ebay selling....

T

TruckLover

Mack CH613 & 53' Trailer
Apr 14, 2006
4,073
0
36
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Rancho Santa Margarita, Cali.
Really is not worth it anymore to me.... Anyone else with me? I mean, a few months ago, it was still not all that great, and i thought the fees were bad then, but now, i just looked again and its gotten really bad. So bad im refusing to sell on it. Im afraid that i wont be able to make any money on e-bay if i start selling on it again :eek: :cry: :rolleyes: When i was an active seller a couple months ago, it was good and bad. The good was i was making some nice money on selling some stuff, model trains and other stuff, the bad was i was oweing ebay upwards of $200 a month in there dang fees wall1 :curse: :curse: it was because of this, i had to stop selling on ebay, i couldnt take the outragious insertion, and final ending fees :eek: :cry: wall1

I have not even bought anything on ebay for a while, but i have a feeling that i will only be buying and not selling on ebay for now on, unless they lower there selling fees to a reasonalble price like they used to be :rolleyes:

Another thing i saw that is a new ebay rule, is that the only payment method for a lot of categories now is PayPal, model trains being one of those. I have nothing wrong with PayPal, and infact, i prefer it, but i know there are alot of people out there that do not use PayPal and have no interest in useing it. Therefor, that draws those people away from ebay resulting in even fewer people buying on ebay, lower selling prices, and not nearly worth selling on ebay anymore :rolleyes:

Does this have something to do with the economy crisis? Think this is just a faze that ebay is going through? I really hope they lower there fees to what they used to be, i mean this is getting ridicules.

Is it just me? :confused:
 
Been selling on feebay for a long time... Making gas money selling old stock from a comic book store, when I was assistant manager. But no - not much money there..

The fees went up again but they took some of the fees away (mostly listing fees under 1.00 listing price) Even though I have Paypal preferred on all my autions, I still get requests for money orders. And on occasion I take them if it means a higher sale price.. E-bay owns Paypal, so i pay (e-bay) when i list - i pay (e-bay) when it sells and I pay Paypal when the person pays...

And the fees are fair, really, until you sell something for over $50.00 then you sometimes pay 10.00 in fees in all 3 of those charges....

I have heard a few sellers that think that once something sells, e-bay should waive the listing fees... So if it doesn't sell they get the listing fees and if it does sell they get the final value fee -- a lot higher sometimes than the .35 listing fee...

I think they raise prices every January, so it's not long till they get us again.. :(
 
Word to the wise regarding PayPal...several months ago we had a large charge amount credited to our Amex card via PayPal. When we checked into it, we found PayPal allowed a "vendor" to fraudulently charge $700. Fortunately, we check our credit cards almost daily looking for this kind of thing - one of the many who don't quite trust cyberspace and credit card paperwork receipts left at retailers - and immediately called Amex and PayPal. The charge was removed, but PayPal was very concerned about the problem it raised. The best guesses were: someone had a random number generator, running Amex numbers and trying to match them with the security code on the back of the card, and whadda you know, they got one right. Or they had our Amex card number and then used a number generator to hit the security code...either way...PayPal allowed the transaction to occur which is interesting considering we never had a PayPal account. Either way, PayPal now had a big problem with security easily exploited. Everything turned out fine with us...we got new Amex cards in hours, no other fraud issues on our credit, so we feel like we dodged a bullet, but it proved the point about regularly checking your credit card history.

On a related note...many of us leave our credit card numbers with online retailers for reserve orders that take upwards of a year or more to finally charge when the item arrives. There's a possibility that the retailer could misplace or loose the number, data, or file although many seem to take the utmost care to prevent that from happening. It's a good idea if you've left your credit card number "out there in cyberspace" to check your credit history often. And it may not be perfect, but check to make sure the online retailer has a 128bit encryption security "lock" on the ordering pages. After you're done ordering, get off line completely and delete your internet files, temp files, form data, cookies and internet history. I'm no computer wizard, but I've been told that spyware programs can get on your system and look back at your "history" and pull this data out.

Hey - you're not paranoid if they're really after you! :twisted:
 
I think Ebay as a company grew to a point where they had to increase fees and charges in order to stay profitable. But of course in doing so they are eroding the one thing which made them what they are - the customers who sell and buy on ebay.
It is this kind of short-sightedness that will make companies like ebay ripe for some young start-up that has low to no overhead to launch a competitive site that is different, and better than ebay. The other migration I think that may happen is for websites like Craiglist to get traffic from buyers and sellers, in essence regionalizing the buyers and sellers to their geographic areas.
 
I read in a business article in August that eBay stockholders were concerned about the lack of growth at eBay, and that Amazon was taking away eBay business. The wisdom was that folks had grown "tired" of the traditional eBay auction format, and they weren't attracting new customers. So eBay changed their rules, charges, and policies to favor their bigger dealers and fixed price sales rather than auctions.

IMHO, a rather stupid move, but I'm not the CEO or on the board of eBay, either. The changes have hurt and enraged all the "communities" built around cottage industries and small time dealers and folks selling to each other. Model railroading is just one of those communities. But in the big eBay scheme of things, we are probably small potatoes, and the loss of our business will not really impact eBay.

