Praise for ebay

bartelbe

After kicking them in many posts, I thought I would be nice to them.

Needed an item, very small, could easily fit in a letter. Went to sellers own site, expecting it to to be cheaper direct. No ebay fees for them to pay.

The sellers postage on their own site was twice the items value, it was enough to send a medium sized parcel, let alone something about the size of a 2p coin.

I then found the same seller on ebay, postage costs half what they were on the sellers own site, but item cost the same.

That is why ebay put fees on postage and restricted postage costs. To stop non-sense ripoffs like this. It annoys me as a seller, but as a buyer it has made ebay postage more reasonable.

The daft thing is, I guarantee this seller has lost more sales from their own site, with people disgusted with their ripoff charges, then they have made from ripping off customers.

pinkshoes

To the contrary, I purchased a widget yesterday.

I initially searched for it on eBay, then looked at the sellers own website and others just as a comparison on price. It was 20% cheaper on their own website.

I have done this a few times now, and find I am using eBay to search for something then purchasing through the seller's own site.

ballisticbrian

Pressure on prices due to competition is more likely to be the reason for lower prices on eBay. As has been said ad nausium, it makes no odds whether the costs are on the postage or the item, the company still has over heads and running costs.
The company is more likely to face issues such as cost of promoting their web site (as goo gle is no longer a search engine as such but sends traffic to the highest bidder) as opposed to eBay costs.
The idea that eBay setting cost limits on postage and therefore a company operates at a lower profit margin because of that is a bit ridiculous.

bartelbe

Pressure on prices due to competition is more likely to be the reason for lower prices on eBay. As has been said ad nausium, it makes no odds whether the costs are on the postage or the item, the company still has over heads and running costs.
The company is more likely to face issues such as cost of promoting their web site (as goo gle is no longer a search engine as such but sends traffic to the highest bidder) as opposed to eBay costs.
The idea that eBay setting cost limits on postage and therefore a company operates at a lower profit margin because of that is a bit ridiculous.

The problem with your argument is, in my experience, sellers try to hide the postage cost till you get to checkout on their own site. If the postage plus price was clearly shown, no problem.

However when the postage is a hidden charge, behind a couple of links and it turns out to be ridiculously high. Far more than sending the item should cost, it feels like a scam. Low price to trick you into buying.

If you can only sell at a higher price, then list the high price, don't try to hide it.

forgotmyname

That is why ebay put fees on postage and restricted postage costs.

Ebay put fees on postage because they were losing money on all those 99p sales with £99.99 postage. So they slap their charges on the full price inc p&p.

Restricted postage costs? Are you sure? Just done a test listing and to sell and post something smaller than a 2p coin was £4.99 for the item and £47.99 p&p. Ebay had no issues with that.

Possible if you buy from the website you get something that you do not with ebay?

Some sections of ebay are just flooded and its hard to compete.

Turned to Amazon and other sites several times because a category was awash with thousands of identical listings from a couple of sellers, sometimes the same company with different usernames.

That bugs me.

ballisticbrian

While the identical listings are annoying, unless you are really willing to have loads of accounts, each time your listing appears on a screen in front of someone, that's one "offering" (can't thing of the official word), and you only get so many of these. So sellers adding huge numbers of product lines that don't sell are just removing exposure from their core items.


This is why that if you offer products across several different categories or typical searches, when one of them becomes swamped with either genuine competitors or these duplicate listings, your other items in different categories will take off as you get given more exposures on those.

bxboards

I don't really quite get what you are praising Ebay for? Sellers have always price differently per outlet.

It's a bit like praising the Moon because the tide has just gone out.

vacheron

I tend to find the total price from the same seller is usually cheaper on eBay, and also Amazon.

I ordered some replacement filament Christmas tree bulbs last week.

They were available on their company website for £3.95 per pack with £5 P&P.
Total: £20.80

Meanwhile the same seller on Amazon was selling a bundle of 4 packs for £7.99 with £2.95 postage.
Total: £10.94

ballisticbrian

I had a quick look but can't see it here:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon.com_controversies


however I do recall something about Amazon having to retract after demanding sellers don't offer the same marketplace products cheaper on their own sites. Does anyone recall this?

forgotmyname

Here is one seller, 199 identical Hankook Type 063 car batteries.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/m.html?epid=2020045526&_ssn=batterymegauk&hash=item3f6c4827fa%3Ag%3AWIkAAOSwttVaSLmU&item=272399607802&_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=063&_sop=15

466 listings for Type 063 batteries, with possibly 8 or 9 unique items.

This seller has 42,000+ listings, how many are unique items?

RFW

ballisticbrian wrote: »

however I do recall something about Amazon having to retract after demanding sellers don't offer the same marketplace products cheaper on their own sites. Does anyone recall this?

They dropped it just over 3 years ago I think. Not certain but I think the EU stopped it, it may still be in effect in the US.

As far as pricing goes it's always worth checking both Amazon and Ebay. Amazon prices tend to fluctuate more.

I have a lot of items on Ebay sold by third parties who are essentially dropshipping items I sell on Amazon. Those will be around two thirds higher than the price on Amazon.