eBay

marflo_8892 · ‎09-12-2023

When did ebay have to start getting other people to do their work?

I thaught I was paying ebay to sell my items! I post interesting and unique stuff and only get three or four looks at my items!

I post same item with the (promotion) and it sells quickly but cost me over a third of the money in fees for both ebay and promotion sponsor.

Why am I selling on ebay, sounds like their sponsors should have their own site to sell your stuff. Why can't ebay promote my listing, isn't that what I pay them for?

Why has ebay gotten this bad?

chapeau-noir · ‎09-12-2023

@marflo_8892 wrote:
I've been to the top sellar range before about twenty years ago and a few times since and trust me ebay was the best place to sell hands down. But, I only paid insertion fees and a small percent fee and I never had less than 125 views at any item I was selling because ebay did it's job. Now, you have to start all over, you can't get your old ratings on your profile because they delete you after so long of not selling. Ebay needs to go back to the way it was, now they are losing so much business to other sites and trust me their sites are booming.

"twenty years ago" - that's generations ago in etailing time. eBay will never go back to 'the way it was' because that way no longer exists and hasn't for many years.

This is why I feel like my peers (boomers/gen-X) are more like my parents.

“The illegal we do immediately, the unconstitutional takes a little longer.” - Henry Kissinger

"Wherever law ends, tyranny begins" -John Locke

robbie31415 · ‎09-12-2023

Yeah, eBay in trouble because Tik Tok is going to set the new standard for marketplace with the help of massive Gen z following.

laststopgeneralstore · ‎09-13-2023

Sell better items, more quality, more in demand. Then you don't have to promote.

Also, you've only sold 1 single item, sounds like your just very impatient.

coolections · ‎09-13-2023

@marflo_8892 wrote:
I thaught I was paying ebay to sell my items!
Where did you get that idea ?

I post interesting and unique stuff and only get three or four looks at my items. I post same item with the (promotion) and it sells quickly but cost me over a third of the money in fees for both ebay and promotion sponsor.
The double standard is what you just mentioned. You either want to promote and get your items more visible and sold, or you do not want to pormote and let the item sit. It is all up to YOU. Ebay does not sell yur stuff.

Why can't ebay promote my listing, isn't that what I pay them for?
You just said they do when you promote your item they sell quickly.

isaiah53-57 · ‎09-13-2023

@luckythewinner wrote:
@luckythewinner wrote:
I measure the success of a sale by the dollars I earn per hour invested, not based on a phony made up percentage.
To state it another way ...

If I buy an item for $5 and sell it on eBay and make $20 profit, I don't care whether eBay took 1% of the buyer's payment or 99% of the buyer's payment. I made $20 either way.

Huh?? Well just goes to show you where you are coming from then...

You have to be ebays protector and biggest fan if you dont see a problem with ebay fees being 99% on a $2000 sale as long as you make your $20 - That, is an unhealthy relationship you have going there...

Puhhhleeezzze...

brightlightbookseller · ‎09-13-2023

We don't pay eBay to sell our items. We pay for the opportunity for us to sell our items on eBay.

Big difference.

And it works well for many, many sellers. If it's not working for you, why don't you find another platform that will work better?

isaiah53-57 · ‎09-13-2023

@luckythewinner wrote:
@isaiah53-57 wrote:
@luckythewinner wrote:
@marflo_8892 wrote:
I post same item with the (promotion) and it sells quickly but cost me over a third of the money in fees for both ebay and promotion sponsor.
Why did you choose to set your promotion rate that high?
Im sure he is talking about a a third of the items selling price - Pretty sure you already know that but just in case...
If he thinks the fees after including his chosen promotion rate is too high, then he chose a promotion rate that is too high. Whether that promotion rate was 1% or 99%, he chose it.

Huh?? Of course he chose it - Hes not denying that - What he's saying is THE FEES ARE TOO HIGH TO SELL HERE! - That in order for him to make a sale he needs to promote it at a rate where he gives up a third of his selling price - THATS TOO HIGH - I'm sure 90+% of the people selling here would agree on this - If you dont, it's because of some agenda - could be something as simple as you just dont like to be wrong...

brightlightbookseller · ‎09-13-2023

No one needs to choose a promotion rate that high. We promote anything we bother to promote at a flat 2%. Still make plenty of sales. Some categories are more saturated that others, but there are always other ways of standing out.

soh.maryl · ‎09-13-2023

Can you show us the fee breakdown where you sold an item for 2K and fees were 99%.

Please keep in mind the fact that the final value fee is calculated on the item sold price, the shipping fee and the state sales tax, if applicable.

robbie31415 · ‎09-13-2023

Everyone complaining that the fee is too high to sell here cracks me up as the actual fee hasn't even really been increased for many many years.

Some of the values I use are estimations but I feel are close.

The average eBay mandatory fee is around 13.25%.

Years back the fee was 10% However, you had to include a payment processing fee from PayPal around 3%. Making it near the same it is today.

Some things have changed over the years like adding on fee for shipping and tax.

Not having a fee on shipping would be unfair to every seller who does Free Shipping. Also, users would utilize improper shipping costs for fee avoidance.

