ebay and paypal fees are really cheap....

apprentice_tycoon

in comparison to what a 'real' auction house charges - my local auctioneers charges 25% to sell items under £100 and doesn't send you the cheque for 3 weeks :eek:

soolin

Also the buyers pays a premium as well so are likely to set their bids to take the premium into account. For instance if i want something and my max is £20 I will only bid to £18.

The buyers premium at my local auction house is 15 % of total bid plus further payment of VAT on the 15% premium.

Soo

Amazombie

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

in comparison to what a 'real' auction house charges - my local auctioneers charges 25% to sell items under £100 and doesn't send you the cheque for 3 weeks :eek:

Whenever anyone moans about ebay or amazon fees thats what I always tell them. Try your local auction house and see what they'll charge you!

Even the posh auction houses selling multi million pound lots charge over 20% to both seller and buyer. They can make £ 5 million commission on one lot!

soolin

Amazombie wrote:

Even the posh auction houses selling multi million pound lots charge over 20% to both seller and buyer. They can make £ 5 million commission on one lot!

I think we're all in the wrong business!! :eek:

Soo

apprentice_tycoon

And add £6 to buy the catalogue as well.....at least ebay doesn't charge you to look at the stuff

rose_sparky

apprentice_tycoon wrote:

And add £6 to buy the catalogue as well.....at least ebay doesn't charge you to look at the stuff

Picture the scene:-

Young tycoon entering ebay's boardroom. "Well sir, I have this brilliant idea.........................."

Moglex

On the other hand, real auction houses need to use real people to work on lots, bids, payments, etc.

Ebay can operate at it's current fee level because people perceive it to be at least reasonable enough to use (in some quantity).

The only sad thing is that because people have the "it's what everybody uses so it's what I'll use" mentality (and there are some legitimate reasons for that), no one else can start any credible competition and service is a little worse and fee's are a little higher than they might otherwise be.

syanide

paypal is a rip off.. they charge 3.4% + 20p per transaction.. rubbish... the official credit card companies charge between 1.5 and 1.9% per transaction for CC and 25p for debit switch or solo..

Hintza

syanide wrote:

paypal is a rip off.. they charge 3.4% + 20p per transaction.. rubbish... the official credit card companies charge between 1.5 and 1.9% per transaction for CC and 25p for debit switch or solo..

But there isn't anything better, And now that EBay own the chances of anything better coming along are even remoter.

To be honest for the ease of Paypal don't mind too much.

soolin

syanide wrote:

paypal is a rip off.. they charge 3.4% + 20p per transaction.. rubbish... the official credit card companies charge between 1.5 and 1.9% per transaction for CC and 25p for debit switch or solo..

If you are trading then why not use a merchant account then, if it saves you money and is easier in the long run I can't see why you would bother with paypal if the fees make that much difference.

The monthly fees on a merchant account would cripple my profits on my few sales and make paypal look like a bargain, but I've certainly bought from ebay sellers who have a merchant account.

Soo

syanide

yeah.. hsbc / barclays and bank of scotland do good merchant accounts. and you can use there payment gateways or use someone like protx..