Is anyone else DONE with E-bay!!!

[nunzia]

I just had two issues with time sensitive items..the first, a high bid disappeared and when I checked the history buyer had listed 'entered wrong amount' as reason to cancel. OK..of course buyer just changed her mind and lied since no other bid was entered. So I blocked her. Another waits until she has won the item uh oh..has a family emergency and wants to cancel..go ahead because if she has buyers remorse and I force the issue then there will be a 'problem' when she gets it and more drama. I just try to look at the majority who are good and honest and block the ones that aren't.

 

[beck02]

I used to use e-bay a bunch, several years ago, to sell items. A couple of years ago I tried selling on there again, and it was awful. I couldn't ship the items fast enough. I work full time, had 3 day default on my shipping time, and all my items ended in the evening--well after PO closed, and apparently that counted as a shipping day. And buyers pay on their schedule--sorry--I'm not going to the PO EVERY day. I got so many negatives just because of my slow shipping. When you look at the fact that most (all?) of the items were below my cost, and then the PP & ebay fees on top of that, I will never try selling on there again. There was also 1-2 non buyers (although that seemed to have decreased for me). A LOT of the buyers were 'bargin shopping', and wanted the absolute best deal they could possibly get--and if they felt they didn't get it, would complain. In short, my stress level would just go through the roof--even if 95% of the deals were OK, it was that 5% of horrible buyers that made it not worth it. And it took SO long to work with e-bay system--update the items that were shipped, contact buyers, etc.

As a buyer--I'll still use e-bay to buy some items, although I also prefer amazon--it's a mixed bag. Some items are what I'm expecting, and I'll be very happy with the transaction. Some are horrible--like buying a leapfrog game player & the person just put it in a padded envelope, so of course it arrived damaged. I got my money back, but felt frustrated because I really wanted the player & was still out my time. It's hard to read EACH item description, decide on 1 to bid on, then wait the week or so for the item to end to be outbid at the LAST minute. All the bad sellers have destroyed e-bay as well as all the bad buyers.

Amazon, craigs list or specality websites (for buying/selling specific items) for me!

 

[mommyto3girls]

I still like ebay, but it is different than it used to be. I generally use to buy. I have sold a couple of things, but generally half the things I list don't sell anyway. What has frustrated me is the number of listings that pop up when I do a search that are not what i want. I get frustrated when people intentionally put words in their listing that are not applicable to their item!

 

[jpcamaro70]

You can only use this if it's a Buy It Now item, not if it sells in an auction style listing.

true, I'm thinking of myself, I stopped listing in auction format when they changed the starting price requirements in relation to BIN.

But don't get discouraged, it's just a bad spell for you, for the most part it works well and certainly safer than Craigslist.

 

[robinb]

Regards to non payers use "immediate payment required". This will end that.

That works great except when you accept a "best offer". I was screwed by a buyer who negotiated with me for a whole day on some Cubs tickets, he finally accepted my counter-offer of $80 and then never paid because his "plans changed". I had "immediate payment" on the auction but that goes away with the best offer process. I was also screwed by another buyer who intentionally ruined an $80 brand-new item (with tags) in order to return it. The funny thing was that I had a pretty liberal return policy on that item because I was expecting a possible buyer remorse. I would have allowed him to return it without having to ruin it . I sold it for $35 less because it was no longer "perfect". I then screwed myself by doing a partial refund to the first guy to keep his postage and both eBay and Paypal kept their fees based on the original amount. I think there was a different way for me to refund that would have reduced the fees. Next time I'll call eBay and ask them before I do anything.

In all, I sold about $370 worth of items in the last 5 months and was cheated out of $115 by dishonest buyers. That's a 30% loss. I also sell books on Amazon and the scammers are MUCH less frequent.

FWIW, It's not just the buyers who are scamming losers. Sellers are dishonest too. But there are consequences for bad sellers. There are no longer consequences for bad buyers, even NPBs.

 

[KWithers]

So funny I saw this post! I had to call eBay last night over a case that went in the seller's favor. I sold a digital movie, sent buyer the code right after she paid. 8 days later she decides it wasn't what she expected and opened a case for a refund. The code is one time use, so she got the code AND her money back! I got screwed!!

 

[wiigirl]

So funny I saw this post! I had to call eBay last night over a case that went in the seller's favor. I sold a digital movie, sent buyer the code right after she paid. 8 days later she decides it wasn't what she expected and opened a case for a refund. The code is one time use, so she got the code AND her money back! I got screwed!!

That sucks!

