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Done with Ebay, other options?


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I am hoping that this thread doesnt get locked, because I am not trying to start a bitch thread. I just want to voice a few of my issues with eBay and talk about what my alternatives are to using it. I make a good bit of money on eBay, and that is usually how I fund my car hobby...I am talking more about selling stuff in general, not necessarily car stuff, as I would use the classifieds to list that anyway.

 

My first complaint about eBay is that they dont actually protect the seller from almost anything. Case in point, I have been selling items all year, and its a bout a 10/10 list to sell ratio, however the ratio of sell/pay is more like 5/10. I have been selling on ebay now for over 6 years, and buying for over 10, and it has never been quite this bad. It has gotten so bad that it took me 4 and a half months of continuous listing as a BIN OBO, and 3 times as an auction bought and unpaid, to sell my very rare and highly desireable Akai 747 reel to reel. someone FINALLY bought and paid in December. I just listed a camera on my girlfriends account (due to the issue I am about to talk about ), and the buyer didnt pay, and a valuable and rare record i listed a week ago, same thing, and some rare cassette tapes 3 weeks ago, same thing. \Then there are the people who try to screw you and say they never get your item, eBay just sends them money and appeases them. Seriously.

 

Another  issue is that eBay is continuously raising their fees, but the service they provide gets continuously worse as a whole. How can one raise fees, and then provide substantially worse service? and even less customer/seller support. Hell I dont even mind paying them the %13, if the service was worth it anymore. When I started swelling the fees were around %8.5, and I would have willingly paid %13 then to be able to keep that quality of service. But prices went up, and service went down.

 

More over it seems that PayPal and eBay might be splitting, and ebay is trying to set up its own inclusive payment system, so last time I tried to list something on eBay, eBay asked for my credit card number, for buyer protection purposes, I have almost %100 feedback, and have never, ever screwed a buyer, they have no right to ask me for my card info when PayPal already has it, and the whole point of PayPal is to keep that info off eBay in a more secure location. Needless to say, I did not give eBay my card info, and thus can not list anything on eBay anymore. From what I understand eBay is going to institute this on everyone, but right now they are doing this based on whether your credit score has fallen in the last year, which mine has. Which is even more ridiculous, since every time companies like eBay do a "hard pull" on your credit, it drops an instant 5 points. So who is to say they didnt do two credit pulls, and one dropped my score 8 months ago, and now because of that they say my credit rating is lower and I must provide my credit card.

 

I guess my real point here is other than Craigslist, and the classifieds of various forums, where do I even have to go? I am rather frustrated that eBay is THE online marketplace, there isnt anything else where people buy and sell shit? I mean why can nobody compete? A lot of people are sick and tired of eBay as well, so what the hell?

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I feel your pain, but I have no alternatives to suggest.  Won't they still allow you to put items up as BIN OBO with immediate payment required?  I would try that, I guess.  I haven't had any problems with non-paying bidders, but I don't sell very much and when I do it tends to be pretty desirable stuff. 

 

All good things come to an end it seems.  Ebay has been shooting itself in the foot for quite some time now.  Craigslist is so incredibly full of flakes and for oddball stuff isn't worth the effort.

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Yeah I guess. Next would be Bar-B-Qs and that toilet Jimmy Bob found last summer cutting the lawn out back of the trailer.

Huh?

 

I really hate to see eBay failing like this honestly, it used to be a great place to buy/sell, but even buying now is starting to be a pain in the ass, I just bought two items that the seller didnt even have in stock! And it used to be that eBays prices for items were the best on the internet, not true anymore at all.

 

I usually only sell pretty desireable stuff as well, so this kind of sucks, because eBay opens you up to the largest market for rare items.

 

Because of the credit debacle I cant list anything without giving them my credit card.

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I stopped using ebay quite a while ago.  Usually if I see something I want, I'll check for other websites that have it.  That doesn't work with rare items no one else has, but I'm not fond of ebay much anymore either.  Especially when they killed feedback.  I used to have 100% back in the day, didn't sell for a year, came back and my feedback score was 0 because they claimed it wasn't current enough.  So there again I'm a total newb and no one wants to buy from a guy with 0 feedback.  Really ticked me off.  The last thing I sold on ebay was the 521, which the guy flew up and drove back to California.  Worked for that, but small pieces, meh.  Think the days of day-trading on ebay are gone.  Too hard to make a buck anymore.

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I thinking there was a site that started up when eBay first took a shit, bananza. I tried selling parts on there but the buyers weren't there. So I just stuck to the classifieds. Craigslist has always been good to me except recently. They keep changing thier format, gets harder and harder to list. Just recently revived my eBay seller account and haven't been to happy with the results. With eBay and PayPal combined I'm losing 17% in profits and then not having nearly as much buyer traffic it hurts too.

