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I used to love selling on ebay. First started around 2000, but my best years were probably 2002-2004. Today it's a shadow of what it used to be, fees are too high, profits too low. Haven't sold anything there in awhile now. I miss it (what it used to be.)
Me too! I began selling in 1997. I cleared out a storage unit selling stuff on Ebay.
It was all ''mom and pop'' sellers in those days. Neat to interact with folks from all over. I still seek out the small sellers, folks trying to clean out their closets and make a few coins.
When I first started I sold without photos as I did not have a way to load photos on my laptop. The most memorable sale was a pair of Eddie Bauer rag wool socks for 10 dollars, no photo!
Shipping costs and fees have killed the profitability on Ebay, IMO.
I opened my eBay account in January, 2000. It was a relatively new company, back then and really had kind of a indvidual seller/buyer mentality. The individual buyer and seller was "king" back then. I sold and bought hundreds of items with success (100% feedback).
As the years went on, eBay:
1/ raised sellers rates significantly
2/ favored large companies over the individual guy
3/ prohibited sellers from leaving negative feedback for a bad buyer, even a fraudulent one
It is rule #3 that I have an issue with. I had a potential buyer almost defraud me (fake money order) when I sold a $1000 camera. I reported it to eBay and they pretty much shrugged it off. Since that incident, I have pretty much quit selling and buying on eBay.
They started out great and now are a complete JOKE to deal with.
eBay has really raised the rates they charge for sellers over the years. Now, they even force sellers to use PayPal, so they can profit even more.
I recall selling on eBay in the early 2000's and my total transaction charges were probably 2-4% of the transaction, which is reasonable. Last time I sold something, the total transaction fees were something like 12-13%, which is ridiculous.
I have had my own eBay account since October, 2000 and I have been using it more or less continuously since that time. My roommate turned me onto it then---he had started using it back in 1996 or so when it was still in its infancy (as the mainstream Web was too essentially). The earlier days of it were really fun and the site had much more character than it does now.
Back then in 2000 most sellers still dealt with money orders and checks, though PayPal was starting to appear---it was definitely more fun to use as a buyer and a bit easier to use as a seller. The large power-sellers and massive amounts of generic stuff hadn't really yet come onto the scene so you had a much larger percentage of individual sellers and unique/collectable/hard-to-find items; bargains also seemed to be somewhat easier to come by.
I sold small items occasionally until 2005; the seller fees started to be raised around that time and new policies and restrictions son followed.
The two major issues I have with eBay are its current feedback policy and its ownership of PayPal with its restrictions on the use/acceptance of money orders and checks. Both of these "improvements" were made back in 2008.
The fact that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback (or even neutral I think) has caused a big increase in buyer fraud--basically the sellers hands are tied in certain situations where the buyer is manipulating or abusing the system, such as excessive/fraudulent returns and claims. Sure, the old equal feedback system was not perfect but it did give one a better opportunity to express a more accurate experience with a certain buyer/seller and it was up to whomever was looking at the feedback to make a decision as to whether or not that member could be considered reputable.
The other is the PayPal policy which eBay rolled out in 2008: sellers in the US can no longer accept money orders or checks and they must be able to accept PayPal, which eBay owns. Their claim that the change of policy was to protect members against fraud, which most of us know is mostly ineffective against it.
Too many rules. Now your picture has to be a certain size or larger or they won't list the item. Fees are outrageous. I start my items at the bare minimum price I will take for them, taking in account all the fees charged. If you don't you
will end up paying to sell an item with no profit whatsoever. I sell now and then but not too often. It's just become such
a hassle and dealing with people who don't want to pay etc.
There are a lot of listings originating in China so watch out for them. If I wanted their items I'd go to Wal-Mart or a $ store! Do a search on any item and you will see multiple listings all for the same thing. Who wants to wait to get some inferior product from there! I only ship to the USofA and I only buy from USofA
Competition is tougher today, a lot more drop shippers, Also Ebay felt more like a community before. With the ability to rate buyers and sellers, it was possible to warn other users about scammers and deadbeats. Ebay doesn't feel like a community anymore, Ebay management doesn't listen to what the community says they do what ever the hell they want to try and squeeze more profit out of the sellers. I used to be able to accept checks and money orders, but now everything is paypal. Now they even take a fee on the shipping, I'm not making any money on shipping, but I'm paying a fee on it. So I had to raise shipping costs to cover there fees.
If there was a reasonable alternative, Ebay be out of business, but they dominate the market, there almost a monopoly. Without buyers no seller want to list on an alternative auction web site and without sellers to give buyers choices, buyers don't want to browse other auction web sites. I've tried to sell on a few alternative auction websites, but results were very poor.
I'll never make 300 at the rate I'm going, Stuck at 262 currently. I haven't been getting a lot of feedback recently. for the last 30 items I sold I got 4 feedback. I recently started to withhold feedback, I noticed this one 10000+ user hasn't given feedback since Nov 2012, so I don't plan on giving him feedback either.
