Paypal new ruling?

RFW

techspec wrote: »

Cos theres no-one else. Thats like asking why i stick with my lousey corrupt bank - no choice (they are all the same) - or my local water company (no choice).

I'd agree on water companies, but not the others. There's quite a lot of alternatives to Ebay on and offline, Ebay is probably the easiest to use with the quickest results but there are still plenty of other options.

As for banks, well look around this site, plenty of options on banking, sitting back and saying you're stuck with one you don't like won't get anyone anywhere.

soolin

RFW wrote: »

I'd agree on water companies, but not the others. There's quite a lot of alternatives to Ebay on and offline, Ebay is probably the easiest to use with the quickest results but there are still plenty of other options.

As for banks, well look around this site, plenty of options on banking, sitting back and saying you're stuck with one you don't like won't get anyone anywhere.

I've started to look at face to face selling as a model as I did a weekend 'thing' and did very very well, and for a while I even toyed with cutting ebay back to the absolute minimum. However, it makes sense to keep my ebay side of things going as I have a good turnover on there and I get a lot of repeat buyers who I would not see if I went face to face only.

patman99

Ebay does have a fast-growing competitor - eBid. I have accounts on both sites and have noticed, that compared to 3 years ago, Ebay's total number of listings in the UK has dropped from 65m down to 38m whilst Ebid's have grown from 2.2m to over 6.2m.

However, I have noticed that certain stuff sells better on Ebay than Ebid and vice-versa.

soolin

patman99 wrote: »

Ebay does have a fast-growing competitor - eBid. I have accounts on both sites and have noticed, that compared to 3 years ago, Ebay's total number of listings in the UK has dropped from 65m down to 38m whilst Ebid's have grown from 2.2m to over 6.2m.

However, I have noticed that certain stuff sells better on Ebay than Ebid.

Of course with free listings it means absolutely everything gets listed on ebid and stays there forever . There was even a thread in the forum there about whether it might be a good idea to actually remove listings if they haven't sold after 6 months or a year or some such time frame- rather than clutter up the site with thousands of items that are never going to shift.

patman99

Don't forget that Ebay also has a 'list until sold' option. This is something both sites need to remove. Trouble is, they both know how many listings would disappear. Maybe a gradual reduction in the time a 'list until sold' remains on the system would be the best way to kill-off this particular monster.

RFW

patman99 wrote: »

Ebay does have a fast-growing competitor - eBid. I have accounts on both sites and have noticed, that compared to 3 years ago, Ebay's total number of listings in the UK has dropped from 65m down to 38m whilst Ebid's have grown from 2.2m to over 6.2m.

However, I have noticed that certain stuff sells better on Ebay than Ebid and vice-versa.

Listings don't really signify growth. Ebay have (mostly) done away with sellers with multiple listings and also introduced listing variations in that time, so there can be 50 listings in one. Last time I looked Ebid's sales and traffic were still way below Ebay's and they've been going the same length of time. If you took a poll of members of the public Ebid recognition would be lucky to get to 10% where Ebay's would be nearly 100 and they've both been in the UK almost the same amount of time.

soolin

patman99 wrote: »

Don't forget that Ebay also has a 'list until sold' option. This is something both sites need to remove. Trouble is, they both know how many listings would disappear. Maybe a gradual reduction in the time a 'list until sold' remains on the system would be the best way to kill-off this particular monster.

The difference is though that ebid is free so people leave things there forever.I'm guilty of it myself, I often park things on there for months on end on the off chance they might sell, almost to the point I forget I have them listed. I am more more cautious about what I list on ebay as it costs me every time I list.

About three months ago I had a tidy up of my ebid listings and had several 'bread and butter ' items that are fast sellers on ebay at higher prices yet had been on ebid so long without a sale that my postage costs were completely out of date.

techspec

Many sellers are also buyers - so every time Ebay attack a seller for no reason other than their computer says so - they are driving away good buyers too.

techspec

RFW wrote: »

I'd agree on water companies, but not the others. There's quite a lot of alternatives to Ebay on and offline, Ebay is probably the easiest to use with the quickest results but there are still plenty of other options.

As for banks, well look around this site, plenty of options on banking, sitting back and saying you're stuck with one you don't like won't get anyone anywhere.

Ive switced banks many times - they are all as bad - and brought this country (and the world) to its knees.

I like Amazon - and buy more there now than Ebay - but as far as auctions go - others don't have the traffic.

Ebay is actually a great thing - as are about 99% of ebayers. Its their arrogant, ignorant brainless policies and staff that are the problem. When Ebay ( a decent company with friendly staff) bought paypal (a ruthless company with nasty staff) - we all thought Ebay would make paypal better. The opposite happened - paypal ruined Ebay. Sad, but true. I used to get a christmas card and present off Ebay. Now all we get is hassle and threats.