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i feel where u are coming from. their new feedback rating system (the stars) is ridiculous, anything below a 4.68 out of 5 and you are kicked off indefinitely. fees keep going up and up and getting a hold of a live person is getting harder and harder. customer has all the rights and the sellers non.

 

i have tried bonanza, works ok. get paid instantly. less traffic though.

 

etsy and us.ebid.net work for small items. artsy stuff or anything similar. i would imagine those would be great for what you describe you are selling.

 

fees are substantially lower and i havent had a single issue yet.

 

 

just food for thought. best of luck with that.

 

craigslist is a joke, well the people on you deal with on craigslist i should say. but it is nice for bulky items though.

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I think I might try Yahoo auctions, and etsy for some things. I have never heard of us.ebid.net. but I will give that a look.

 

Its been a long ten years on eBay, I hate to see it end, I have made a lot of money, and found some great customers/homes for rare and very desirable historic items.

 

of course there have been the assholes too.

 

I enjoy finding and selling things so its not something I want to stop doing, but I am gonna need to find another means.

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I got screwed as a buyer in a big purchase. $1000 pair of jbl speakers were not as described when arrived partly due to lying seller and poor packaging by seller. eBay told me return the items on my dime and they would refund the money. I wouldn't be refunded for shipping these big heavy speakers from one side of the US to the other and eBay was unwilling to help. eBay is pretty much just an online store anymore these days anyways. Everything is bin from power sellers. Almost no auctions.

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I have been on both sides of this scenario. 

 

I am currently a a Top Seller in my niche. I occasionally buy things. 

 

I have been on and off with ebay for almost 10 years both buying and selling. 100% feedback rating. 

 

Ebay of 2004-2005 is not anywhere close to what it is today. Way cheaper to sell things and less fees. 

 

As a seller, I am hugely dissappointed with the fees that incur. As a top rated seller now though, I can list items from of charge and my fees rate goes down. I am also not a fan of having to monthly rent a store to decrease my fees or even put my auctions on hold when I go on vacation. 

 

 

 

As for the Non Paying Bidder, I have only incountered that 1 in the last year since I brought my business to eBay. I have a guy who continually wins an auction for .01 and never pays. I havent a clue why? 

 

As for everything else, I have it listed as BIN w/ Immediate payment. Even when I accept best offers, I have never had someone not pay. 

 

Fortunately for my niche, I havent had any issues with buyers with the exception of one recent customer. 

 

Purchased a chipped ecu from me and then changed whole order. I accommodated with no extra charge only to have him bitch and complain about my product up its arrival to him. 

All of our ecu's are tested in house prior to leaving. This asshole decided to send it back without ebay approving of it. Then open a complaint and talked pure shit to me. 

 

I held my composure and replied in a normal manner. Offered to accept the return and refund minus shipping. That wasnt good enough for him so I told him he could escalate it and I would take my chances. 

 

eBay sided with me.

 

 

Aside from that, 100% feedback, Power Seller, and fortunately havent incurred any issues and even sell worldwide. 

 

I personally wish there was another outlet to sell on with the traffic, but I have sucked it up and got it through my head that this is what I have to deal with for now. 

 

Been highly thinking about moving some of the business to Amazon as I feel they will be moving up in the ranks. 

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I loved ebay in the late 90's.  You could go online and find the most obscure items for sale.  And nothing new.  It was like a glorious online swap-meet.  Now it's a marketplace for people trying to form a business model.  Wasn't it originally 5-10 cents a listing with no percentage of sale?  That was how it should be done.  All proceeds made from advertisers.  All they should need is a massive server with support staff to keep the servers maintained, and a half dozen people managing the business.  Things grow too large and they lose the ability to kick ass. 

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  Things grow too large and they lose the ability to kick ass. 

 

 

 

this is so true it hurts..... flea bay is over run by middle men now who dont even have even own products to sale ..... there just vendors of junk i wish they would sub divide it into new and used or commerical and personal but it will always gravitate to the greedy side of things no matter the business.....

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I'm struggling to figure out if I want to continue selling on there or just give it up altogether and fain my time back

. The fees literally make me sick when I think about it. My bill for the last 3 months is $1200. Ya I made a lot but so did eBay for literally NOTHING! I really really really want ebid to start taking off. There's a serious monopoly right now and they know they can charge right up to the point of folks still willing to sell

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Isnt ebay a corp? Corps are greedy cunts.

Gave you a like for using the Cee word

 

 

arent fml threads subject to the lock.......

You are so right jlock

 

 

quotes wierding out in here,   had to read d mikes post like i typed it

Yeah I usually check. Sometimes when copying or multi quoting it drops the quote tags. Needs a kick in the Cee

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