Besides, where are you going to turn? eBay provides(d) a recognized international market for sellers at a very reasonable marketing cost. Try running ads in your local newspaper or hobby magazines, and tell me your net return is better. Or advertise on Craig's list or run garage sales - you are still going to spend more time selling than at eBay auctions, and realize less. And volume is certainly going to be reduced compared to what you can do on eBay. I haven't put anything up for sale since the changes, but in my earlier sales the combined listing, final sales, and Pay Pal fees never exceeded 10% of my sales price. I don't know if that's still true, but I would hope so.

There are attempts to set up alternatives with model railroading (upbid.com being one), but to date they have a very long ways to go to get many buying customers to see them as a valid marketplace. Until the customers start seeking alternatives, sellers are going to be stuck.

my thoughts, your choices
 
I for one use E-bay as little as possible for selling now. The fees have gotten to be way to much and now with the Paypal only thing it has become a pain. The paypal only thing is just another way of getting another fee from a seller. This thing about it being safer is nothing but a smoke screen. I have learnt Paypal cannot be trusted to solve problems in a fair manor. Most of all if it means they end up on the short end of the stick.

I also see E-bay plans on setting shipping cost limits based on the item a seller will be selling. This could be a good thing as it may end the crazy shipping costs some sellers charge. It could be bad though as there is a chance the price range they set may not be enough. As a seller I only charge actual cost with insurance when I ship items out.

I think the main problem with E-bay now is the fact it is listed on the stock market. Not that it is a bad thing but it means profit and answering to the stock holders has become more important. Sure they have to make a profit but the recent rule changes and fees show that has become their number one concern. Sadly all they have done is scare good sellers away. I know over a dozen people ( sellers ) who in the last few months have given up on E-bay. All said it was because of the fees and it was no longer profitable to sell using E-bay. By the time they listed their item for a fair price and paid the fees when it sold they were making a few dollars profit or just breaking even if they were lucky.

I would not be surprised if E-bay ends up dying in a few years. It is not hard to see that already the number of sellers and good deals are a lot less than there used to be a few years back. I used to be able to find 6 to 10 items that interested me enough to purchase them every month. Now I find it very hard find one item I can use or even for a fair price in a month. It is not like my buying habits have changed because they have not. Lately there are a lot less of the items that fit my modeling needs on E-bay.


Wayne R
 
I to my self have gave up ebay for the reason of the paypal ordeal and listing fees. Myself feel that they may have fewer people going there with all the bull hocky they are doing. O well just means for me that my local hobby shop picks up more of my orders:mrgreen:
 
ive enjoyed reading all your replies, and im glad to see im not the only one that is not happy with ebay's raised fees and new rules. All i can say is, if ebay wants me and many other sellers to come back who have been drawn away by the new higher fees and new rules, they need to go back to how things were.

I can deal with the PayPal only, but the fees i cannot deal with. I believe that ebay made a huge mistake with all the changes they have made to try and make more profit for themselfs, they should just go back to the way things were a few months ago, because some profit is better then no profit at all. I will be strictly buying only off ebay for now. When and if they lower there fees, i wil, consider selling on ebay again :rolleyes:
 
well guess ill be the odd man out here. i really dont have a problem with their fees. i mean everyone has to make money and everything is going up in price nowdays. ive sold a few things the past couple months and didnt think the fees were all that bad. and as far as buying goes, i have been fortunate to have gotten some great deals lately and meet some very nice vendors. but again its just my opinion.

todd
 
I have no problem with eBay, either buying or selling. My bone of contention is with the USPS....They effectively cut my Track Guard business down to zero. The last rate increase brought US delivery charges to almost 50% of the item's cost...Not a good deal. I could send to Australia for what it costs to ship to Alabama nowadays....:curse:
 
I find it amusing that international mail cost so little now, though the recent hike, added some to it, it was worse with the prior hike before that. $3.50 in the US, to AZ from CA, then I send the SAME item, packed the same way to Canada for $.99!
 
Josh...That happened to me too....Postage was more to Californeeaahhh than to Quebec....I had the attendant double-check as I didn't want my customer in Canada to not get his items for lack of postage....The postage was correct...:eek:
 
It may be some sort of anomaly, but the last few times I have had to ship anything I have checked both USPS and UPS. In each case UPS charges have been about 1/2 of USPS, unless I go back to the shop I retired from and pay them to ship for me. They get the commercial rate from UPS and the price is probably 1/3 of USPS. I just say no to the post office.
 
Ive also noticed that if you pay and ship online, then the postage for USPS is way cheaper then going into the post office. I shipped a package that was less then one pound across the states, it was $7.89 to ship in the post office, and it would have been $4.75 to ship the same package online. Unfortunately i was forced to go into the post office and ship the package because the guys address said it was not valid even though it was. The post office shipped it off to him and he got it no problems. The address was just not found in UPS or USPS address database.... :rolleyes: My point is, if you ship online, you will end up saving alot versus going into the post office, at least thats what ive noticed when shipping in the US. I do all my shipping online if all possible. Its fast, easy, and i can just schedule a free pickup or drop the box off at the post office or mail center. This is the main reason i use USPS for all my shipping needs when selling.
 
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