Topic: FAAAAAARRQQQQQ!!! eBay Selling Leaves My Butt Feeling Tender & Sore!!!

[Damfino]

   

     I just sold two tickets to a concert my wife decided not to attend. The tickets sold for $382.00 which was about $85.00 more than she paid for them, so we were pretty stoked...then we got the bill from eBay & Paypal.    eBay took $34.38 and 'BendoverI'mnotyourpal' took another $11.96, for a total of $46.35!   I haven't sold on eBay for almost 4 years because I thought their fee's were getting high, but I didn't realize they had gotten that far out of hand.

     Then to top it off, I find out afterwards that I can't touch the money in my Paypal account for 21 days or unless the buyer leaves positive feedback for me. So I look at her (the buyers) 'feedback given' and it's a big fat 0! She's been on eBay for 3-4 years, has a positive feedback of 4, and has never returned any feedback herself. 

     I feel for you guys that are out there still trying to make a buck selling #$%* on eBay. I don't know how you do it. I'm fully aware that we still came out around $40.00 ahead on the auction, but my point is that I think it's outrageous for eBay to charge so much, then withold your money, when essentially all they do is provide you with a small space on the internet to sell your item.

     Not so much a rant as it is a lesson learned, guess I'll go back to staying away from the selling end of eBay. Well, that's my little eBay horror story and I'm sticking to it, feel free to post your own. Happy Trails...

[Gordon]

Don't they also release the money if you provide them with a tracking/delivery confirmation number? 

[Damfino]

Really? I'll have to look into that...Thanks Gordon for the tip!

[tramp]

i heard ebay was going to court because of only using paypal

[ev0lve]

46.35? That's like 12-13%? That's inline with a real auction house. Not that it doesn't suck - I'm just saying.

[edbikerii]

They created an efficient marketplace that allows you to sell your stuff much more efficiently than in the past.

How long would it have taken to sell that stuff in the newspaper classifieds?  On Craigslist?  Through word-of-mouth?

Try selling without eBay, and then you'll see why it is worth it.

If you don't like the rates, then you should factor in the percentage when you set your starting bid or reserve.

[Frankencake]

They created an efficient marketplace that allows you to sell your stuff much more efficiently than in the past.

How long would it have taken to sell that stuff in the newspaper classifieds?  On Craigslist?  Through word-of-mouth?

Try selling without eBay, and then you'll see why it is worth it.

If you don't like the rates, then you should factor in the percentage when you set your starting bid or reserve.

Yes Ed.  You are 100% correct.  eBay is a fantastic source for sellers and buyers alike.  The problem is that when one entity becomes the sole source of exchange, there is no competition to keep the working fees down to competitive levels.  It's called a monopoly.  eBay may not be the sole source of exchange on the internet, but it is the largest.  Their pricing and policing could use a bit of work.  In short form, they are getting rich off of us; and I mean rich. 

[edbikerii]

So, create your own auction site and undercut them on price.  If they are as overpriced as you feel they are, then there is a huge opportunity for you.  Unless they are doing something "anti-competitive" there's no monopoly.

Funny to hear people complain about monopolies because a company provides a service that is so good you believe you can't do without it.

They created an efficient marketplace that allows you to sell your stuff much more efficiently than in the past.

How long would it have taken to sell that stuff in the newspaper classifieds?  On Craigslist?  Through word-of-mouth?

Try selling without eBay, and then you'll see why it is worth it.

If you don't like the rates, then you should factor in the percentage when you set your starting bid or reserve.

Yes Ed.  You are 100% correct.  eBay is a fantastic source for sellers and buyers alike.  The problem is that when one entity becomes the sole source of exchange, there is no competition to keep the working fees down to competitive levels.  It's called a monopoly.  eBay may not be the sole source of exchange on the internet, but it is the largest.  Their pricing and policing could use a bit of work.  In short form, they are getting rich off of us; and I mean rich. 

[Damfino]

46.35? That's like 12-13%? That's inline with a real auction house. Not that it doesn't suck - I'm just saying.

