and last for 6 months or until sold, but everything is buy now only no auctions.

Ant

Remember ETSY

KonAaron Snake 

I offer a 3% discount for using Dwolla in my ebay ads...I've had a few take me up on it.

Fred Smedley

It appears for a auction it costs the seller 11.9% of the total sale/shipping if paypal is used. That's a good chunk.

Cyclist0383

I meant that they already do that. Bad wording on my part. Sorry.

gioscinelli 

I've been doing business on Ebay for over 5 years and had good relations with the Ebay Syndicate, paying protection and tolerating excessive fee's with their extended arm, Paypal. Last year Ebay has offered free "insertion fee's", and photo's, but made it up on higher fee's. Now they're really getting greedy by instituting "Final Value Fee on Shipping" along with the higher "Final Value Fee" for selling an item. It's like knocking you down and stumping on you, like in you face! Unfortunately Ebay is the only player around with worldwide connection and inventory to participate as a consumer and as a business. As with the Banks charging fee's on debit cards, an public out cry resulted in their withdrawal of the fee's to debit cards, but promised to find other avenues to make up the difference. As with other active protesting going on, perhaps eventually there may result in changes for the better including the people trying to make ends meet.

Chombi

Heck, If eBay was so bad, why do I still have to battle it out with so many snipers bidding for the khewl stuff??!

Chombi

illdthedj

just wondering if you guys have heard of PEDALR.com?

https://pedalr.com

basically a bike only marketplace. no im not a shill lol....it still seems fledgling, but seems like a good idea. sort of a bike-only national (international?) craigslist with ability to purchase items and have them shipped to you.
i THINK its free to sell on there. Definitely not the amount of people seeing your items as with ebay, but i dunno....if we all get behind it, it could be really cool.

i have ALLOT of decent parts/wheels and tidbits collecting over the years that arn't being used on any of my current bikes (and the fiance wont allow any more haha) so ive been meaning to get everything not being used but still valuable and sell it all off....ebay would be the easiest, but that 12% or so chunk they and paypal take is a real bummer....maybe ill give pedalr.com a shot instead.

that_guy_zach

I have been planning a partial move over there. Right now it seems like a better e-commerce option for a online store. The lack of a auction format ( at least last time I looked) hurts it.

due ruote 

Hmm...pedalr has 2 items in their vintage section. I think they have a ways to go.

I think Ebay is still the best option for wide audience reach. As a seller, the fees are figured into the starting price/reserve, whatever. Too bad when I'm the buyer, but that's the way of the world. Efficiency has its price.

Drakonchik

In addition to the new fee on shipping charges, eBay has for some time now had a series of mechanisms in place, centered on Detailed Seller Ratings (DSRs), to restrain excessive shipping charges. Since DSRs were implemented, I have noticed a major shift towards more realistic charges at least amongst volume sellers. It's now very difficult if not impossible to systematically charge absurd shipping fees across hundreds let alone thousands of transactions, without that seller's DSRs falling through the floor, leading to real consequences.

wrk101

+1 I used to list all of my auctions with a starting price of 99 cents. No more. I was finding less popular stuff was going for 99 cents. I did start one popular item at 1 cent this week, we'll see how that turns out.

As far as paying ebay for pictures, I refuse to do it, and just use a hosting site and imbed it in my listing.

+1 I start at my minimum, so that if I only get one bid, I am satisfied (but not ecstatic).

ebay hit a wall a couple of years ago where the auction business was no longer growing. At that point, to increase revenue, they either had to get it growing again, enter a new market, or raise their fees. Guess which option they picked???

I hold my nose and continue to do business with them, as they are the one outlet where I can get anywhere near market value for some obscure, oddball, garage sale find.

And if you like high fees, you would love the consignment clothing shop my wife works with. Their fee? 60% of the selling price.... Needless to say, any clothing item that can be sold on ebay, goes to ebay. All of a sudden, their 15% in fees haircut does not look too bad. So why do I bother paying a 60% fee? Its the cost of access to their customers, my share of covering the overhead of the store, etc. I can open my own store if I want to avoid it. Heck, the owner offered to sell me the store. No thanks.

+1 On the detailed seller ratings. I work hard to maintain "top rated seller" status, as it equals a 20% discount in ebay fees. All it takes is > 0.5% of your buyers complaining about shipping charges to lose this rating. I bend over backwards to make sure my shipping is fair and reasonable. > 0.5% means if you do 400 transactions a year (which is a lot), then all you need is THREE whiners and you just lost your discount!

+1 Its ebay's business, they figured out the maximum they could charge and still maintain their business. Anyone entering this business would do the same thing.

gioscinelli 

Doing business on Ebay and paying the necessary fee's, including Paypal is part of selling and using their media. To have them slap you in the face with "Final Value Fee on Shipping", is an insult. Who do they think they are to out right tack on an additional fee, saying it's hurting their business when seller's start at .99 cents(it's in their starting price) and then charge excessive shipping. The consumer is no dummy and will avoid such a rouse offered. Ebay will warn you about excessive shipping charges and will de-list your item, where by you will have to re-list for additional expenses after readjusting the shipping charges. "Final Value Fee on Shipping" is just another way to squeeze out more money for their stock holders and company officers. If anything, raise the fee's, hide the ridiculous "Final Value Fee on Shipping and give us some credit for intelligence.

Fred Smedley

So are you saying their is another fee than the 9% selling fee and 2.9 Paypal fee?

lostarchitect 

This.

Yes, it does suck for honest sellers. But it was born out of people scamming ebay, and you can account for it in your price, so it's not the end of the world.

iab

I also use a hosting site. But it does cost $0.35 for a gallery picure - the thumbnail that shows in the list of items when browsing.

ebay/paypal take about 15% total. An auction house will take 30%-60%.

Nothing in life is free.

rootboy 

"Nothing is what I want. A true Zen saying."
F.Z.

jeirvine 

With eBay, you are basically selling with the entire internet-connected planet as your potential customer base. What is that worth to you? It adds way more than 12% to the final purchase price. You may sell some handlebars on CL for $15, but on eBay you get $75 if you have a good description and pictures. The final price difference dwarfs any fees eBay charges. They could double their fees and it would still be worth it, depending on what you are selling. That said, whatever happened to trust-busting? Monopolies are anti-capitalism. Where's Teddy Roosevelt when you need him?

balindamood

If you know what the fee structure is going into it, simply adjust your starting bid. As it has been said, you gotta pay to play. It means WE ALL are going to pay a bit more to buy, but so beit. It is not like I have a great vintage parts source in Lost-Snow-Fort , Alaska.

unterhausen

the only reason I see this as a bad thing is that people refuse to bid on things where the shipping is high -- even if their final price is reasonable. I've gotten a lot of things for cheap even though the shipping was outrageous. As noted above, people aren't going to bother doing this anymore. What it will do is take auctions off line a lot more.

cuda2k

Haven't sold much on ebay as of late. Bought a few things, but not a whole lot either. I find most of what I need around here. Now with that said, I may have something in the works on VeloBase for another option But you didn't hear that from me.

jan nikolajsen 

interesting

khatfull

...and most welcome.

rat fink

On top of that:

- Many consignments (that I've talked to) take about 33%.
- On average, 1 in 15 calls I get from CL result in a sale, if the item is at least 10% less than lowest price I find on Ebay. Average time it takes for me to sell a regular demand item at ~60% value: 1.5 weeks (Of course, I'm 45mins - 2 hrs away from my target market).
- Garage sale success is weather, location, and marketing dependent. They work best when held infrequently. On average, (nice) items sell for < 60% of their current ebay value, and niche items generally don't sell at all.