Double Wammy for eBay sellers, eBay prices to rise by at least 10% plus postage going

lovinituk

londonTiger wrote: »

Ebay is killing itself

LOL! This always makes me chuckle! Every year people are convinced that the changes ebay make are going to put it out of business when in reality every year ebay actually continues to grow and gets stronger and stronger. People need a good dose of reality sometimes! Or is it a case of if you chant the following enough times, it might come true...

"I do believe in ebay going bust, I do believe in ebay going bust....!!"

Poor Tinkerbell!!!

techspec

soolin wrote: »

All the big players like Yahoo have been and gone. There was a good competitor once called Tazbar, ran extensive ads on TV throughout the Christmas period and I actually sold stuff on there, they folded about 2 years ago. Even Amazon used to run an auction format site, but that went a good few years ago as well when ebay got bigger here in the UK.

Ebid have been running for 10 years and yet they barely get any sales at all.

I am even reading books and publications now where you don't sell your item online you 'ebay it'.

QXL was good until Ebay formed its UK site. They drove QXL away - and THEN increased prices.

I think Google should set up an auction site. It could direct all the traffic to itself :-)

Ebay IS driving away good customers - but there are more joining all the time. They also now focus on large business users - and care very little about private sellers anymore.

soolin

techspec wrote: »

QXL was good until Ebay formed its UK site. They drove QXL away - and THEN increased prices.

I think Google should set up an auction site. It could direct all the traffic to itself :-)

Ebay IS driving away good customers - but there are more joining all the time. They also now focus on large business users - and care very little about private sellers anymore.

As a business seller I would sya it is me they don't care about, I think private sellers have it easy.

I don't get free listings and my items have to compete against private sellers who list every single time there is a free weekend but don't have to worry about returns etc.

techspec

soolin wrote: »

As a business seller I would sya it is me they don't care about, I think private sellers have it easy.

I don't get free listings and my items have to compete against private sellers who list every single time there is a free weekend but don't have to worry about returns etc.

I meant to put private sellers AND small businesses. They are targetting the likes of tesco, argos etc these days.

However, there is not such thing as 'no returns' on ebay - even for a private seller - and the buyers know it. Its law for business sellers to allow for returns - but ebay as made it Ebay law for 2nd hand private goods to have a return policy - by allowing fake claims.

Of course, Ebay was set up for private sellers - so business sellers should just be happy they have been allowed to swamp the site.

soolin

techspec wrote: »

I meant to put private sellers AND small businesses. They are targetting the likes of tesco, argos etc these days.

However, there is not such thing as 'no returns' on ebay - even for a private seller - and the buyers know it. Its law for business sellers to allow for returns - but ebay as made it Ebay law for 2nd hand private goods to have a return policy - by allowing fake claims.

Of course, Ebay was set up for private sellers - so business sellers should just be happy they have been allowed to swamp the site.

I agree, small businesses seem to get the worse of both worlds.

Brooker_Dave

lovinituk wrote: »

Dave - you really don't have a clue!!

I sold on ebay, I now sell with an online shop, customers come via google.

There are more customers, less messers and I'm making far more money.

HTH.

mikey72

techspec wrote: »

QXL was good until Ebay formed its UK site. They drove QXL away - and THEN increased prices.

I think Google should set up an auction site. It could direct all the traffic to itself :-)

Ebay IS driving away good customers - but there are more joining all the time. They also now focus on large business users - and care very little about private sellers anymore.

I think the opposite is true.
Ebay are attracting a lot more good customers.
People who buy through the site, and keep the money flowing in for them.
And they want private sellers, or large businesses to service that.

Looking at the usual posts on here, most problems are with small "business" sellers, who have no understanding of any returns process, or customer services, insist on sending everything recorded delivery, and charging for it, and seem keen to get the money, and keep it, at any cost.
They usually appear to attract the "bad" buyers.
Well if any buyer is a bad buyer, as they'll always be out to scam them, that's probably why.
The same buyers are usually fine elsewhere.

I still won't buy anything I actually need from a small business, but I will use reputable large ones nowadays on ebay.
There are some good small ones, that do post up good advice on here, but in the end they all get tarred with the same brush, and it's not worth my time sorting the wheat from the chaff.
To me, the buyer, ebay is no different from the high street.
M&S service, or Arkwright?
I know what I want, and I'll only use a small business seller if I have to for unimportant items because I know I can claim back through Paypal nowadays.
It was ok at the start, you sent the buyer the cheque, they cashed it, and sent you the goods.
And you actually received them. Nothing "posted", then lost by the RM.
Not now though, it's always a gamble.

Ebay must spend a lot more time on the problems caused by one particular group of sellers, so it seems reasonable to charge them more for the priviledge of selling there.
They probably breathe a sigh of relief every time another one closes their account and moves on to another service provider.

lovinituk

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

I sold on ebay, I now sell with an online shop, customers come via google.

There are more customers, less messers and I'm making far more money.

HTH.

So you no longer sell on ebay? If you are selling so much on your own website then you could sell even more if you sold on ebay as well - particularly if you drive repeat customers from ebay to your website. I do exactly this - I sell on Amazon and ebay and my website.

HTH

Brooker_Dave

lovinituk wrote: »

So you no longer sell on ebay? If you are selling so much on your own website then you could sell even more if you sold on ebay as well - particularly if you drive repeat customers from ebay to your website. I do exactly this - I sell on Amazon and ebay and my website.

HTH

What would be the point?

My sales cost me a fraction of what they cost when I used ebay.

The problem is that ebay users end up convincing themselves that ebay = the internet, reality is google is the internet.

RFW

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

The problem is that ebay users end up convincing themselves that ebay = the internet, reality is google is the internet.

I'd agree with the first part, you're three years late on the second. The internet is more than any one company. It's not too difficult to earn a living with Ebay or Google or both, there are other ways and avenues of building up a solid customer base online. Facebook marketing is proving to be quite effective for me and has the advantage of having a good growth of customers who stay in one place, so no need to pay to get them to be a customer again. In a different way Twitter can be quite effective if you know how to handle it, other social network sites and sales sites can also be more useful than Google, it just depends what you're selling.