Selling on eBay sucks

[solitude]

I've been an ebay member since 1999 and I don't remember ebay sucking this much years ago.

I recently sold a bunch of stuff and had one guy claim he didn't receive the item.  Since there was no delivery confirmation or tracking # ebay (paypal) by default just goes ahead and refunds him in full, with funds from my account.  What boils my blood is it's clear as day by reading his feedback that he's scammed countless others.  Yet ebay still fucks honest sellers like myself in the ass.

Scammers aside, in the early days of eBay you knew EXACTLY what your fees were for listing and selling items.  Now these crooks have deliberately made it difficult to see the fees so you get the illusion that your sale is pure profit.  Not even close to being true. 

Starting off with your final value fee at 10%, ebay's cut on a $100 sale is $10.  Then these crooks "double dip" on your sale because everybody uses paypal, to the tune of 4 or 5%.  So your $100 sale now becomes $85 profit for you.

But wait, there's more.

You need to ship your item, and the post office needs to make money too, right?  They charge their outrageous prices to ship your item, which seems to be increasing each year at an astronomical rate. 

So when all is said and done your profit goes down the toilet, assuming you were lucky enough to not have a scammer win your auction.


So what are our options?  Amazon?  Place your trust in somebody you don't know for a bitcoin sale?  Deal with idiots on craigslist who just want to waste your time with low-ball offers?

[syn999]

amazon has higher fee ( i used to sell papermoney and precious metal)

[solitude]

Hey this sounds really bad.

This is exactly why I'm building my site flibbr.com.
Please go right ahead and create an account ~ I'll email you on the next release when something worth while is looking at.

A cryptocurrency alternative to ebay.

I was thinking about making a site just like that, but I don't have much experience in web design.

I hope your site takes off, these cocksuckers at ebay need to be put in their place.

[SgtSpike]

I've been an ebay member since 1999 and I don't remember ebay sucking this much years ago.

I recently sold a bunch of stuff and had one guy claim he didn't receive the item.  Since there was no delivery confirmation or tracking # ebay (paypal) by default just goes ahead and refunds him in full, with funds from my account.  What boils my blood is it's clear as day by reading his feedback that he's scammed countless others.  Yet ebay still fucks honest sellers like myself in the ass.

Scammers aside, in the early days of eBay you knew EXACTLY what your fees were for listing and selling items.  Now these crooks have deliberately made it difficult to see the fees so you get the illusion that your sale is pure profit.  Not even close to being true. 

Starting off with your final value fee at 10%, ebay's cut on a $100 sale is $10.  Then these crooks "double dip" on your sale because everybody uses paypal, to the tune of 4 or 5%.  So your $100 sale now becomes $85 profit for you.

But wait, there's more.

You need to ship your item, and the post office needs to make money too, right?  They charge their outrageous prices to ship your item, which seems to be increasing each year at an astronomical rate. 

So when all is said and done your profit goes down the toilet, assuming you were lucky enough to not have a scammer win your auction.


So what are our options?  Amazon?  Place your trust in somebody you don't know for a bitcoin sale?  Deal with idiots on craigslist who just want to waste your time with low-ball offers?

It's awful.  I sold a Casascius coin on eBay for $866.  eBay took their cut of $89.  Paypal took their cut of $26.  USPS took their cut of $22 (insured priority mail).  All said and done, I only got $729 from selling an item for $866...

Hey this sounds really bad.

This is exactly why I'm building my site flibbr.com.
Please go right ahead and create an account ~ I'll email you on the next release when something worth while is looking at.

A cryptocurrency alternative to ebay.

What does your site solve that bitmit doesn't already?  I like that you're competing with them, but make sure you offer MORE than they do!

[kokojie]

eBay charge this much because they can, there's virtually no competition in the p2p online selling market. Amazon charges more. Craigslist is local only, and often you can't sell the item for a good price as on eBay.

So why wouldn't eBay charge this much? after all, they have shareholder to answer to. By not charging this much, they are basically leaving money on the table.

[solitude]

bump

[Littleshop]

I've been an ebay member since 1999 and I don't remember ebay sucking this much years ago.

I recently sold a bunch of stuff and had one guy claim he didn't receive the item.  Since there was no delivery confirmation or tracking # ebay (paypal) by default just goes ahead and refunds him in full, with funds from my account.  What boils my blood is it's clear as day by reading his feedback that he's scammed countless others.  Yet ebay still fucks honest sellers like myself in the ass.

Scammers aside, in the early days of eBay you knew EXACTLY what your fees were for listing and selling items.  Now these crooks have deliberately made it difficult to see the fees so you get the illusion that your sale is pure profit.  Not even close to being true. 

Starting off with your final value fee at 10%, ebay's cut on a $100 sale is $10.  Then these crooks "double dip" on your sale because everybody uses paypal, to the tune of 4 or 5%.  So your $100 sale now becomes $85 profit for you.

But wait, there's more.

You need to ship your item, and the post office needs to make money too, right?  They charge their outrageous prices to ship your item, which seems to be increasing each year at an astronomical rate. 

So when all is said and done your profit goes down the toilet, assuming you were lucky enough to not have a scammer win your auction.


So what are our options?  Amazon?  Place your trust in somebody you don't know for a bitcoin sale?  Deal with idiots on craigslist who just want to waste your time with low-ball offers?

What did you sell?

I have a lot of experience on Ebay.  Certain things like iPhones, in demand video cards and coins sell for 30% more there then they do here.  Over a 100 auctions done right you will almost certainly have 1 or 2 that have crooked buyers. With the system about 3/4 of the time the crooked buyer will win and get both the item and the money back.  Despite that even with the 10% fees in the long term you still come out ahead on eBay. 

