eBay

vintageantique77 · ‎10-20-2019

I assume this theme is a horse long ago dead and thoroughly beaten, but I'm feeling social, and want to talk about it with my fellow sellers. Several items I occasion to selling - vintage telephones, vintage photo slides, etc... Have seemed to reach a point of market saturation on eBay. Just several years ago, some of the items I had listed would have been snapped up in a second, and now they sit for weeks, sometimes months before getting a single watcher. What is the solution to this saturation? How has it impacted you as a seller? Do you think eBay will experience a resurgence in the near future?

membersinceaug2001 · ‎10-21-2019

Eventually enough sellers will give up and leave, and those left can "clean up" and get sales.

hotspotauctions · ‎10-21-2019

As baby boomers die, the **bleep** their houses are filled with are dumping on a market with no demand. Millennials and generation Z do not want the **bleep**. I have been doing this a long time. I remember getting hundreds for collector plates, full bee Hummels, carnival glass, Fenton, Toby mugs, all kinds of **bleep** you can't give away now. I see the last day estate sales still filled with **bleep** that even at 50 percent off is 50 percent too high. The days of making a huge pile, and a pile of money are over. It's pick and choose very carefully, and it has got to be cheap. 15 years ago, when I made $300 at a sale, it was a bad sale. $3000 weekends were not uncommon. It was easy to make a living at this. Now, it's a lot of driving and chump change. Way to many irons in the fire.

vintageantique77 · ‎10-22-2019

Along with the "too many irons in the fire" comment is a post I made a few years ago about how the "American Pickers" impact could have had detrimental effects on selling through eBay. The massively inflated prices they were paying for things were something I had NEVER seen or realized. Now everyone thinks they are sitting on a goldmine. I'd love to meet some of these people paying that kind of money!

byrd69er · ‎10-22-2019

American Pickers is a sham. Those guys are rich, yet stand there and dicker the owner for $5 off a $2000 item. Great entertainment. Yeah.

penguins_dont_fly · ‎10-22-2019

@byrd69er wrote:
American Pickers is a sham. Those guys are rich, yet stand there and dicker the owner for $5 off a $2000 item. Great entertainment. Yeah.

If you watch enough AP, you might start to think that every barn in America is hiding a 1913 Harley Davidson 9-A in excellent condition LOL

penguins_dont_fly is a Volunteer Community Mentor
Buying and Selling since 2013

jennieaa · ‎10-22-2019

Harry Rinker (columnist, author, editor at one time of price guides) has been saying for years that 'collectibles' and 'antiques' made after World War II are mass produced and available in mass produced quantities. There are only so many people interested in owning those items. When the beanie baby craze started, he was suggesting you NOT put money into them, store them and expect them to appreciate it value -- too many made, too many people tucking them away. He was right.

People with discretionary funds often purchase their childhood memories. That can be toys, jewelry, furniture etc. But they don't buy collections. One of a specific item, one associated with it. People no longer have / desire the collections other generations had.

I do see the 30 somethings getting interested in older things, unique things. Just not 20 of the same sort of things.

Every once in a while I catch an Antique Roadshow episode. Occasionally they fill time with a review of previous appraisals - what was the original 10-years ago appraisal and what is the current value. Lot of items have gone down in 'value'.

the*dog*ate*my*tablecloth · ‎10-22-2019

I’m not seeing a bunch of collectibles dumped on the market. In fact I am finding it really hard to find good inventory these days. Couple that with the lower sales on my website I have much less money to buy inventory on eBay.

I sell vintage that appeals mostly to older people and they’re in a downsizing phase not a collecting phase.

laurabeardsley · ‎10-22-2019

I agree totally. When I look at other well known auction sites things are selling quite well.It is mostly here on Ebay that sales are so bad. I am still sticking with the fact that sellers are getting very little visibility.

earlyant-77 · ‎10-23-2019

@penguins_dont_fly wrote:
@dhbookds wrote:
@earlyant-77 wrote:
Tell that to all the sellers stuck in 1999 who refuse to adapt and want eBay to revert backwards. Without the mega sellers and the new items this place wouldn't stay afloat. This is a large publicly traded company and you can't go that far back focusing on inventory that's saturated in a market with declining demand.

So you're OK with saturating the market with cheap chinese junk instead of quality antiques which doesn't saturate the market? Or repops from india and china(which is why i refuse to sell overseas)?

Hit a good live auction, either online or on site, of antiques, primitives, antique/vintage toys and trains and then tell me how auction are dying how those companies won't stay afloat ...............

saturating the market with cheap chinese junk instead of quality antiques

I've never understood that statement which alot of sellers make. I search for vintage stuff all the time......never see Chinese stuff..... and I don't use the "used" filter.
I think it depends on the category.
There are a lot of Brand New "vintage style" and "retro" items listed in some cats (like clothing).