 

[ceemys]

So funny I saw this post! I had to call eBay last night over a case that went in the seller's favor. I sold a digital movie, sent buyer the code right after she paid. 8 days later she decides it wasn't what she expected and opened a case for a refund. The code is one time use, so she got the code AND her money back! I got screwed!!

Man, I would be ticked! I quit ebay a long time ago when the % commission went up. I rarely even purchage on there anymore. I use Amazon if I need something.

 

[NYCDiane]

Consider setting up a buy/sell page on FB... I belong to a few and they do great in my area.

I've never heard of this but I would love to do it.
How do you do this and how does it get promoted to bring buyers to your page?

 

[Stitch76]

I've never heard of this but I would love to do it.
How do you do this and how does it get promoted to bring buyers to your page?

I don't know how it is everywhere, but around here there is one set up under "For Sale in ____ County" for our county and several surrounding counties. The only problem I've found doing this, is that people want to buy something for $2 then want you to bring it to them, spending that much in gas money.
Usually we try to set up a meeting though when there is an event at school, or grocery run, to work around that though.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I still sell on ebay. I have been lucky and haven't had the issues some of you have.

I sold all of the Little Tykes Dollhouse stuff we had, I'm in the process of selling the majority of the American Girl stuff we own and I've got 10 tubs of Hallmark ornaments to sell. I've managed to sell 1 tub and a half worth so far.

Ebay is about the only reliable way to sell things around here. Especially things like the Hallmark Ornaments.
I also will need to sell the collectors plates we inherited from MIL that I'm dreading trying to deal with. Those things aren't worth much but take up so much room.

Who knows what else I'll find as I clean out the basement and attic of this house. Aaack.

I still do Craig's List for the big stuff but often people try to treat it like a garage sale and want to get something for pennies.
And there isn't a FB garage sale type page for my area but I don't want to be the one to start it up.

So for me - Ebay it is.

 

[usnuzuloose]

I buy once in a while, but I no longer sell. I got tired of all the higher fees. Can't leave negative feedback for people who are truly in the wrong.

 

[jls886]

Just to chime back in really quickly. I am a PowerSeller and do still find eBay to be a really great place for me to make what many would consider a decent living. However, I definitely have changed the way that I sell things over the years. I used to sell 'auction-style' for almost everything, but with the Buy it Now option now having to be 30% higher than the starting price of the auction that really got rid of any advantages there. I now list almost exclusively fixed-price. You set your own price, you can require immediate payment, and you can set your listing to last 30 days (I list mine to renew automatically but I don't know if that is only an option to be because I have a store), and that is that. You may miss out on someone who might have paid more for your item, but you also miss out on it possibly selling for less. And you definitely miss out on the non-payers. So, to at least avoid non-paying bidders, you might try listing fixed-price and see how that goes. You can start with $XX and if there isn't much interested after a week or two you can lower the price a few dollars.

And again, eBay is definitely not perfect...I have my major complaints as well. But I have just kind of rolled with the punches and have managed to still make it work for me. I will also say that I am very different than others in that I am selling multiples of the same item really like a retail business, so the fixed-price works very well for me. There are definitely personal items of mine that a couple of years ago I would have thrown on ebay and I now won't because it is too much trouble.

One other note is to definitely check for any local Swap groups near you on Facebook. I have sold LOTS of things that way! Things that I think ebay is not worth it for go right onto my local facebook swap groups. They are great!

 

[KWithers]

So funny I saw this post! I had to call eBay last night over a case that went in the seller's favor. I sold a digital movie, sent buyer the code right after she paid. 8 days later she decides it wasn't what she expected and opened a case for a refund. The code is one time use, so she got the code AND her money back! I got screwed!!

Agh! I meant *buyer's favor..

 

[Son of Gadsden]

I havent had any issues on ebay, but I don't sell much there.

Have had issues with Amazon. When I was in college, I always bought all my textbooks on amazon and sold them on amazon when I was done. That way, I would only really end up losing about $20 per textbook.

Everything always went great until one bidder. She bought a book from me, I sent it media mail as usual. I had been warned by several people to make sure I always get delivery confirmation, otherwise there are people out there that will say they never received the book. It's your word against theirs, amazon will side with the buyer. You'll be out of the money, plus shipping, and you won't get your book back.

Well this one in particular, I sent, didn't hear anything for a few weeks, so I got the confirmation that it was delivered, trashed the receipt.

