Brace Yourself: eBay Fees Are a-Changin'! (OT)

[JerseyHarold]

I just read the new eBay fee structure scheduled to begin on February 20th. In a nutshell, they dropped insertion fees for low-end items a nickel or a dime and raised the final value fee to 8.75% for items up to $25.00 selling price.

From my perspective, this maneuver makes it very unattractive for sellers to list low-buck items on eBay, because the selling cost will take a much bigger bite out of the proceeds of the sale. This means a lot of useful items that could have been listed now won't be. Buyers and sellers both lose.

Here's the link if you want to read more about it:

http://pages.ebay.com/sell/update08/basic/index.html

[Norm's Coupe]

You'll probably still see the low buck items being sold. However, the low buck stuff will now be about 10% or more higher than before so the seller still gets his price for that item. So..........it ends up costing the buyer more, not the seller. The seller will just add the extra cost to the item being sold.

The sellers could save money by going to either Craigs List or by getting their own stand alone web page/site if they sell a lot on ebay. Maybe someday they'll wise up to that. Then they could forget about ebay and all it's scams.

[Don Coatney]

I do so little on the bay these days that I really dont care.

[Plymouthy Adams]

Hot dang..the swap meets will come back to life...

[Dennis Hemingway]

Hot dang..the swap meets will come back to life...

Yea, Bring on the swap meets.

Dennis:D

[JIPJOBXX]

Yea those swap meets are ok but most of the time if your looking for a special item you will not find it. If it weren't for e-bay my old Dodge would not have a rebuilt fluid drive, NOS Trim, a radio and so much more. E-Bay has been good to me and it opened a whole new world of people to deal with. I thank e-bay for being there for me and if I haft to sell something than I guess I will just bit the bullet. Jon:cool:

[Reg Evans]

Same here Jon.

[Plymouthy Adams]

Norm..I think you are right in the fact that the rental of the space is the problem..the individual clubs etc would want to keep the gate lower...but even without improvements..costs soar..just like E-bay, the reason for this thread..it is all greed...they eveh skimming the top with Paypal...sure makes thing a bit easier..but they profiting like you read about..they are like drug ealers, got the world strung out on their product like crack junkies and know they can command the price...think about it, with the insertion fee and 8.75% to 25 the addition % above that..making more money than our federal tax system..and as the incrrease is on the low end..just like taxes..the little guy shoulders the cost...

[Norm's Coupe]

Well.........I guess there's nothing better than getting your info from the horses mouth (so to speak).

Not long after posting the original post here I sent an email to the people who put on the Waukesha Swap meet. To my surprise he answered almost right away. Thought it would take at least a day or two to get an answer. Anyway, as I suspected they discontinued the Waukesha meet due to rising cost charged by the Waukesha County fairgrounds. The Waukesha meet was only 11 years old but growing every year. According to the people putting on the show, each year the fairgrounds was demanding more and more. Horse that broke the camels back was this year they also wanted to charge the vendors who slept on the fairgrounds in their own cars. So..........the people putting the show on said enough is enough and canceled the show/swap meet. They still put on three other swap meets per year. One large one in April and one large one in September at Jefferson, WI. The third one is a small to medium sized one at Elkhorn, WI in August.

As for ebay. I'll agree it's easier to buy your parts there. However, I'm to the point I don't really have to have anything for my coupe. Like Don Coatney, I don't buy or sell much of anything there anymore. Only 4 transactions in the last 12 months and only about 150 transactions since spring 1999. To me ebay is more trouble than it's worth. If I'm looking for something now I'd rather just roam the isles at the swap meet. If I don't find what I'm looking for it can wait because I don't need it that bad anyway. If I need something that bad, I'll pick up the phone and call one of the old standby vendors and buy it. Actually, that's how I got everything I really needed for my coupe to begin with. Just got the vendors names from the POC Bulletin, Hemmings, Old Cars Weekly or by word of mouth, then made a few phone calls and the parts came directly to my door. No bidding and waiting for some auction to end and having to worry about being snipped.

