eBay was great, what happened?
 

I've been buying parts for my winter build.

Two years ago, I could always save $$ at eBay compaired to most of the online cycling stores. Often, I was getting a new-bike-take-off, without much in the way of after-sale service from eBay. So eBay always had it's risks and returning an item is normally not going to happen. However, the savings were real and the problems were one-in-a-hundred.

The risks at eBay are still there, but the huge savings are not. Once I consider shipping & handling costs and use all the silly coupons, codes and special sales, the online stores look like a better deal.

Am I the only one noticing a change?

I gave up on eBay about 5 years ago. They started sticking me with these unbelievable listing fees, final value fees, usage of Paypal fees, etc. I have sold everything since then on Craigslist. It's all local pickup and I've never had a problem.

Case in point - bought my kid a nice 16" Trek bike - paid around $180 for it. Sold it in perfect condition on Craigslist for $120 a couple years later. They were going for $200 new at that point. So my kid rode a nice Trek bike for a couple years and it cost me $60. On eBay it would have cost me probably $30 or more in fees.

Ebay is still pretty good for buying vintage components.

And for buying vintage and new frames if the seller is competent.

Things have actually gelled in favor of buyers in recent years.

If you buy from a 99.9+ positive feedback seller with hundreds or thousands of transactions, odds are you will get what you expected, or if something is bad the seller will make it right.

The seller fees imposed by Ebay have gone through the roof. Vendors have to raise their prices just to break even. Ebay takes 9% of the final price, including shipping. Paypal takes another 3%.

Same here.

Yeah, ebay is still good for finding and buying vintage components but I have totally noticed what the OP is talking about for new parts. I'm not sure why the good prices for new stuff has dried up but most of the time now the online stores are the same if not cheaper. Ebay is still good sometimes for new parts if you can't find the part you want online elsewhere but with the cycling superstores that is a rarity. Perhaps some of ebay's policy changes and added fees have brought this about. Since I've never been a seller, I can't say.

I agree with Accordion, Craigslist has made a significant dent.

As a seller I don't have to pack or ship anything which is a major hassle. I also don't have to worry about anything getting damaged in transit. Last year I sold a pair of shifters on Ebay. When the buyer received them, the right shifter wasn't working. It was packed well. I have no idea what happened to it. All I know is that it was ordeal for both myself and the buyer. I refunded the money and got the shifters back but of course I could only sell the left one after that point.

With craiglist, there are no fees and the buyer gets to examine whatever it is your selling on the spot. Once it leaves the premises your obligation as a seller is fulfilled though I usually tell people if they have a problem I'll take it back as long as it's only been a week or so.

Finally, posting an add on craigslist is pretty quick and the standards are low. It's easy to create listings that stand out just by adding links to good pictures.

Don't forget the posting fee, buy it now fee, picture fee. All the fees add up and for a sale of $20 widget plus $5 shipping, the fees will total at least 30% the gross sale for even the most basic listing.

Historically, eBay's slice would have been 5% of the final price of the widget not including shipping at the most. For up to $25, it was 5%. Above that, the percentage was on a sliding scale. For $25 to $1000, it was something like 2 or 3% of the value $25 to $1000 plus $1.25 (5% of $25). For a $900 widget, the fees went from about $23 to more than $81 since the shipping cost is taken into account now.

Several things are going on. As others said, eBay and PayPal fees have gone way up. I sold a bunch of parts in late summer, early fall and was shocked at how much they ended up billing my PayPal account. The recession has also had a big impact. Since frames and parts aren't generally fetching as much money as they did a few years ago, a lot of people aren't selling parts on eBay because it's not worth what they're getting, particularly after fees. If you've got an Eddy Merckx frame sitting in your garage that would have easily sold for $800 a few years ago, it's hard putting it up for auction on eBay when it might only sell for half that amount -- and then the fees skim 10-15% off that amount.

What surprised me about my recent eBay sales was how random the final prices were. Vintage parts sold for more than I expected but some very nice stuff sold for prices that were hardly worth the effort to pack and ship them. The biggest surprise was some old cage pedals with toe clips that I almost threw away. I cleaned them up but they didn't turn well and needed new bearings and grease, which I clearly described in my ad, but they still sold for $30 plus shipping. Another set of Look pedals in excellent condition sold for something like $5, and they were much better pedals.

