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Ebay - F***ing thieves
loggyboy - 10/10/13 at 12:52 PM

Just sold a small item heavyish and noticed theyve recently changed the fees - you now pay a final value fee on the item AND the postage.
Example - £10 BIN item , £5 postage
Listing fee = £0.40, final value fee = £1, plus postage £50p
Paypal (ebay company) fee = £0.71
acctual postage cost £4.60
=£7.79 acctual proffit.
Nearly 25%!

I refuse to sell on there anymore.

That is all.

[Edited on 10-10-13 by loggyboy]

DavidW - 10/10/13 at 12:55 PM

I've just had clearout on eBay and found it a lot of hassle and expensive.

Is there anther way?

chesney321 - 10/10/13 at 01:03 PM

put everything on gumtree.It is free..

richardm6994 - 10/10/13 at 01:04 PM

I was amazed how quickly I sold a caravan and a trailer tent on gum tree and it didn't cost me a penny!!!

I'm not sure how good it would be on kitcar specific thing's though.

What you've got to appreciate with ebay is the size of the market place you're advert is seen by! And as ebay gets bigger, it's hardly suprising they want more to advertise / sell you stuff.
When all said an done, I don't think there is a bigger / far reaching place to sell and item than ebay.

iank - 10/10/13 at 01:34 PM

Probably justifying it as stopping people abusing the system by selling at £1 with £20 postage to avoid the fees.

loggyboy - 10/10/13 at 02:08 PM

quote:
Originally posted by iank
Probably justifying it as stopping people abusing the system by selling at £1 with £20 postage to avoid the fees.


Agreed, but if the fees were reasonable then less would abuse it.
The sheer amount of business sellers on there just waters the whole thing down but of course selecting auctions only and seller types helps, all in all its a great place for buying but its getting worse and worse for private sellers, which if they keep putting off too many private sellers, you end up with a Eshop and not an auction site.
It needs one decent competitor to do a mass marketing exercise to squeeze them a little.

Daddylonglegs - 10/10/13 at 02:44 PM

+1 for gumtree, you don't get so many spanners on there either (and I don't mean the ones we build our cars with )

karlak - 10/10/13 at 02:45 PM

Another vote for Gumtree,

Just sold something for £70, chap turns up so no postage, gives me £70 cash and shock horror, I actually get to keep £70. No listing fees, no paypal fees,,, lovely..

I guess it does depend on what your selling though, unfortunately eBay does have a huge audience of potential buyers.

johnemms - 10/10/13 at 03:15 PM

Son sold his tatty Saxo in 20mins on Gumtree seemed easy from what i saw..

garyo - 10/10/13 at 03:30 PM

People won't like what I'm about to say, but use eBay as a free advert platform, haggle off line, sell it for cash, then end the item early.

Roll on GumTree getting some kind of feedback system so that people have enough trust in each other to do long distance selling/postage.

loggyboy - 10/10/13 at 03:40 PM

Gumtree is owned by ebay, so dont expect them to make it too much of a competitor!
I also expect fees for Gumtree for premium sections (ala pistonheads) in next 18-24 months

bi22le - 10/10/13 at 04:47 PM

If you use gumtree and they come and collect then you could of sold it, potentially for more, on ebay.

Yeah there is a fee but you get a wider audience.

I would like ebay to stop sniping.i would like to see a 7 day listing then the bidding to close say 30 mins after the last bid. If there is another bid then the 30 min timer restarts.this is how a real auction happens, just a little faster.

T66 - 10/10/13 at 04:55 PM

If its any consolation - on the point of legalised robbing , the wife is as I type ripping Sky customer services a new a%%hole, cancelled sky sports in July and we have been billed twice since then for it.


No refund, all our fault for cancelling it in July.



Oh dear the manager is now taking over the call, and its now their turn for some shredding by the Ice Queen - quality listening

19sac65 - 10/10/13 at 04:58 PM

I regularly advertise stuff on ebay
Put one picture - thats free - then paste other pics in the description
Make the description short and sweet and ask them to contact you with questions and postage quote
Then do the deal on the side,they can still pay with paypal by sending them a money request for money owed ( no fee)
Then end the item and it costs you a few pence
I got pissed with them after selling a speaker and offering to have it back because it wasnt compatible
Just being nice
Received it wrecked by the carrier so refused to refund as it wasnt in the same condition as when i sent it
Ebay found the case in favour of the buyer and took the money out of my bank to refund them
I had no speaker and no money

owelly - 10/10/13 at 06:03 PM

quote:

I would like ebay to stop sniping.i would like to see a 7 day listing then the bidding to close say 30 mins after the last bid. If there is another bid then the 30 min timer restarts.this is how a real auction happens, just a little faster.


Are you sure? I've been to many many real auctions and I've never seen the auctioneer starting a timer every time anyone bids!!

I see what you're getting at though. A real auction ends when the bidding is all done and dusted as opposed to when the clock stops. Ebay is more like a 'sealed bid' system so it's whoever shows the biggest bundle of cash before the deadline.

Staple balls - 10/10/13 at 06:59 PM

We tend to use facebook for selling random tat locally, there's a swap shop for most of the towns around here, just post what you're flogging and it usually goes pretty fast.

More specific stuff is probably better suited to ebay, but it comes down to if I want £100 cash tomorrow no hassle, or £130 in paypal and a bit of a piss about.

balidey - 10/10/13 at 08:01 PM

quote:
Originally posted by bi22le
.i would like to see a 7 day listing then the bidding to close say 30 mins after the last bid. If there is another bid then the 30 min timer restarts.this is how a real auction happens, just a little faster.

Thats how Yahoo auctions used to be run. Remember that? It was before ebay and was a real alternative.

I would like to see a Closed bid auction site, so for one week everyone bids their max and at the end the highest gets it. OK, maybe not best for buying bargains, but the days of that on ebay are long gone (and before anyone lists their bargains, yes they are still there, but nowhere near what they used to be).

And the ebay adverts are so two sided. Sell on ebay if yo want a bargain. Sell on ebay to make loads of money. Well, which is it?

MikeRJ - 11/10/13 at 07:29 AM

quote:
Originally posted by richardm6994
What you've got to appreciate with ebay is the size of the market place you're advert is seen by! And as ebay gets bigger, it's hardly suprising they want more to advertise / sell you stuff.


Translation: As eBay's profits quickly become enormous, it's no surprise that they want to make them grow even larger, even faster.

big_wasa - 12/10/13 at 11:52 AM

Be aware that if you use ebay as "advertising" ie you pull the auction having done a private deal ebay CAN still charge you a final valuation fee if you rip them of more than once a year.

This in their words is to avoid the disappointment of there buyers having stuff pulled.


So to sum up, ebay wins again.


Has any one been charged a final valuation fee on something they have pulled ?

coyoteboy - 12/10/13 at 01:59 PM

And rightly so, it's a business with a wide target audience, you should pay for their services even if you try to abuse them.

eddie99 - 12/10/13 at 02:09 PM

As much as it is getting expensive using ebay, I still think its the best place to sell stuff, it does have a wider target audience than anywhere else. But admittedly if Ebay keep putting their prices up, i don't think it will be great for long.