I tend to put items here for 20% less then I sell them for on ebay, and they sell about 1/3 of the time.  After that it is off to ebay for more money.  I prefer to sell them to the community, both making BTC more valuable and keeping money inside the Bitcoin community (vs ebay and paypal) but it does not usually work.  I will still try.

 

[solitude]

[/quote]

What did you sell?

I have a lot of experience on Ebay.  Certain things like iPhones, in demand video cards and coins sell for 30% more there then they do here.  Over a 100 auctions done right you will almost certainly have 1 or 2 that have crooked buyers. With the system about 3/4 of the time the crooked buyer will win and get both the item and the money back.  Despite that even with the 10% fees in the long term you still come out ahead on eBay. 

I tend to put items here for 20% less then I sell them for on ebay, and they sell about 1/3 of the time.  After that it is off to ebay for more money.  I prefer to sell them to the community, both making BTC more valuable and keeping money inside the Bitcoin community (vs ebay and paypal) but it does not usually work.  I will still try.

 


[/quote]

When you say "here" you mean the marketplace forum on bitcointalk?

[anexsia]

I used to love selling items on eBay but you're right, they're charging higher fees that really do start to add up. I just sold an old Radeon 4870 videocard on there for around $50 and with the ebay fee and the high shipping fee (it's been awhile since I have been an active seller and I didn't realize just how much it costs to ship via UPS now) I walked away with only about $30 in profit .

[jago25_98]

Paypal is owned by ebay so...

Can't deliver to somewhere other than your registered address... yet still get chargebacks. High fees. Blocking digital goods. Blocking interesting and rude items. Seizing funds sometimes for no reason. Shutting down accounts. Forcing people to use Paypal - deemed uncompetitive in the USA... but continues in the UK and elsewhere! Buying up Mercadolibre which is also a mess can of worms of it's own and no improvements since the acquisition. Had rubbish site design for years - had to sign in for completed auctions and so on. The grouping items we had before. Harassing Bitcoin mentions. Vero - not allowing people to use tradenames that actually are part of common language - ok this is a tradename subject but I would prefer that genuine 'TomTom' devices were prioritised over other sat navs or giving the user a choice - same with 'Hoover', 'Perspex', 'Selotape' and so on.

Ebay is rubbish. It has failed to break many markets were there was already an auction site. They clearly don't have the talented employees in dev... research and dev team must be so impoverished. The only way it gets away with it is that it's entrenched.

I'd like to see a firefox addon that shows me additional searches on Bitmit etc when I search on ebay as a start. I'd really like to see this monster cracked. It's another possibility for decentralisation too. That is... we have decentralisation and we even have some mesh trust with Ripple on the way. Perhaps add in ID and then we have all we need for a decentralised market. Until then I guess it's Silkroad.

[Joshster]

It's risky because your not actually sending something to a address so you can always get done over by a scammer.

[internationalaw]

Hey this sounds really bad.

This is exactly why I'm building my site flibbr.com.
Please go right ahead and create an account ~ I'll email you on the next release when something worth while is looking at.

A cryptocurrency alternative to ebay.

I recommend Flibbr!

[Justin00]

sweet jesus ebay charges 10% ??

i havn't sold anything in years but didn't it used to be like 1 or 2% ?

[sd]

Paypal are scamers, if you deal with them it's just a matter of time until you get scammed. Ebay are a PITA. Together is a big mess that it's best to avoid.

Unless you really need the money there is nothing to gain from dealing with the ebay/paypal alliance. I buy new and anything I want to get rid of I throw away, give away, or sell to friends. I've sold a few things on bitmit with no problems though.

[solitude]

up

[solitude]

People need to know to avoid ebay

[Herodes]

I've been an ebay member since 1999 and I don't remember ebay sucking this much years ago.

I recently sold a bunch of stuff and had one guy claim he didn't receive the item.  Since there was no delivery confirmation or tracking # ebay (paypal) by default just goes ahead and refunds him in full, with funds from my account.  What boils my blood is it's clear as day by reading his feedback that he's scammed countless others.  Yet ebay still fucks honest sellers like myself in the ass.

Yes they do - so take your business elsewhere. I think there's some bitcoin auction/selling sites, and why not just use ordinary forums with escrow as well. Paypal doesn't care, they're too big.

[cWq34#9tH-3]

I've been with ebay (both buying and occasionally selling) for over 10 years now; and I've had a business account with paypal even longer.... AND I've never had any negative feedback or a chargeback or a fraud complaint or anything that in anyway would suggest that I am unreliable...and yet I just logged into paypal and they put a friggin' hold on my money. Claiming that this is gonna be standard practice until I build more of a reputation on ebay. WTF? That's bullshit! Man, I've never liked these companies or the way they have (mis)treated me but I just couldn't find an alternative that would meet my needs... But this is it, I've had enough. I will find a way to make an alternative work both for me personally and for my small business; And Ebay & Paypal, if you should happen to read this... well...You can go to Hell!

[jasonjm]

never ever leave any money on paypal ever

the second it hits paypal withdraw

never pay on paypal without funding from a credit card (preferably an amex)

[cWq34#9tH-3]

never ever leave any money on paypal ever

the second it hits paypal withdraw

never pay on paypal without funding from a credit card (preferably an amex)

Great advice, but how do I withdraw my money without connecting paypal to my business bank account AND how do I then stop them from accessing my business bank account and from taking money out whenever they want to?

I want control of my business and MY money!