BTW, I still think eBay is usually better than Craigslist. Everyone is just looking for extreme bargains on Craigslist. It's like the world's biggest garage sale. Whenever I sell something on Craigslist, the callers try to talk me down on the price, even if it's a bargain. Even if they agree to buy something, they will show up and try to get it for less when picking up the item. However, I still use Craigslist for stuff that is too big a hassle to pack and ship.

That's just not true. If a seller is paying much more than 12% of the gross on a basic listing (total to ebay/Paypal), then he or she is doing something wrong, such as buying frivolous or useless features, or endlessly relisting an item at too high a price, etc.

I come at it from a different angle than some. I don't sell bike stuff on Ebay to make money, I just want the (either vintage, or reasonable quality, fairly late model) parts, that I've accumulated inadvertently, to find a new appreciative owner rather than moulder in my garage or end up in the landfill, while recouping enough money to justify my effort of listing, packing, & shipping. For that purpose, I don't begrudge Ebay their pound of flesh, in my case - I'm glad to think the parts are getting re-used. The stuff that doesn't sell, after one or two listings, goes to the local co-op.

In a city like El Paso, Ebay is a godsend for parts/accessories/clothing. El Paso has very little bicycle culture, and therefore very few bike shops where a commuter can get something they really need. There's two or three sellers on Ebay that I have grown to trust through the years, and they (along with an occasional Nashbar/Performance purchase) keep me on the road - tires, panniers, clothing, tubes, lighting, almost everything. When I lived in Denver, which has a great bike shop every 500 feet or so, it was different.

I remember when it was mostly guys like me buying parts you needed and selling parts you didn't. Then Ebay became big business and the really good deals began to go away because the sellers more and more became businesses and there were fewer and fewer guys like me. For example, I bought two brand new Brooks B-17 saddles a few years ago and I paid $45 for one and $42 for the other one. No way I could ever find those deals again. I used to buy vintage parts just because they were so cheap. Now, I just don't see those great deals and for new parts I just go to the LBS.

I believe that ebay allowing people to set up "stores" really hurt the great deals people can find. Sure it helped the company. I just think it's against the original spirit of it.
I feel like it was originally meant for people to sell and auction off things laying around or to get a little extra $ here and there say reselling a bike you got for Xmas or something.

But now with all the stores it more like a bazaar.

Never dealt with ebay before, I recently signed up thinking that I would pick up some cheap lights. However, I think that I will spend a bit more for the same product and buy from a domestic source for the post sale customer service.

I'm with you. I'm about 2 hours south of Chicago and if I want to drive up there I can find all kinds of bike parts/shops/culture, but down I'm pretty limited to a couple local shops that I'm not a fan of. So I do get a benefit out of buying from ebay, even after the seller loads the fees and shipping into my final cost.

On the flip side, selling through ebay sucks. Besides the crazy fees that have already been mentioned I have no luck estimating shipping costs. USPS's online tool is horrible and it seems that everytime I guess I end up shorting myself out of another 5-10 bucks. I can't for the life of me figure out USPS's pricing matrix. It's like anything other than a letter is automatically $10, even if it only weighs 2 oz, even though a 2 oz letter only costs like $.15. That $ on top of the ebay/paypal fees makes it not even worth selling something on ebay for less than $50.

I used to sell quite a lot on Ebay too, but just like you have stopped because it's gotten expensive for the seller and I started having the same issues with shipping cost. The only thing I sell occasionally these days is cell phones, but those fit in the Priority Shipping boxes so it's flat rate. As far as buying, there's one fact: There is not one rear pannier available locally in El Paso, a city of over 500,000 people. Not one. Guaranteed. Good headlights? One shop sells the NiteRider line. That's it. Tires? Every shop sells tires, but if you want a specific brand/model? Forget it. There is not one single pair of Continental SportContact tires here except for the ones on my bike. I need Ebay! Hahahahaha

eBay still has its place. You will probably sell decent gear and parts for more money on eBay than you would otherwise. Whether it's worth it to you after dealing with various bidders, the fees and shipping is another matter. As far as buying goes, I can almost always find a better price on new gear and equipment by using a simple Google search than I find on eBay stores. It is harder to return items from eBay sellers, as well, so I don't usually buy new stuff on eBay unless it's something that I am reasonably certain that I won't have to return or exchange. However, if I have a bunch of money in my PayPal account from eBay sales, it is very simple to buy stuff on eBay. I generally use "buy it now" if the price is reasonable rather than going through the whole bidding rigamarole.

