Why ebay is awful and you should avoid it.

[earsofdoom]

I've been trying very hard to make my little on the side ebay business a profitable little hobby but after a month i've come to the conclusion it just isn't possible because of the massive amount of bull@!#@ associated with it, i am actually in the process of liquidating my merchandise and will list all the reason's in the hope's it will save any of you from loseing money like i have seriously just sell locally through classifieds ebay's just not worth it.

1: Insane fee's: Besides the absurd final value fee of 8.75 percent (and honestly us ebayer's have enough of a hard time selling stuff for 10 or 15 percent of what we paid for it) there's an insertion fee just for listing the item, a fee if you want a subtitle, a fee if you want to schedule a start time, hell even a fee of 2.9 percent from paypal, the most ridiculous fee of all though would have to be the buy-it now fee i sold a half-blood prince steelbook earlier for 35 buyout which is a pretty good profit.... until you find out the final value fee for buy-it now movies is 15 percent: initial cost with tax: 28.27 final value fee: 5.57 paypal fee: 1.78 so pretty much no profit.

2: the people are idiots: there have been a few occasions that my items have sold for less then other people's whom were selling the exact same thing with the exact same shipping, case in point i had an auction for a bug's life steelbook that was ending 20 minutes after someone from quebecs, his item sold for a whooping 46 bucks while mine sold for a measly 27 bucks (and i paid 26.99 for it not includeing tax's) outside of a higher feedback (which consisted suspiciously of allot of 3 cent e-book sales) the item was exactly the same in the same condition.

3: Your buyers are deadbeats who won't pay: I'd say about 1/4 of the things i've sold i've had to relist because people don't seem to want to pay and there isn't a whole lot us sellers can do about it because ebay won't allow sellers to give buyers anything but positive feedback, about the only thing you can do is file a complaint to get ebay to force them to pay (which apparently does !$!@ all, i've had a complain "pending" for 20 days now).

all in all unless you've got a ton of business knowledge, at least 5000 bucks to invest, and the patience to sell yourself 1000 e-book's in this sort of thing the only one making any money will be ebay and paypal.

[Jack_Bauer]

Ouch man. So sorry to hear all that. I used to do ebay myself and we were selling a "product" that sold quite well. Unfortunately, my business partners had something else in mind and set forth on a new business venture. But we made our money and for a while it was good.

[Siendra]

Amazon marketplace. You only pay a fee on sale of the item, the buyer is charged automatically or else they're disregarded, Amazon handles the money themselves, and you get a shipping credit based on the rough weight and size of your item.

Only downside is that you can only list stuff in Amazons catalog. On the upside small items like CD's, games, DVD's, etc... cost less to ship than the credit you get and the remainder of the credit covers Amazons take from your sale, so you basically pay nothing to have them host, process, and track your product.

[earsofdoom]

Amazon marketplace. You only pay a fee on sale of the item, the buyer is charged automatically or else they're disregarded, Amazon handles the money themselves, and you get a shipping credit based on the rough weight and size of your item.

Only downside is that you can only list stuff in Amazons catalog. On the upside small items like CD's, games, DVD's, etc... cost less to ship than the credit you get and the remainder of the credit covers Amazons take from your sale, so you basically pay nothing to have them host, process, and track your product.

Hmm... so amazon has a decent rate for buy-it now, do they have any discounts on shipping rate's because i think i might take my stock over to amazon as long as they don't take every dime of profit from me like ebay does.

[The Million Dollar Prons]

I didn't even like "A Bug's Life" anyway

[Siendra]

Hmm... so amazon has a decent rate for buy-it now, do they have any discounts on shipping rate's because i think i might take my stock over to amazon as long as they don't take every dime of profit from me like ebay does.

Not sure, honestly. I sold textbooks ever semester for the past few years. They don't charge you for shipping, though. They charge the buyer automatically and separately from the order price and pass most of that money to you to cover the shipping. For some things the credit is more than it costs to ship, for some things a little less.

Edit: I just looked and it seems like they they've really, really changed that recently. They charge a 15% fee for closing and a variable fee depending on what you sold of $0.30-$1.40. Not nearly as nice as they used to be.