Yeah Iggy but, a real auction house catalogs, photographs, handles advertising, etc., and you just sit back and collect your check. With eBay, you handle all of that, and eBay sits back and collects their check...

[BLUE71TURBO]

 You think that's bad, the b!tch that started and ran ebay is trying to become the governor of California !!    

[Damfino]

Ed, I hear what you're saying and it doesn't change my mind that I believe eBay to be a greedy company exploiting their monopoly on online auctions. But then, that's their prerogative...I really blame myself for not checking out the current fee structure before listing the tickets. I could have lived without eBay on this one because the concert is a good month & half away. Plenty of time in my opinion for selling them elsewhere, I guess. But since it's been 3 or 4 years since I sold on their website, I wasn't prepared for the enormous increase in final value fee's since then. The whole thing took me by surprise I guess, hence my reason for anger at my stupidity and my posting it here as a hard lesson learned. 

[Jordan]

I do not ebay or paypal, but I occasionally will go to the dark side and shop at wallyworld, even though I hate feeding the hogs.

[333]

Here's the real crappy part.  All the buyer has to say is that the tickets were phony, and he gets all his money back.

[Damfino]

Thanks Stan, I feel so much better now...

[Terry in Australia]

Sounds like you're getting screwed mate, I sold a heap of old Panther Motorcycle parts on EBay Australia for a friend recently, the total was 860 bucks, and they only charged me 36 dollars in fees, total?

Sadly, the buyer left me my first "neutral" feedback in many years so I had a massive email war with him, he is a lying sack of crap and one day I'll burn his house down with him in it, but I learned a valuable lesson about the consequences of selling stuff as a favor to a friend. Never again.............. Cheers, Terry.

[winnipeg550guy]

i heard ebay was going to court because of only using paypal

 Last I remember Feebay owns Paypal.
 
 I've gotten the impression that Ebay isn't really interested in the same time seller and just wants to focus on the high volume sellers that they can milk.

[Retro Rocket]

Unless they are doing something "anti-competitive" there's no monopoly.

The problem is that fee-bay won't let sellers take any other sort of payment, just paypal.........as far as i am concerned thats a monopoly....I don't know the full story but i think they were being taken to court about this very problem.

Mick

[lordmoonpie]

Fleabay fees have gone up ridiculously in the last 12 months. I used to list a bike for sale with reserve for £9 and then pay £15 flat rate when it sold. I can barely list a bike for less than £20 now and the selling fee is £30. Plus as you all point out they own paypal so rake in money at both ends.

There is a rival site that's trying to take off globally called eBid but having listed one item on there (for £0.05!) it still hasn't sold six months on. The good thing is though it;ll stay there until someone bids on it. If everyone started to move to eBid we'd at least generate some competition for ebay.

I also notice that for a lot of stuff I sell in auction format, most people are listing as buy it now auctions only. I haven't worked out if that makes more sense on the charges front - maybe that's the way to do it.

It's a great shop window though. The last 7 bikes I sold and two cars have all gone through ebay or offline because someone saw it on ebay. The black bomber I just sold I advertised in 3 magazines first, not a single phone call. I could have sold it three times over on ebay classifieds....it's a headache but it's still the best publicity you can get.

[edbikerii]

...and that's why they charge so much.

Market forces allow them to charge more because they are (or were) simply better, and there was (is?) basically no competition.  Once sellers learn, and begin to factor the increased costs of doing business on eBay into their selling prices, then eBay will become less attractive to buyers (not finding such bargains anymore), and either competitors will flourish, or eBay will have to start lowering prices to compete.  I know I've been bitten, and I've started adding on 15-20% onto the items I sell on eBay to compensate for their fees.

Interestingly, for established companies, lowering prices to compete is typically considered monopolistic, because it quickly bankrupts competitors (flooding the market).

I'm trying out buying something on eBid today.  http://us.ebid.net.

It's a great shop window though. The last 7 bikes I sold and two cars have all gone through ebay or offline because someone saw it on ebay. The black bomber I just sold I advertised in 3 magazines first, not a single phone call. I could have sold it three times over on ebay classifieds....it's a headache but it's still the best publicity you can get.