remember ... one of the candidates for Calif Governor on the R ticket
was Quite wealthy from being an exec at Ebay.
was using it to buy the office.

I usually find better deals at online stores these days.

I am much more likely to sell on EBay than buy there. I have seen idiot bidders drive the price up beyond the street price for a new item (on stuff I have sold). One of them came back at me pissed that she had bid so much, but... tough. I set the opening bid at $15.00, she and the other fools bid it up to $505.

But these days with the high fees and the chunk of it that PayPal takes, I agree, I'd rather sell on Craigslist. Better deal for everyone involved.

I read some comments per 2nd offers per Ebay.. how usually these were a scam. Does not the seller have to pay commission on these first wins? Or can/does the seller just let the 'scam buyer' off the hook.. 'forgiving' the win and then making the score on 2nd offer.. thus incurring no fees on the 'scam win'?

NO "*hit-bay" fan at all here... used to use them for non bike sales back when.. before the fees got wayyy otta hand. They need some real COMPETITION.

I use ebay a lot for things that they don't make anymore. Anything current issue, I usually buy form some other online store.

I won't use Ebay. The fees incurred are insane, and since Ebay owns PayPal, they're really just double dipping on their clients.

I buy on Ebay frequently and use PayPal and they charge nothing at all. Sellers pay the fees, but the few times I've sold on Ebay (mostly selling old cell phones) the fees have only been a couple of bucks. But like anywhere you shop or sell, it's important to be careful who you're dealing with and be wary. There's a few sellers that have setup "Ebay Stores" that sell excellent bicycling gear and have great selections - my favorite is "Buildyourbike" - and xtrajack is correct, there's a wide selection of "outdated" but still great bike stuff available. Generally the selection of items on Ebay are less expensive than online retailers like Performancebike and Nashbar (Example: NiteRider MiNewt 600 Cordless is between $100 and $110 at Ebay, and is $149 ay Nashbar/Performance. Look at auction 160695459037), and the selection is larger. For me that's important because one of my bikes is an old Trek 520 (1985) that has center-pull brakes, 27" wheels, and several other "outdated" features that Nashbar/Performence cannot help me with, but I can find parts on Ebay easily.

I have to agree with some views on here. I managed to build a bike on ebay last year. I got the frame and most of the components from one seller but it was after I had negotiated a reasonable price with him since he went to 2 auctions with no hits. I bought the wheels from a dealer on ebay which saved me about 250 and some parts on craigslist with sellers willing to ship and use paypal. Ebay has definitley dropped off from individuals selling and gone to mostly retailers. Now I find its like going to the flee market week after week and then finally finding what I need. Unfortunatly I can't make a purchase from an individual online without using paypal since the risk of me not getting what I paid for is too high. Most people don't realize if you pay a small fee per year you can recieve money from anyone with paypal outside of ebay and not incure fees.

Shoemakerpom2010

I quit selling on Evilbay. I still buy there off and on. You really have to know what a item retails for to find the deals. I decide on the price i want to pay for the item, if it is a good price/shipping i will bid. It is insane to see some of the prices people are willing to pay. I also take into consideration what i can buy the item from a online shop also when looking at Evilbay auctions.

I bought my last three bikes on eBay and I think I got a good deal each time. It requires some time and effort.

But I watch a number of popular electronic items on eBay and I'm amazed at the prices people are willing to pay. For example, you can by a refurbished iPad2 (wi-fi 16GB) from Apple with the normal warranty (and free shipping) for $430. Yet people regularly pay $460-480 on eBay for used ones. WTF? They over-pay for new ones too. I don't get it.