[Soluzar]

I hear this a lot from people trying to sell things, but ebay is still great from a buyer's perspective... and there are plenty of sellers making it work for them. I wonder if there are strategies to use in order to make it work better...

[Anamin]

I actually use ebay from a buyer's end. They have a LOT of things I can't find elsewhere. . .not even on amazon.

[Fobb]

I don't think I'll ever touch ebay, even as a buyer. I've heard way too many shady stories about them.

[Jae Hoon]

Yeah that sucks for you but I am not surprised. A friend of mine gets on EBay everyday and gets screwed over alot. Yet he continues to use it, it is mindboggling.

[fujyoshi]

yep ebey is a TOTAL conspiracy :O I bet its easy ta get robbed too :O

[waltsoph3]

I said it once on here and I'll say it again.

"Hello! Glad to see people starting to wise up."

I use to buy and sell on ebay quite a bit. Lately they've allowed the greed bug to bite em. Heck sellers don't really have any control anymore. There even forced to pay for insurance. And it does help owning paypal as well to milk it for more profits. Ebay has sadly changed. :( There not in it anymore for the small guy.

Ever since ebay's stunts many people have gone to amazon. It my not be ebay in selection but its pretty close and much cheaper.

[Jae Hoon]

Amazon.com is awesome, love that site. Everything I have got from there has been good. The only problem I ever had is I got NGBC and the case was slightly bent. The disc was brand new though so that could have just been bad shipping.

[Jon]

I love Amazon and the Marketplace...I order 2-3 things from there a month, usually old video games from the marketplace that go for cheap. Never have problems.

[Aragami]

Yeah, Amazon. I buy the neatest underwear from Amazon and all sorts of things I wouldn't want to be seen shopping for.

[tofuman]

There's always Craigslist.

[Rei]

Yeah, Amazon. I buy the neatest underwear from Amazon and all sorts of things I wouldn't want to be seen shopping for.

...you can buy underwear from amazon?

:lol:

[Aragami]

...you can buy underwear from amazon?

:lol:

You can buy exotic underwear. I have a few thongs from Amazon.

[Old Ape Face]

You can buy exotic underwear. I have a few thongs from Amazon.

I think Rei means the online book store, not the jungle.

[Aragami]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_3?rh=n%3A1036592%2Ck%3Athong %2Cn%3A!1036682%2Cn%3A1040658&bbn=1036682&keywords=thong&ie=UTF8&qid=1260916080&rnid=1036682

If you're a pagan and you want a cape, you can get it on Amazon. Amazon has everything. I bought my 5-hour energies from Amazon, and you can buy Tofu Jerky too...

[Daishikaze]

Never had a problem as a buy, and I never did plan on selling

[Arnold]

Reading a book on selling your wares online, and the first chapter is pretty much all about how Ebay is stacking things against the mom and pop seller and more in the favor of the big named store. I think I'll look elsewhere to sell my stuff.

[Mizumi]

I've never sold anything on ebay, but I usually buy my anime from there (all legit of course) a lot of titles don't get released over here in the UK so I have to buy the R1 version from the US, never had any problems.

[Soluzar]

Amazon.com is awesome, love that site. Everything I have got from there has been good. The only problem I ever had is I got NGBC and the case was slightly bent. The disc was brand new though so that could have just been bad shipping.
Absolutely. Even a lot of the marketplace sellers are really good. I've been shopping there long enough that I have a list of trusted marketplace traders. Unless it is really old or really niche, or not in Amazon's catalogue... they are the best online store for me.

[anime____4ever]

1: Insane fee's: Besides the absurd final value fee of 8.75 percent (and honestly us ebayer's have enough of a hard time selling stuff for 10 or 15 percent of what we paid for it) there's an insertion fee just for listing the item, a fee if you want a subtitle, a fee if you want to schedule a start time, hell even a fee of 2.9 percent from paypal, the most ridiculous fee of all though would have to be the buy-it now fee i sold a half-blood prince steelbook earlier for 35 buyout which is a pretty good profit.... until you find out the final value fee for buy-it now movies is 15 percent: initial cost with tax: 28.27 final value fee: 5.57 paypal fee: 1.78 so pretty much no profit.

first off, some dvds you just can't make money on, period.
many older anime dvds are selling for like $2-5 on ebay/amazon.
its just not worth the trouble.

as for the ones that DO have some value, try upping your shipping price. that helps. the final value fee doesn't come out of the shipping.
so lets say you want to sell something for $30. charge $20 for the item and $10 for shipping.

