[aardogfsu]

Originally Posted by CornersLow

Two sides to every story. I have nothing much to offer other than the caution of posting your intentions to abuse and defraud in a public format. Cheers.

You have no idea what you are talking about. You think you do, but you do not. You can only assume. Cheers.

(By the way, when ebay sticks you with product from a US supplier of which you've built up $200,000 worth of inventory out of pocket with a retail cost of $750,000 and it's all 100% legitimate and you have 2 feet stacked high of invoices to prove it and they kick you out because you don't pay $2.97 to track a $4.95 item because the smaller sellers don't track either and you've just happen to become the "walmart" of that item and the item is price sensitive and you have 4 people depending on you to provide income for them (shippers included), you either 1. Go straight jacket insane 2. Sue ebay 3. Find a way around it).

[aardogfsu]

Originally Posted by LV2ndHome

Their fees/commission are very high as well even if you didn't have to worry about the theft... the last I checked it worked out to a minimum total of about 17%.

The other bad thing about their TOS is that they don't allow you to sell a product any cheaper through any other venue than your price on Amazon. This means you can't simply pass on the extra 17% in Amazon fees to your Amazon customers without also increasing the prices equally on your own website and any other venues you want to sell. This often prices you out of the market for careful shoppers that you otherwise might have captured, say on your own website for example, by using a lower price that would have provided just as much profit to you as your higher price on Amazon.

I'm in the process of making a website for my products, how would ebay know about my other website and what prices I charge? =)

[Raiderman]

But remember, eBay is just a "venue"

And yes, whoever said 17% is just about dead on, including PayPal fees (which eBay also owns). Including subscription fees for our listing services, eBay fees and PayPal fees, we keep about 79 cents on the dollar. But a brick and mortar with rent, insurance, staffing, etc still costs us more than that. Plus we'd need to advertise or just rely on walk-by traffic, and we'd still lose our worldwide audience which accounts for 28% of our sales. We looked into it, even tried it in an antique mall booth format and we just can't beat the exposure eBay gives us.. so we take our lumps, grumble under our breath, and keep on keepin' on..

[aardogfsu]

very true on that...

[von949]

Originally Posted by aardogfsu

I swear there is a conspiracy on ebay to bring down all the big sellers who sell with a cost advantage (no tracking etc... .46 cost to ship vs. $2.97)...

Yes there is. I think eBay is trying level the playing field for ALL sellers. You got the power sellers that make a living selling items(you) going up against someone that does some Spring cleaning that wants to make a few bucks.

I have a Cuisinart Juicer that I was trying to get rid off last year on eBay. I received a different(better) type as a gift. So I didn't need the Cuisinart any more. Retail is about $150. I listed it at $50. There was a power seller on eBay selling just about every type of brand juicer for really great prices. Some refurbished, some discontinued, some cheap, some expensive, all were free shipping. Cuisinarts starting at $80 brand new.


My juicer never sold. Oh well, may the best seller win. :-)




Motorola DynaTAC 8000x

[aardogfsu]

Absolutely. Can anyone show me a seller who does $1,000,000 in sales annually (not in automotive)?
Back in the 90s and even up til 5-6 years ago there were 100's...where'd they all go?

[aggrofish]

If you don't like the way eBay treats you take your business elsewhere. People are acting like eBay owes them the right to make a living. Also a thread discussing ways to violates ebays TOS stays open while other threads get closed. Lol @ City Data.

[Raiderman]

Originally Posted by aggrofish

If you don't like the way eBay treats you take your business elsewhere. People are acting like eBay owes them the right to make a living. Also a thread discussing ways to violates ebays TOS stays open while other threads get closed. Lol @ City Data.

At the moment, it's easier said than done. There is no other venue that has the traffic. Yes, they treat sellers poorly, but they're the only game in town for many categories. Yes, Amazon is there, but that's predominately for new items. It's like anything else, we work 40 hours a week on eBay and it pays the bills. They don't owe anything to anyone, but they treat sellers the way they do because they know that for many of us, there is nowhere else to go.. So we grumble and keep making money

[aggrofish]

I've purchased a lot of stuff from eBay - from $25 items to a $4000 workstation. I've sold maybe 10 items on there but one time I listed a bunch of stuff for a friend that had her eBay account closed. I guess because she misspelled a lot of things eBay assumed that her items were counterfeit. I lost a couple hundred bucks for trying to help her out...listing fees, returned items galore...no thanks seems like a PITA way to make a living.

Oh yeah you can always go to the land of counterfeiters aka ioffer.

[Raiderman]

Originally Posted by aggrofish

I've purchased a lot of stuff from eBay - from $25 items to a $4000 workstation. I've sold maybe 10 items on there but one time I listed a bunch of stuff for a friend that had her eBay account closed. I guess because she misspelled a lot of things eBay assumed that her items were counterfeit. I lost a couple hundred bucks for trying to help her out...listing fees, returned items galore...no thanks seems like a PITA way to make a living.

Oh yeah you can always go to the land of counterfeiters aka ioffer.

We still enjoy it because we like the "hunt". We go antiquing, estate sales, yard sales, etc. We just don't keep any of it. It's a hobby that pays for itself. Sure it's a lot of work, but it's enjoyable and that's why we still do it. Going on 8 years now and still have fun doing it. Just wishing the biggest venue for our things wasn't quite so overbearing, that's all. I can't even imagine what sellers like aardogfsu goes through selling multiple widgets! For the most part our stuff is all OOAK. The fun for me is in the 100+ year old things and figuring out the history of the item to include in my listings..