Is eBay Finished For Non-business Sellers?

soolin

It's been 'dying' since the day i moved to it around 11 years ago, if i believed all the disgruntled posts I see. I love the idea though of reserrecting such an old thread to have another bash at it, thus rather undermining their own argument.

Never mind, I'm obviously on a different ebay as I seem to be doing very nicely indeed.

EDIT: Just to add from my own experience of using both I think it is ebid that is dying, the few buyers it once had appear to have deserted it.

Ebid + CQout + UK + Germany + Australia = The End of Ebay.

George666

*LoopyLaura* wrote: »

Fees are ridiculous now for private sellers, they seem only interested in the big guns now

As a private seller your first 100 listings a month do not get charged a listing fee.

stevew8975 wrote: »

If these 3 sellers had completed unpiad item strikes against the "buyer" then the chances are they would not have been able to make a purchase from you in the first place.

Negs never stopped dodgy buyers from continuing to make purchases, unpaid strikes do - and they work very well in my experience.

I agree with this item strikes work better than negative feedback against bad buyers.
When sellers could leave a negative for a buyer most did not anyway for fear of getting a negative in return and buyers could get thier negative feedback removed when it was left by a seller 99% or the time anyway so it served no purpose.
A lot of private sellers do not seem to know what it means to be a private seller and also do not seem to understand how ebay works and this is what gets them into trouble.
I have both business and private ebay accounts and the private account I use to get rid of personal items I no longer want or need that is what it is for, a private account is not there for me to make a profit just to sell things I don't want any more a bit like a car boot sale.
Every buyer even if they are buying from a private seller expects the item to be the same as it was described in the listing and to be sent as quickly as posible to them, this is not difficult to do and is not a lot to ask from any seller it is what I expect as a buyer and I don't think I am asking a lot.
And I also agree with soolin ebid is rubbish it does not have very many buyers it only has sellers this is why it is dying out.

BLT_2

Selling on ebay has become prohibitive with their costs, their insistence that you have to use Paypal 'for security reasons' and any other number of issues that you could quote. I still use it occasionally for purchases, but like many others all I do is look for items with no bids and then place a bid with 5 seconds to go.

Have had some great bargains, but I suspect that in many cases the seller has made barely enough to cover the costs, and certainly not enough to warrant the effort involved, when taking into account listing fee, final value fee, and paypal fees.

soolin

BLT wrote: »

Selling on ebay has become prohibitive with their costs, their insistence that you have to use Paypal 'for security reasons' and any other number of issues that you could quote. I still use it occasionally for purchases, but like many others all I do is look for items with no bids and then place a bid with 5 seconds to go.

Have had some great bargains, but I suspect that in many cases the seller has made barely enough to cover the costs, and certainly not enough to warrant the effort involved, when taking into account listing fee, final value fee, and paypal fees.

They you are buying from numptie seller. Most of us can manage to do a fair attempt at a balance sheet to show the overheads V profit on our items. I only sell to make money so if i didn't have money at the end of each selling period then I wouldn't sell.

I actually buy a great deal of my stationery on ebay and yes after packaging and fees they probably make very little on the transaction, but then you look and they have sold thousands, and sell thousands more via private websites and you realise that all those £1 profits are giving them a very good standard of living.

cyberbob

BLT wrote: »

Selling on ebay has become prohibitive with their costs,

if you can find anywhere cheaper (be it on or off the web) with the same amount of exposure and customers that ebay has I would love to hear where it is?

George666

cyberbob wrote: »

if you can find anywhere cheaper (be it on or off the web) with the same amount of exposure and customers that ebay has I would love to hear where it is?

I thought you would know where it was bob it is where you are now that well known mythical island Atlantis.:rotfl::rotfl:

Crowqueen

George - just to correct you (sorry), but private sellers only get 100 99p start listings free per month, not their first 100 listings per month starting at any price.

George666

Crowqueen wrote: »

George - just to correct you (sorry), but private sellers only get 100 99p start listings free per month, not their first 100 listings per month starting at any price.

Hi you are correct about the 99p start and that is the way it should be when I am selling things on my private account I just want rid of them and to get a bit back for them for example I recently sold a PS3 game on my private account and made a loss of about £5 but I had completed the game and the money I made has went towards another game.
I am just going out to put my tin hat on before I post this next bit.
The difference between a private sale and a business one is that every private sale should make a loss as you should be selling something you no longer want or need not something you are trying to earn a profit from.
This means if you have bought or made something and sold it for a profit it is then a business sale and as such should be declared to the HMRC and the sale should have been made on an ebay business account.
I do not like to defend ebay but they have had to make the 99p start for free listings and the 100 items a month limit on private accounts to stop private accounts running businesses and to comply with HMRC directives ebay has had little or no choice in this matter due to the large amount of people running businesses through private accounts.

avi12

The reason Ebay will prevail is because we no longer live in a world where people think they can make a difference.
All we now do as a human race is just go where things happen without a single thought as to HOW things happen in a certain place. We have forgotten that it is PEOPLE that make things happen. Critical mass happens because of a lack of people who are willing to go that extra mile and MAKE A CHANGE.
This is why we have a world full of vast companies making billions in profits, because WE as people allow it to happen, and we allow companies like Ebay to grow to humungous proportions, because the vast majority of us just throw our hands in the air and say, "Oh well, its Ebay or nothing". This allows the likes of Ebay to raise their prices to silly levels, because we have all become like Wilderbeest accepting that the lions are going to pick a few of us off.
If enough sellers just said "Ebay, enough already", and shipped their entire inventory to Ebid or Ecrater or wherever, Ebay would fold overnight. Then Ebay would have to lower their FVF's.
But as i said, we don't live in such a world anymore. Its also the same reason that we haven't been back to the moon since 1969.
The people of the 60's and 70's make today's generation look pathetic.
We've all become sheep. The only way Ebay is going to shifted from top spot, is when an even bigger company turns up and crushes them. But that wouldn't help us. We'd end up being doubley screwed.
Its a brave new world. NOT.

cyberbob

avi12 wrote: »

The reason Ebay will prevail is because we no longer live in a world where people think they can make a difference.
All we now do as a human race is just go where things happen without a single thought as to HOW things happen in a certain place. We have forgotten that it is PEOPLE that make things happen. Critical mass happens because of a lack of people who are willing to go that extra mile and MAKE A CHANGE.
This is why we have a world full of vast companies making billions in profits, because WE as people allow it to happen, and we allow companies like Ebay to grow to humungous proportions, because the vast majority of us just throw our hands in the air and say, "Oh well, its Ebay or nothing". This allows the likes of Ebay to raise their prices to silly levels, because we have all become like Wilderbeest accepting that the lions are going to pick a few of us off.
If enough sellers just said "Ebay, enough already", and shipped their entire inventory to Ebid or Ecrater or wherever, Ebay would fold overnight. Then Ebay would have to lower their FVF's.
But as i said, we don't live in such a world anymore. Its also the same reason that we haven't been back to the moon since 1969.
The people of the 60's and 70's make today's generation look pathetic.
We've all become sheep. The only way Ebay is going to shifted from top spot, is when an even bigger company turns up and crushes them. But that wouldn't help us. We'd end up being doubley screwed.
Its a brave new world. NOT.

I bet your wearing this T-Shirt