I have been with ebay since 1997. I have gone out of my way to adhere to policy, and be a good ebay community citizen. I am just a regular guy, trying to get by in life. This is not my business. I use ebay to sell some older items to try to recover some of the costs so I can keep things fresh. Early on, I had a great experience. Fees were minimal, and I could get things sold and do pretty well.
That has changed in the last few years. The ebay buyer community seems to have taken a different approach. It seems the majority of people expect to low ball, and get major good deals. This is great for the buyer, but it has made selling much more difficult. Expectations have changed.
On top of that, the fee structure has become exceedingly expensive. Back in the day, I believe final value fees were in the realm of 3%. Based on another posting, this moved to around 7% in 2007. Now, a whopping 10%. Now where people are expecting to low ball offer, and then the 10% fee. I simply cannot afford you any more.
Here is the story. I am selling an item currently listed at $3000. It is a high end NAS system from QNAP. It can be purchased new for just under $6000. I have been trying to sell it for weeks, and I get a random low ball now and then. Even at 50% of the price of new, and nearly perfect condition, I cant generate a sale. I got some serious nibbles when I dropped the price to $3000. Ouch!
I'm taking a wash on this. I approached ebay customer service and pleaded my case. After 23 years of a flawless record, and selling over $100,000 of items. I was hoping for a once in a lifetime waiver of the fee. Not that I'm deserving of it any more than anyone else, but I was hoping with this kind of history that I could appeal to them for a break. I was refused this by a supervisor.
I do not want to sound ungrateful, but I was offered a $50 coupon. I have not received it yet, and I may not now that I post this message. But having never had an issue, and given the situation, I was very disappointed. l
Due to this very situation, I have removed all auctions above $100. Except for the one that I may have a sale that generated this request. I had two servers listed at $3000 that I would rather sell for less on Facebook Marketplace (0% fees) and give them the discount than to keep bloating up ebay's earnings.
While down slightly, ebay had a great 1st quarter of over $2 billion in revenue. I was hoping for a little lenience on the fee for once in nearly a quarter century of time with them.
Sorry ebay, you really missed it with me this time. I'll be here to get rid of some excess lower price items. Other than that, I can no longer afford you.