And vintage/antique toys, cast iron banks, the list goes on ...........

mymysharona43 · ‎10-23-2019

I think it was great when listing was a nickle lol and final value fee's were 3.5% quite a change....I uncluttered and go to sales when I want to now but only drag home little very little too. I closed mine after 15 years....the fee's were pissing me off, it is more like a pay day loan than a selling site now. Nice if something sells then you look at fee's....My car is getting a break my gas tank and have almost completely uncluttered....

gbru1184 · ‎10-23-2019

I shop and sell on eBay & would love for ebay to raise standards for sellers. I'd happily up my game. It's frustrating to see a listing w 4 word title, bad pics or only 2 or 3 (for gosh sakes, 12 are free), minimal specifics & no description. I know how to "hunt" for what I'm looking for but am embarrassed as a seller that another shopper could get a bad impression about ebay. Another pet peeve is that I see more stock photos as 1st pic on used items.

equid0x · ‎10-23-2019

@byrd69er wrote:
I was at an estate sale this weekend. I heard a dealer say what I've been saying for years....People don't want this bleep anymore.

She was about to close her shop due to the antiques market taking a nose dive over the past few (or more) years.

I went to another estate sale yesterday. I confirmed to myself....I don't want this bleep anymore either. Nice stuff, but nothing interested me at all. I didn't spend a dime.

I'm ready to have a pair of pickers return to my home soon to let them have at it. Get this bleep out of here.

I think one of the problems is that people were collecting things back in the 90s and earlier they perceived as rare. The items may have been difficult to find in their area, but once the Internet blew the market open nationwide it became apparent that a lot of the items weren't, in-fact, rare.

You can watch Antiques Roadshow and it you'll see it all the time. Person walks in with estate sale item they think is worth $1000s and the appraiser ends up breaking the news that the item is worth $20. They also show the values of the items, often times 10 years ago or whatever and today, and these values have almost always declined.

Some sellers may be reluctant to adjust pricing appropriately due to perceived value of the item that just isn't there anymore.

equid0x · ‎10-23-2019

@vintageantique77 wrote:
I personally still LOVE vintage items, but I like to get them cheap. I even love it more when I find them for next to nothing!
I don't go to estate sales to pay $40 for a pyrex dish....I'm trying to get it for like 4$ or maybe a little more. These estate sales are trying to milk every last dollar of perceived profit, and they end up losing a bunch of potential buyers. I've seen it so many times. I haven't been to an estate sale in years. The blue moon estate people here in NC are pretty rigged - they have a guy that comes in as a potential buyer, and he rakes up all the valuable stuff like a chipmunk....drives me mad.

I've been to several estate sales around here and in general, the sellers are asking for eBay pricing on virtually everything. They pretty much use eBay as a pricing guide. I've been to some of these sales on the final day and the homes are still loaded with items unsold. Not sure what they end up doing with it.

equid0x · ‎10-23-2019

@byrd69er wrote:
In my area, estate sales are now multi-estate sales, but they don't advertise it like that.

They combine a new estate sale with all of the bleep that didn't sell at the last six sales. Now this sale has loads and loads of leftover bleep.

Tables and tables of glassware and common tools , enough christmas ornaments to decorate Central Park, piles of beenie babies, workout equipment to the ceiling, multiple coffee makers and bread making machines, 50 pairs of shoes, four wheel barrows, six G. Foreman grills.

This is one estate? Wow.

Exit.

Hahaha! My Mom & I have a running joke about the Foreman Grills. Every shop I go to has shelves full of these things. If I discover a new spot with a motherload I'll snap a quick pic and send it in a text!

Same deal with used coffeemakers. Every shop has 2 or three shelves of these things, typically totally beat and probably broken. I've never seen anyone buy one.

equid0x · ‎10-23-2019

@vintageantique77 wrote:
I agree. Sometimes you have to get things so cheap, as to "flip the flipper" of sorts....Pass the buck.
I still find the occasional "STEAL" on here, though. It's pretty rare these days. You have to be there RIGHT when it's listed - for instance the vintage telephone market. I swear there is someone sitting there 24hrs a day just cruising the new listings. they ALWAYS snap them up!!!!!

How vintage do you consider vintage? I used to flip some of the old earthtone colors slimline phones and stuff like that and used to do well on them, then one day the sales stopped. No amount of dropping prices seemed to sell the phones.

Same thing with old cameras. Sold many of them and then one day *boom* no more.

These things were reliable sellers, typically in the 1st week or two, until they weren't anymore.