_______

[Captain Neon]

I sell my old used books on half.com. What really irks me as a seller is the shipping set-up. They charge the buyer a sum of money to have the book shipped, but they don't actually ship anything. They then give the seller a portion of the price they charged for the shipping even though they aren't in any way involved with the actual shipping of the book. The price the seller receives to cover shipping is often less than the cost to ship once the cost of shipping materials is included. Half.com/eBay.com also gets a commission out of the seller's posted sale price. It kind of reminds me of auto repair shops that charge 65% above retail for parts on top of their $85/hr labour rate. It hardly seems right.

[eric wissing]

Ebay works very well for book sellers and buyers. There is a "book rate" and a "media rate". We sell hundreds of books every year. Books do not break in shipping. They are easy to pack. I just have sheet cardboard around and custom make them for each book. I buy a few items on Ebay and only use snipe bids. I have not bought many items for my car because if it needed urgently ( how urgent can it be?? ) I have to wait days to see if I win and then wait again for shipping. We are closing in on 4000 positives and have had only a handful of problems. It is not the place to buy and sell everything but it sure beats having a booth and having people break and steal your items. Eric

[Norm's Coupe]

Heard on the News earlier tonight that the reason Ebay lowered the listing rate was because the number of listings have been going down lately. They did it to raise the listings and also possible sales. Guess Ebay put that out for the news people. However, they failed to mention raising the commission rate charged for the sale of an item.

Guess Ebay listings and sales has been on a downturn.

[PatS....]

Ebay works very well for book sellers and buyers. There is a "book rate" and a "media rate". We sell hundreds of books every year. Books do not break in shipping. They are easy to pack. I just have sheet cardboard around and custom make them for each book. I buy a few items on Ebay and only use snipe bids. I have not bought many items for my car because if it needed urgently ( how urgent can it be?? ) I have to wait days to see if I win and then wait again for shipping. We are closing in on 4000 positives and have had only a handful of problems. It is not the place to buy and sell everything but it sure beats having a booth and having people break and steal your items. Eric

Interesting that you sell books, we have recently had 3 used book stores close that were in business a long time. Seemed no-one is reading anymore.

What type of books sell the best for you?

[PatS....]

Heard on the News earlier tonight that the reason Ebay lowered the listing rate was because the number of listings have been going down lately. They did it to raise the listings and also possible sales. Guess Ebay put that out for the news people. However' date=' they failed to mention raising the commission rate charged for the sale of an item.

Guess Ebay listings and sales has been on a downturn.[/quote']

They had a good thing going until they got greedy and started nickel and diming sellers to death and being uninterested in stopping scams.

Then there is PayPal:eek:

[JerseyHarold]

eBay has a stake in Craigslist and other classified websites that currently have free listings.

My prediction: They will find a way to tack a fee onto these other websites to compensate for losses on eBay. Stay tuned.

[eric wissing]

Pat, The last group of books we sold were mainly Physician's books. It was an estate sale and the books were 50 cents each. Old medical books do well. Art books will do well. Religious books will do well especially if they are Mormon. In fiction you are looking for First Editions. First Firsts are the best. That is the first work, first edition by an author. Other editions are often valuable because of their illustrator. The key is buying cheap. I like reading and looking through books so there is pleasure gotten from that. Of course books are heavy and there is some lifting involved.

Ebay sales are probably down because the economy is down. Some sellers are probably waiting for things to turn around. We will keep selling because this means there are less items to compete with. Early on you could put anything on Ebay and it would do well. Rarity was over hyped. Trends come and go at a fast pace. At auctions people will continue to pay too much for items that sold well 6 months earlier but after the 100 people who wanted those polka dotted bowls have them the price drops. I think it is best to buy what you know and like. Luck also helps. We have sold a corkscrew for over 4k and other items for astounding amounts. It is sort of like panning for gold. Eric

[Young Ed]

I did the math on some of these fees and its really not going up that much. If your item sold for $25 the fee is 75 cents higher. Some of that washes with the listing fee. The gallery picture is now free which before was I think 35 cents. I have some collectible cards I plan to sell which I figure should bring about 1600.00. I figured out the fee with the old rates and the new rates and the difference is about 3 bucks. Now paypal is another story......

