eBay refiddles with auction fees
eBay is making more changes to its already profoundly confusing US pricing structure as a way to attract high volume sellers and appease those who auction only a few low-priced items. The online tat house charges sellers twice per successful auction. There's an “insertion fee" to list an item on the website and a “final value …
they have been fiddling those charging policies as well .. they really don't want you to use credit cards to buy in foreign currency as they want you to use their more expensive built-in conversion facility. Each time I set the PayPal default to use card conversion only sometime later on PayPal sneak in and change it back to their own more expensive version.
eBay/Pal are a monopoly and need slapping down as they continually manipulate charges in their favour whilst trying to make out its good for both sellers and buyers. If there was a REAL alternative I would use it !
Yes, but has anyone yet figured out whether or not the net effect will be a reduction in fees or actually an increase in fees. I'm betting on an increase! Having driven away many both buyers and sellers, how else can the head(less) turkey attempt to maintain eBay's profits on the ever-reducing revenues; can't be too many staff left to pink slip.
"And as many active eBay sellers point out in the company's forums, once the math is worked out, the lower upfront costs are often outweighed by the additional expenses."
'nuf said.
The buggers just won't stop, will they? After being forced down Paypal's pseudobank route as well, you're paying over 10% in fees. Why not just assign all your goods to ebay for them to do with as they please? We're moving in that direction.
Ebay, you know you're abusing your dominant market position. There's NO WAY to justify a 10% levy, it costs you the same to sell a 99p item as it does a £500 one, so you're just gouging.
Of course, you're welcome to write your own auction site... Or go back to putting classified adverts in local newspapers.
The fact that in an incresing number of categories the won't let you charge anything for postage (look at the list, ever been surprised at the number of items that have "Free Postage" - the sellers don't get a choice!)
These are usually the 'accessories' type categories. If you want to try and sell off that old TV remote that works perfectly but the TV's died, you can't charge anything for postage (example from personal experience) and you can't get much for it so you're ending up PAYING to get rid of it. Someone there needs to get the environment people involved since this will see a LOT of items going straight to landfill (and I'm not a GREEN, I just hate to see something that works thrown in the bin).
/rant
why people are leaving in droves? Another shining example where a great idea was over managed do death.
I've had decent luck selling on Craigslist, although I am getting rather tired of the autobot postings that troll every new listing that goes up, pushing some scam website or another... Or our favorite Nigerian 419ers with their "let me pay you more by cheque and you just refund me the difference since I am off on <rnd> in the country of <rnd>"
Buying shat on Ebay and Paypal is a hassle these days, and the feedbacks are useless too. When you can ONLY say "positive" things about someone... Where is the honesty about a bad customer?
Sellers have the most responsibility, accurately described, quick postage, well packaged etc. buyers only have to pay, if a buyer doesn't pay then give them a strike, too many and they're gone, how would you define a bad customer? one who says it didn't arrive? recorded is 70p proof of posting is free, one who complains about quality? describe the item better then.
Not being able to give a buyer bad feedback means that you no longer have the retailiation feedback and buyers can be more honest about the seller without risking retaliation.
Why can't they just do a fee based on finale price.
Then we the users can have eral prices showing up. instead of everything starting at 99p / 99c NO RESERVE etc etc. then shills come along and up the price.
I used to use eBay a lot to dispose of functional but surplus computer gear and other stuff we no longer needed. Since they changed their fee structure last year I've pretty much stopped, it simply isn't worth it. And if you try and point this out in the forums, your message gets deleted because it is viewed as violating message posting policy. Frankly I'm surprised that the posts saying that the changes work out more costly are still there.
The business model of this company appears now to be driven by absolute greed, pure and simple. Very sad.
ebay has been dragged down by the professionals and the sharks. Auto sniping programs, every bloody auction gets a 'Do you have a buy it now price' comment, You can't search for anything because of the 'cleverly ' worded tags and paid-for promotions of unrelated items. It's a mess.
What I want is:
1. Auction only.
2. At the end of the auction a few random minutes are added to the time to prevent sniping.
3. The auction house does the escrow but not doesn't own the money transfer.
4. takes complaints seriously.
I also use some commercial/industrial auction sites who have totally got rid of the sniping problem very very simply...
In order for an auction to close, there must be no bids for 2 minutes.
