)[/quote]
Are you saying you paid more than 10 percent in fees on a 10K sale? I disbelieve that statement so much I'm not even going to bother checking eBay's current fees.[/quote]
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I got out of Feebay after a blow up with a partner who i was working with, I also sold for some other people too,, most of it worked out okay, but its a LOT of work for small stuff, I got back in a few years back for a favor to a family over an estate and helped liquidate a large collection of machinery, cars, parts, bikes and parts,. Occasionally i sell stuff of my own as well.
I can say since 1999 when i started its a LOT worse, for a while it was great, you could make a lot of money if you worked at it., Ever since the CEO changed and the current idiot and his Disruptive theory took hold its gone to crap, they dont WANT us guys with crusty old motorcycle parts selling them bit by bit, they want to be a amazon or other large retailer, they punish the small guys running a few auctions a week and pushing people to Stores, BIN, fixed price auctions, free shipping, generous return policys the seller pays for, on and on, plus you get F##K'ed on feedback, sorry for the language but there is no other word for it, and that word starts with a really big F and 4 letters.
A seller cant Neg a buyer, so most buyers are reasonable, but you get a percentage who are very abusive, and nothing you can do about it, If you dont have 100% FB you fall off the searchs, with detailed dashboard ratings, you can still get a postive but if not firewall 5s all the way across you still fall off the map for searchs, so no one sees your stuff,
10% is conservative in costs,, most times it s much much higher, ive seen at the end of the day 30 to 40 percent,,
but thats not an absolute and its not black and white, their formulas for fees is actually quite complex, and you have to stay on top of it. I dont have the time or space here to go into an indepth analysis,, but you gotta pay attention. they nickel and dime you to death, its MUCH higher than it used to be. Small sellers get screwed, large sellers running bulk auctions get significant discounts and much lower rates, you might see some sellers running the same auction over and over again with really high BIN or fixed prices, and you might wonder who can they afford to do that week after week, well a small seller might as well give the stuff to charity, but big sellers can basically run those auctions week after week for pennys, and only pay DISCOUNTED fees if they sell, there is no motivation to lower the price to reasonable level.
A lot of people I know who used to do ebay heavily or even for a living have left, Ive had offers to work auctions for others as well and i wont do it with the exception of a non profit i volunteer for but thats only a few auctions per year. I know some current sellers who are locked in, sitting on huge inventorys they borrowed money to get, started a business running them, and now wish they hadnt, its like a curse. Ebay is crazy expensive, and a serious PIA these days, that wont change until a serious competitor shows up and only then will we see significant reforms, rumor was Google might take on Feebay, i wish somebody would.
Feebay tried to buy out, then take over Craigslist just to kill them off. people around the world pledged money to help out CL to protect them, CL stays independant today, thank god, although CL has its own issues, So, do your research, go on the ebay community forums and look at the posts, those who are really vocal get their posts taken down quickly, just for fun go on and post about CL and ask if ebay or CL is better and see how quickly your postings disapear