2: the people are idiots: there have been a few occasions that my items have sold for less then other people's whom were selling the exact same thing with the exact same shipping, case in point i had an auction for a bug's life steelbook that was ending 20 minutes after someone from quebecs, his item sold for a whooping 46 bucks while mine sold for a measly 27 bucks (and i paid 26.99 for it not includeing tax's) outside of a higher feedback (which consisted suspiciously of allot of 3 cent e-book sales) the item was exactly the same in the same condition.

yup, i never post auctions. i always do buy it now. silly stuff happens with them, AND u might not sell it for what ya want.

3: Your buyers are deadbeats who won't pay: I'd say about 1/4 of the things i've sold i've had to relist because people don't seem to want to pay and there isn't a whole lot us sellers can do about it because ebay won't allow sellers to give buyers anything but positive feedback, about the only thing you can do is file a complaint to get ebay to force them to pay (which apparently does !$!@ all, i've had a complain "pending" for 20 days now).

that wierd. just bad luck i guess.
i've sold over 80 items on ebay, and have only had 1 problem.

[earsofdoom]

yep ebey is a TOTAL conspiracy :O I bet its easy ta get robbed too :O

Its actually more about them bleeding you dry, in theory everything looks great you spent 28 bucks and turned it into 35 but then you check out all the fee's and relize ebay make 7 bucks off you leaveing you with pretty much what you spent to buy the thing.


as for the ones that DO have some value, try upping your shipping price. that helps. the final value fee doesn't come out of the shipping.
so lets say you want to sell something for $30. charge $20 for the item and $10 for shipping.

Thats pretty much how im makeing a couple bucks, i use all the materials and buy shipping labels online.



yup, i never post auctions. i always do buy it now. silly stuff happens with them, AND u might not sell it for what ya want.

I tried that for a bit and everything was great... up until i found out buyit now's fee's are double.



that wierd. just bad luck i guess.
i've sold over 80 items on ebay, and have only had 1 problem.

For some reason i usually get the guys who like to **** ya around saying they'll pay ya next paycheck.

[Bradster]

Reading a book on selling your wares online, and the first chapter is pretty much all about how Ebay is stacking things against the mom and pop seller and more in the favor of the big named store. I think I'll look elsewhere to sell my stuff.

I thought that knowledge of this (at least among anime fans) was something of a given ever since we observed them doing absolutely nothing about bootleg sales (given the profits they get from big seller), and possibly to a lesser extent the creation of eBay Seller Stores. Basically everything they do that moves it further away from the original e-auction concept.

For my part it's been a while since I've bought or sold on eBay, but I'll eventually have to go back because Amazon doesn't have entries for all but one of the items I want to eventually list/sell

[earsofdoom]

For those interested ebay is requesting a survey to see how everything's going, a good chance to give ebay some feedback about what us independent sellers are going through (not that i think they will care much but its at least worth a shot) basically i wrote an article stateing ebay is makeing profits near impossible for us independent merchents and providing how much money i'd put into merchandise, how much i received gross, and how much of that total profit went to ebay as proof. honestly at this rate ebay is basically like walking into a local store since you spend about the same and most sellers are online stores... cept you have to wait 3 weeks to get what you bought and occasionally get dinged on customs.

[earsofdoom]

Eh... im not really sure why everyone's telling me to go to amazon, i just checked out all there fee's and stuff and there every bit as cracktastic as ebay with a flat 15% and a bunch of other fee's piled on-top. am i missing something?

[l0k1]

I had my ebay account closed down because I didn't pay the fees, and my paypal, so I just closed the bank account linked to them and opened a new one.

Good times.