Well, a few weeks later, I get an angry message that the buyer never received the book. She also wrote a nasty review about me. I took her I had confirmation that the book was indeed delivered, and that once the book gets to your door, it's no longer my responsibility. I'm also not a business, I'm just a college kid, so it's not like I have a customer service department to give you store credit or something. Of course, I said that in a nicer way than I am here, but also knowing this woman is trying to scam me.

So I comment on her review of me, stating I have delivery confirmation that the book was indeed delivered. She never asked for the confirmation (Thank God, because I actually didn't have it any longer), and she never filed a claim (I suppose she assumed I really did have the confirmation).

However, because none of my previous buyers gave me feedback at all, I had made about 30 or so sales, but only received one review...which was bad...so I have 100% bad feedback...which is ridiculous.

I send messages to all my previous buyers begging them to post good feedback if they had good experiences. A couple posted feedback. One neutral, one positive. So I have something like 40% positive feedback...which is still ridiculous.

I actually have to use my wife's account to sell stuff now, because if you don't have 95% plus good feedback, no one buys.

 

[blackcrumpets]

Ebay is the worst when it comes to fees and such. I've had some problems in the past with deadbeat buyers, and Ebay has always seemed to sort it out. The problem I have with them though, is their ridiculous fee system.

I used to sell close to $300.00 a month, but once pay pal and Ebay got their fees I walked away with only $160ish a month. It's hilarious to think that Pay Pal and Ebay (which are owned by the same company) takes almost half of what I sold, even though, they only host my product. There is no excuse to take that much money from a customer.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

I stopped selling on Ebay a few years ago for the reasons listed. When Ebay stopped protecting it's sellers and focused on protecting the buyers, I went from making a few extra dollars, to actually loosing money. Such a shame since I really enjoyed it.

 

[timmac]

Much as I do understand some of the dislike for paying fees, I have to wonder how many people can really do better to sell their stuff locally or otherwise on their own. In the example of losing over 40% of total sales on fees (which sounds unusually high to me), could that same person have done better by trying to sell their stuff on craigslist, by posting on facebook, or otherwise finding buyers for it? In most cases, I tend to doubt it.

But let's actually look at the fees for a moment. On eBay, it's an insertion fee of 30 cents (only after 50 listings per month) and a 'final value fee' of 10% of the final value. For Paypal, it's 30 cents + 2.9% of the price. So, in total, we're looking at 12.9% + 60 cents. On an item that sells for $10, that's a total of 18.9%. Higher priced items that will actually end up being a lower percentage. Maybe I'm alone in thinking this, but I don't feel like that's a bad price to pay at all. To be fair, yes, there are optional services that can be tacked on which will raise the total fees, but if the fees are adding up to that much of the profit margin, it seems like there's a point where those optional services just aren't worth it. As a hyperolic example, I'm certainly not going to takeout an ad for a highway billboard so I can sell my old push lawnmower; for the same reason I'm not going to pay extra for a larger listing picture, bolding, highlights, or whatever other expensive option eBay wants to offer me.

I'm still having a hard time wrapping my head around a situation where so much of one's total sales value is lost to fees... it tells me that there's a combination of a lot of optional features being used, combined with a lot of items selling for very low value, and probably a lot of items being listed over and over and over again (at a cost of 30 cents per iteration) without selling. If I am incorrect about any of that, I would certainly love to hear other ways one can spend that much in fees.

For "only" hosting my listing (on a site that has probably the widest reach to the most buyers of any similar site online), and for handling the payment transaction (which would cost me a similar fee, probably higher actually, to have my own merchant account), I feel like I'm getting a pretty good deal. Apparently not everyone feels the same, and that's fine, but they're welcome to find another place to "only host the listing".

 

[starwood]

Craigslist is no picnic either. I've put several things up and all I get are spam emails. I had one person who wanted an item and we went through an email negotatiation very cordially. Finally settled on terms and then said she needed me to ship it to her because she was ill and couldn't drive. I refused and never heard from her again.

 

[Son of Gadsden]

Craigslist is no picnic either. I've put several things up and all I get are spam emails. I had one person who wanted an item and we went through an email negotatiation very cordially. Finally settled on terms and then said she needed me to ship it to her because she was ill and couldn't drive. I refused and never heard from her again.

Totally get this one too.

I've gotten where when they email me, my first reply is

"What is the item you are looking to purchase?"
Because, a lot of the replies are just copy paste, they don't actually know what they are buying, they are just trying to scam you.

If they ask me to text them, etc, I tell them that because of scammers, I refuse to respond to any method other than email. If the phone number they present is an area code i recognize, I may reconsider.

And, as you said, I don't ship. If they want it shipped, they need to look elsewhere.