If someone places a bid in the last 2 minutes, time is added onto the auction so there is a 2 minute span without bids. If that means auctions end up going on for another 10 minutes as two sniperbois vainly fight each other, who cares? It's like a REAL auction - 'going once, going twice, sold'.
Simple to implement, much more honest all round, but they're not interested, or haven't been for the past 5+ years I've tried to get them to listen to the idea in vain.
I've nearly stopped using ebay in favour of ebid (http://uk.ebid.net/)- they have the ability to run anti snipe auctions, and they allow you to list for free- for an all in one fee.
I've had enough of ebay pulling my items because they don't like that I charge paypal users the charges that they impose on me.
In short ebay are a bunch of money grabbing w*nkers who are destroying their own market with greed.
Its a give at one end to take at the other, and wont really appease the low volume sellers , since they still block them from charging any postage unless the initial listing fee is above a certain amount , thus shifting the cost onto the seller.
I suspect Shareholders will enjoy the short jump they see in listings and sales, but itll tail off until the next big PR push.
Oh those poor Yanks having it raised to 9% when it's been 10% in rip-off Britain for years.
And "media" items have to be free postage. Try posting a big book. That's UK-only too
C'mon, you really don't think the'd have made these changes without modelling the outcome first based on the last few months' data?
Of COURSE it will make them more money, why else would they do it?
Actually, you CAN leave negative feedback.
If there's a problem with your sale, simply report it to Ebay or Paypal and then the NEGATIVE option comes available, even before the matter is resolved.
I don't sell much on Ebay now, due to the prices, but I'll still use it to pick up "as-new" items for a fraction of the new cost or from second hand traders.
Didn't know that......
....will keep it in mind
Thanx!
I was hooked on E-Bay when it came to getting out-of-print books and such for a Role Playing Game I'd owned for years, then I found that Amazon could be just as inexpensive and infinity times more reliable as far as actually getting what was described in the original solicitation to buy.
I never got totally burned on eBay, but I had more and more "almost but not quite" stuff turning up when I bid (usually with "buy it now" since the oft-mentioned sniping software would otherwise drive the prices into the stratosphere).
I suppose I could have used such software myself, but having to give someone else credentials that I carefully selected to be secure seems a bit...counterproductive and time consuming, as to be safe I would have to replace the credentials right after an auction in order to be "secure" again.
As for the costs, it's always been 'whatever the market will stand". If people stop using the service, the prices will drop again. But they won't, because - when you get down to it - the prices aren't outrageous enough.
Yet.
I used to sell lots of DVDs on ebay. With so many changes occuring on the site, its become impossible to make a tidy sum on old DVDs. DVDs generally dont sell for much anyway, sometimes less than £1. Thing is ebay seems to think that the postal system in the UK is free of charge.
By the time I pay the ebay fees, the paypal fees, the jiffy bag and postage, I am making a loss.
I wish a newer startup will soon appear - in the familiar Ebay style. Yahoo Auctions used to work well for me before it got pulled, I hope google come up with something soon...
I've been selling old vinyl disks on eBay for a few years and it used to be a profitable little sideline. These days, the fees and enforced "free" postage mean it's hard to make anything. Fake bidders are a problem, too and eBay has removed the only practical ways to block them. The free p&p thing was billed as being to keep buyers happy, but everyone knows p&p isn't really free. This just forces sellers include p&p in the item costs so that eBay get a bigger share of the total.
My solution? Build my own site to sell my stock of vinyl (over 7,000 disks at present) and use eBay auctions just as a way of advertising it. Every disk will now go out with a slip telling buyers they can buy the same things cheaper on TheTraxster.com. Don't bother looking it up just yet, cos it ain't finished yet. Try around the end of February though :-) Should save me around £10,000 per year.
Trouble is job public does not trust eBay because it has hidden bidder history in the UK with alias Bidder1, Bidder2 and the USA is little better with A**B and if we go along with eBays story about protecting buyers then why don't they have a ten digit alias so people can see whats going on.
They hide the history because shill bidding could be seen and now it's running rampant in the UK and the buyers know it.
Thow in no-pal fees and ebay fees with the vote of no faith and you can see why little is flying out the doors apart from the $0.01 feedback thats being sold on a massive scale.
