Ebay listing fees hurt bottom line

[Data]

In the past month I held a about 30 auctions. Most started off at $0.50 but at the end of auction I had a total winnings of $320.00 about plus shipping. 25 of those auctions went to U.S.A. from Canada through Canada Post and I had low-balled my shipping rates meaning I charged less than it actually cost. All of these auctions cost about $150.00 to ship and I got about $100.00 to cover this from the buyers. I found out that it is cheaper to ship to Canadians from the U.S.A. than it is from my house in Canada. Ebay took $50.00 off the top at the end of all these sales and Paypal cost about $20.00.

Now I'm waiting for these packages to be delivered. I sent one small package to Ohio on June 24th and it still hasn't arrived. It's stressful. If I had to sell things for a living through online auctions I would not use Ebay. Count the hours spent taking pictures, filling out auctions, answering questions, printer ink, packing tape, High Speed connection, wrapping a package, driving to the post office and the risk of having things delayed or lost in shipping then getting negative feedback and that hastle plus FEEbay & Paypal taking up to 26% of my profit then it is not worth it.

It is so bad, and I'd rather draw my own blood than go through this again.

I came accross this petition http://googleauctionsite.net/googleauctionsitepetition.htm for Google to start an auction site. I signed it twice with two different email addresses because I truly believe Google should move forward with this idea.

From now on I'm going to sell everything on Ebid.com or Craigslist. Even buying stuff on Ebay costs as much as it would from an online retailer. Like motherboards, RAM and CPU's are all found on Newegg for the same cost or less and you get the added security of easy returns with no hastling calls to OEM's plus they delivery within 3 or 4 business days and you get to read reviews of each item.

[Thor]

Yeah, I've got a love-hate relationship with eBay myself. I like buying from eBay because you can get some amazing deals such as the Bond BluRay vol 3 that I bought today for $30 and free shipping. You can't beat that price! But selling on eBay is a pain in the rear because of what you just explained. They take a double dip by charging you listing fees and final price cut. On top of that they then take more from the paypal payment. I wish they never bought paypal it's just made things worse.

[triverse]

Ebay bought Paypal solely for the ability to control more of the transactions (i.e., they can keep more money).  It does hurt to know that when I sell something on Ebay that I am paying almost as much to them as I do in my weekly salary taxes to the government (I pay about 28%).

[E-Day]

Selling on eBay has become a complete hassle. Last summer I sold a ton of retro games on there to raise money for my home theatre. While I did really well, eBay and Paypal took a decent chunk out of my earnings. Basically if anything sells for 99 cents, you end up losing money because of the listing fee, final value fee, and Paypal's cut when the winner sends the money.

I was able to compensate for it accidentally through shipping. I quoted shipping proces off of Canada Post's website. But because I used the Canada Post shipping feature in Paypal, I got a lower rate.

Listing auctions is a lot riskier today because almost everything is now just a Buy it Now listing. So when someone searches for something you happen to be selling, it will get lost among all the BIN listings. And if someone lowballs their BIN price, it ensures that you won't get more than that for your item, if it even sells.

I am glad that when I had a bunch of Super NES and N64 stuff to unload, there was a member here who wanted it all. It saved me the hassle of the whole eBay process. Hopefully I'll get as lucky with the other stuff I have sitting in a box behind me. I definitely don't want to bother with eBay again.

[triverse]

Just a heads up about what E-day is mentioning, about the lowball prices on BIN's.  Anyone check out Gamefan on Ebay?  There are BIN's for nearly every issue (vol 1 issue 5 being the earliest I have seen so far) where someone could pick up nearly the whole run for less than a grand.  I remember when if you had the first 6 issues you could command a grand easily.  My how the prices on this magazine have fallen (you can get more for the newer issues of EGM than you can for Gamefan issues prior to #12).

[badinsults]

I tried selling a bunch of games on Ebay back in June. I had what I thought were reasonable buy it now prices, but the only "best offers" I got were severely lowballed to the point that there was no point in selling them at all. I'm sorry, but I am not selling a lot of 95 games, including many rare and valuables ones, for $200. Ebay really ruined it by shifting emphasis away from auctions.

[Schloss Ritter]

This is a big reason that I've put off from selling my game boxes on eBay. That and the fact that my rating is still only 5, since I've hardly ever used the site and have only ever bought 5 things. I've thought that having such a low rating (despite being 100% positive) would scare off serious bidders, hosing me on the selling price.

I only kept the boxes since I thought they were lost when I sold the games and found them later...

[triverse]

The user rating doesn't really bother me.  If it is 100%, even if under 5 or 10 total, then I will treat that seller the same as I would if they had 1200 or so feedback at 100%.  With the various protections in place like Paypal and my credit card company, it is unlikely I will get messed over on a purchase (may take some time to get the money back but that is, what, about a month or so).

[Schloss Ritter]

Yeah, the last time I bought something was before the Paypal takeover, so it was more common for Sellers to accept other forms of payment, especially internationally. I lost something like $80 to a bogus Seller that I sent a money order to and never got my item (a Star Trek: TNG season DVD set). Of course the seller disappeared and neither I nor eBay could track them down to get my money back. Strangely enough, though they had a low rating (<10), they were at about 100% before then too. Guess they must have bought from themselves under false accounts to boost their rating percentage?

[kbf_private_joker]

I sell everything through Craigslist, even though it usually takes months to find buyers. I toyed with the idea of selling individual magazines through Ebay, but quickly decided that the $100 was not worth spending 20-30 hours in maintenance and preparation. Better off just getting a weekend job if you can find one. Heck mowing lawns would be easier than selling most things on Ebay.

[Mister Zero]

Guess they must have bought from themselves under false accounts to boost their rating percentage?

This has happened to my fiancee and me so many times. I can understand why it happens, but it's not right. I try to stay away from eBay these days.. I don't like how its more focused on storefronts and not individuals.

[xlenigma]

Yeah the fees really do hurt, and it seems that the fees just keep increasing too.

[Toocool100]

And going to an ebay store doesn't help either! :(