The only way I can see eBay realisticly being able to remove this fee is if people used eBay labels, and after label was purchased a fee credit was applied to the sale based on actual purchase price of the label. That way it would be fair regardless if you offer free returns or not and can't avoid fees. However, hard to see a company change a policy to make less money.

Tax is another thing. Back before all the marketplace tax and states fought to be able to force tax on out of state sellers, it was much easier. I'm willing to pay 13% on ~10% for eBay to manage the Tax for me. But that's just me.

The cost of shipping itself is not an eBay fee, and yes the carriers have increased shipping costs but that has nothing to do with eBay.

All other fees are completely optional. You could set the marketing fees to be 100% if you wanted, it's a CHOICE. So stop pretending that it isn't.

retro_entertainment_collectibles · ‎09-13-2023

The fact is most folks now shop via their cellphones and cellphones have very limited real-estate. On a PC, Laptop folks used to look at the first page, maybe second of listings. On mobile, nowhere close to that so top real-estate for many many items is at a premium, that simple.

It's either vying for that top real-estate or eBay could go reverse price, like Amazon. One listing, multiple offers and a race to the bottom, low price wins the day. This isn't the internet of moons back, its now the mobile internet and that gives a choice. Either BE the lowest price and HOPE that the buyers use the price filters or use promoted listings and guarantee you're spot in ranking competitively. It's nothing NEW... Brick and Mortar been doing it for ages atop ages.

retro_entertainment_collectibles · ‎09-13-2023

@retro_entertainment_collectibles wrote:
The fact is most folks now shop via their cellphones and cellphones have very limited real-estate. On a PC, Laptop folks used to look at the first page, maybe second of listings. On mobile, nowhere close to that so top real-estate for many many items is at a premium, that simple.

It's either vying for that top real-estate or eBay could go reverse price, like Amazon. One listing, multiple offers and a race to the bottom, low price wins the day. This isn't the internet of moons back, its now the mobile internet and that gives a choice. Either BE the lowest price and HOPE that the buyers use the price filters or use promoted listings and guarantee you're spot in ranking competitively. It's nothing NEW... Brick and Mortar been doing it for ages atop ages.

Oh... And incidentally, if eBay were to go the route of Amazon, one listing and many offers within it that creates a huge problem for sellers without UPC, EAN or MPN (Manufacturer) code(s). How do you list say some antique figurine or painting etc? eBay would have to create a EPN (eBay Product Number) for such items and then when listing how is some other seller to know that not to mention those who sell things in Lots.

Even at that Amazon's database became a disaster because sellers decided to create fake UPC's rather than "Race to the bottom" in existing UPC's with offers. They decided to just terminate sellers who didn't list under the proper UPC's... Atop that, sometimes UPC's are changed via say liquidators or companies who buy up existing product from those gone under and assign their own UPC's not to mention some operations reusing old ones.

Promoted listings are a "fix" towards limited mobile devices real-estate. Are there other options? Sure. eBay could via automation require some more data such as "OEM Manufacturer packaging" vs not, further subdividing condition characteristics, aka: "New Pristine" vs "New Shelf Wear" on and on and on which ought be real BLAST for pre-own items. Then via automation list the best at lowest pricing on top real-estate. You find a WHOLE LOT of sellers angry as all get up as there listing get buried and STILL MUST engage in "Race to the bottom" pricing to get visibility.

There is no simple solutions to the extremely limited real-estate of cellphones short of when cellphone manufacturer's crate phones that have at LEAST four fold out panels or more. That's pretty unlikely to happen as people LOVE the small size even when using their phones, consumer public won't embrace phones that have panels which fold out to the size of a decent sized tablet... They'll go, "If I wanted a Tablet I'd buy a Tablet not to mention the $1600 price when I can get a Tablet for 10% of that price."

Real-Estate on mobile devices is a problem for EVERY web entity from YouTube to the NY Times and pretty much everything between. That said, by FAR FAR FAR the most difficult in coping with cellphone real-estate are points of sale be that eBay, Macy's, Amazon, Walmart on down the line. Within those, the websites which have many vendors have by far the biggest problems creating mechanisms towards vendors exposure.

The only way to change that in ways that remove promoted listings is to establish higher resolution criteria to EARN top real-estate and that would require significant changes. As I noted, everything from pricing, to higher resolution product quality/characteristics, vender metrics performance and more. Sellers would go absolutely ballistic *IF* eBay were to REALLY level the playing field BECAUSE BUYERS would very very much then control the sellers destiny of products EXPOSURE.

coolections · ‎09-13-2023

@isaiah53-57 wrote:
you sold a $30 item, $8.90 fees is very close to 30% of that items selling price - So you see, you dont have to promote to a super high degree to get to that outrageous and ridiculously high selling fee.

Be careful some people here Ebay has fooled. They do not realize they pay 22-26% in fees before even thinking about using promotions.

coolections · ‎09-13-2023

Please stop asking that same question every day. You've been shown at least 20 times now. No need to keep asking. Even when it is shown right in front of you, you refuse to believe it. Ebay has you fooled.

kh-cathy · ‎09-13-2023

Hi everyone,

This discussion has gotten a bit heated. Please remember that, while it is fine to disagree with others, discussion should always remain friendly and respectful as required by the Community Guidelines.

Thank you for your cooperation.