Can't say I've ever been successfully scammed or buyer getting a successful charge-back, came close, but I haven't been burnt yet.
If I buy something on ebay I refuse to leave the seller feedback until they leave it for me! After all I did
my part as the buyer, I paid for the item! That is all that is required of me!!! The feedback system is used by some to play games!
Too many rules. Now your picture has to be a certain size or larger or they won't list the item. Fees are outrageous. I start my items at the bare minimum price I will take for them, taking in account all the fees charged. If you don't you
will end up paying to sell an item with no profit whatsoever. I sell now and then but not too often. It's just become such
a hassle and dealing with people who don't want to pay etc.
There are a lot of listings originating in China so watch out for them. If I wanted their items I'd go to Wal-Mart or a $ store! Do a search on any item and you will see multiple listings all for the same thing. Who wants to wait to get some inferior product from there! I only ship to the USofA and I only buy from USofA
I certainly agree. Speaking of picture requirements, I recall the first item I bought on eBay, a car radio for my 1963 Chevy didn't even have a picture with the listing! It had only a description of the item. That is something you hardly see anymore. I won the auction and sent the seller in Minnesota a money order. I still have the radio today. It was still fairly common for listings even in 1999 or 2000 to not have any pictures in them. My guess is that in the first couple of years of eBay (1995-6) there were probably few photos on the listings given digital cameras were close to non-existent and photo/document scanners were still quite expensive. Shows how much it has changed in 16 odd years.
I have had my own eBay account since October, 2000 and I have been using it more or less continuously since that time. My roommate turned me onto it then---he had started using it back in 1996 or so when it was still in its infancy (as the mainstream Web was too essentially). The earlier days of it were really fun and the site had much more character than it does now.
Back then in 2000 most sellers still dealt with money orders and checks, though PayPal was starting to appear---it was definitely more fun to use as a buyer and a bit easier to use as a seller. The large power-sellers and massive amounts of generic stuff hadn't really yet come onto the scene so you had a much larger percentage of individual sellers and unique/collectable/hard-to-find items; bargains also seemed to be somewhat easier to come by.
I sold small items occasionally until 2005; the seller fees started to be raised around that time and new policies and restrictions son followed.
The two major issues I have with eBay are its current feedback policy and its ownership of PayPal with its restrictions on the use/acceptance of money orders and checks. Both of these "improvements" were made back in 2008.
The fact that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback (or even neutral I think) has caused a big increase in buyer fraud--basically the sellers hands are tied in certain situations where the buyer is manipulating or abusing the system, such as excessive/fraudulent returns and claims. Sure, the old equal feedback system was not perfect but it did give one a better opportunity to express a more accurate experience with a certain buyer/seller and it was up to whomever was looking at the feedback to make a decision as to whether or not that member could be considered reputable.
The other is the PayPal policy which eBay rolled out in 2008: sellers in the US can no longer accept money orders or checks and they must be able to accept PayPal, which eBay owns. Their claim that the change of policy was to protect members against fraud, which most of us know is mostly ineffective against it.
You can still accept checks and money orders, but you can't put it in your listing that you accept them. We sometimes put in our payment specs "Ask about alternate payment methods", testing the eBay bot. So far, they've made it through. And if people do message us about taking checks, we answer that we do indeed accept them, but will wait for it to clear before we ship.
I have had my own eBay account since October, 2000 and I have been using it more or less continuously since that time. My roommate turned me onto it then---he had started using it back in 1996 or so when it was still in its infancy (as the mainstream Web was too essentially). The earlier days of it were really fun and the site had much more character than it does now.
Back then in 2000 most sellers still dealt with money orders and checks, though PayPal was starting to appear---it was definitely more fun to use as a buyer and a bit easier to use as a seller. The large power-sellers and massive amounts of generic stuff hadn't really yet come onto the scene so you had a much larger percentage of individual sellers and unique/collectable/hard-to-find items; bargains also seemed to be somewhat easier to come by.
I sold small items occasionally until 2005; the seller fees started to be raised around that time and new policies and restrictions son followed.
The two major issues I have with eBay are its current feedback policy and its ownership of PayPal with its restrictions on the use/acceptance of money orders and checks. Both of these "improvements" were made back in 2008.
The fact that sellers can no longer leave negative feedback (or even neutral I think) has caused a big increase in buyer fraud--basically the sellers hands are tied in certain situations where the buyer is manipulating or abusing the system, such as excessive/fraudulent returns and claims. Sure, the old equal feedback system was not perfect but it did give one a better opportunity to express a more accurate experience with a certain buyer/seller and it was up to whomever was looking at the feedback to make a decision as to whether or not that member could be considered reputable.
The other is the PayPal policy which eBay rolled out in 2008: sellers in the US can no longer accept money orders or checks and they must be able to accept PayPal, which eBay owns. Their claim that the change of policy was to protect members against fraud, which most of us know is mostly ineffective against it.
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