[48Dodger]

No problems with Ebay or Paypal..yet. I'll keep my fingers crossed, cuz so far I'm still making money.

48D

[Plymouthy Adams]

I guess the only real problems I have with E-bay as I do still buy here and there is the very slow shipping, the lack of communication and gouging the shipping fees..of course I weight the shipping fees in with my top dollar offer on a bid so I am either happy or desperate....lol

Face it...you get the item by high bid, send immediate paypal funds and ad states priority shipping..they take the money witin seconds and you are in limbo as to when or even if your item has been shipped...I send priority to west coat often..12 pounds gets there in 3-4 days...whay is it two or three weeks from these people..what's the padded inflated shipping and handling..guess its is a self applied tip that you pay them for parties of 5 or more..guaranteed gratituties for lousy service...THIS IS NOT every deal by the way..I have some that has even Newman scratching his head as how it got here so fast...

I'm off the soapbox........next...!!

[JerseyHarold]

I've bought stuff online that takes forever to get shipped and it is very annoying when that happens.

When I sell something online...either eBay or other places...the item is in the mail within a day of me receiving payment. My belief is that the other person owns it and it's my responsibility to get it to them ASAP.

[Plymouthy Adams]

Harold..I agree..I assure you they take your money real fast...lol...I think anyone here can say I get things out in the mail immediately and should I encounter a problem there is always open communication..just a note from the seller goes a long way in peace of mind in a done deal..I hate feeling held hostage..E-bay and Paypal no have lost all control on their listers and offer no real protection to the buyer regardless of their so called policies..I can quote a few horror stories from a few friends...I am in a similar position now..have even talked with the seller just moments ago..not a good sign at the moment..

[Norm's Coupe]

Not sure of the reasoning, but I've noticed a lot of the sellers I bought from in the past seem to never have any listings anymore. Some of those sellers were in the 5 figure feedback area too. When you look at their current feedback some have no action for at least 2 or 3 years.

You guys probably have the same type of thing with you past deals. Just go back in your own feedback and click on the sellers ID to see if they've been listing or not.

[crosleykook]

I've noticed a drop in listings too. I've been doing the same search for certain car stuff for about five years. Used to always be 100-150 items at any given time... now the same search turns up 30-40 items.

I suspect that part of it is that some ebayers now list their stuff in stores as opposed to putting it for sale in the auctions, and others realized that it often wasn't worth the trouble.

I used to sell a bit on ebay, but with the fees and the time it took to take photos, list the items accurately, answer questions, and then ship the stuff it was really not worth it.

I occasionally sell now, but it's pretty rare. I keep trying to figure out what I've got around here that will appeal to Europeans since the Euro is spanking the dollar so hard right now.

[Norm's Coupe]

I used to sell a bit on ebay, but with the fees and the time it took to take photos, list the items accurately, answer questions, and then ship the stuff it was really not worth it.

I occasionally sell now, but it's pretty rare.

Same here, that's also why I stopped selling on ebay. I have a few items I could put on ebay but figure why bother. It's not worth the hassle. Also use to sell a few items other than car stuff, like things we just don't use around the house anymore. Instead of listing the household stuff on ebay, we just make a trip about 3 times a year to Goodwill and give it to them. Just dropped a trunk load of stuff off at Goodwill about a week ago.

As for the car stuff. I just keep it around and use it for trades or spare parts if I need something.

Once in awhile I'll see something on ebay and think I should bid on it. However, after I think about it for a few minutes I decide it's not worth the hassle to bid, then forget it. So, it's rare that I buy anything off the bay too.

[Normspeed]

I still like to scan ebay with specialized searches, and I still buy an occasional item, but no auction fever. I've picked up a lot of great P24 stuff in a few years but lately a lot of things bid past what I would consider a good deal. I hear things might go easier now that a certain Tennessee gunslinger sniper has hung up his software.