Ebay Greed - fees on shipping

[90gstman]

So I get an e-mail from ebay today saying that they are going to save everyone money by having free auction syle listings. Well the real catch is that they will be charging you 9% (or 11% for fixed fee autions) on the cost of shipping.

Yes 9% or 11% on shipping cost!!!!!! I know, they are not a shipping company. But they are going to charge you for it anyway. Most people don't make money on shipping. The cost of shipping is the cost of shipping.

I know that I will now include a haddling charge to cover that 9 or 11% fee and I'm afraid that most others will as well. The joke is still on me because ebay is going to charge me 9 or 11% on that haddling fee.

Thanks for letting me vent.

 

[its phillip]

Ebay has been screwing the sellers over more and more...it just gets worse every year.

 

[JaBear]

I think they are also doing this to combat the people that take advantage of people on shipping. There are sometimes on items people will have a very low buy it now price but jack up the shipping cost. I bought some ski goggles that sell in stores for $125... they had it as a buy it now for 1 and before I knew I was paying 60 for shipping putting it right around the price of all the other ones.

 

[its phillip]

I think they are also doing this to combat the people that take advantage of people on shipping. There are sometimes on items people will have a very low buy it now price but jack up the shipping cost. I bought some ski goggles that sell in stores for $125... they had it as a buy it now for 1 and before I knew I was paying 60 for shipping putting it right around the price of all the other ones.

Well if that was their reasoning that certainly doesn't help the people getting screwed by the ridiculous shipping fees...it just puts more money in ebay's pocket.

You can report listings/sellers that charge unreasonable shipping costs, and get their listings removed.

 

[JaBear]

like the guy who has an Emotiva Xpa-5 on ebay right now with $162 for shipping. He had a buy it now for $650... 812 total for a unit new cost only 900 shipped to your door and when they go on sale in June a new one shipped to you door will cost 810!!! It's now a bid auction buy the guy posted on the emotiva lounge that reserve is 600...lol. GL selling that one!

 

[Patrukas777]

I think they are also doing this to combat the people that take advantage of people on shipping. There are sometimes on items people will have a very low buy it now price but jack up the shipping cost. I bought some ski goggles that sell in stores for $125... they had it as a buy it now for 1 and before I knew I was paying 60 for shipping putting it right around the price of all the other ones.

Sellers were doing that so ebay wouldn't be taking as much money from them. I recently sold a bunch of stuff on ebay...don't think I'll be doing it again because of the damn fee's involved. I too considered charging 99 cents for the item and then adding the real cost of the item to the shipping. Ebay will eventually die if they continue with this type of business.

 

[Nugu]

Sellers were doing that so ebay wouldn't be taking as much money from them. I recently sold a bunch of stuff on ebay...don't think I'll be doing it again because of the damn fee's involved. I too considered charging 99 cents for the item and then adding the real cost of the item to the shipping. Ebay will eventually die if they continue with this type of business.

This. I sold off a bunch of games for my brother on ebay ages ago and after selling a few and noticing fees&shipping eating upwards of 20-25% of the final price I stopped using "free shipping" because of the fact that ebay used to not apply any fee at all to shipping cost.

I went from losing 20-25% of final cost to only ~10-15% of final cost just by making the shipping 2$ more than actual cost. (cost 2.20$, shipping fee 4-5$) The goal was never to screw anyone and the final price in total always came out at the average going rate.

 

[Highlander]

Not sure why people complain about ebay. If you don't like it then don't list/purchase there. At the end of the day, whoever started up ebay did so to earn money, pure and simple...and as much money as possible.

There can be no doubt that the introduction of these latest measures by ebay is an attempt to squeeze yet more money from those that interact with the site. Are ebay's fees overly high? Possibly, though I have heard it said that you would pay similar percentages in a real auction, and the latter obviously does not have the worldwide exposure that ebay does, Sotheby's excepted!

You can consider ebay's fees unethical/unfair all you like, but implementing measures that increase profit is nothing less than the correct business decision.

 

[its phillip]

You can consider ebay's fees unethical/unfair all you like, but implementing measures that increase profit is nothing less than the correct business decision.

Not if it forces too many people to leave/stop using ebay, which I hope happens soon.

 

[psbfan9]

FeeBay

Because of eBay's fee increases, I have started using BooCoo with good results and more money in MY pocket. They are starting to get a larger following with many coming from eBay.

You can transfer your eBay rating to Boocoo which is nice.

https://www.boocoo.com/auction/Index.asp

 

[droht]

Not sure why people complain about ebay. If you don't like it then don't list/purchase there. At the end of the day, whoever started up ebay did so to earn money, pure and simple...and as much money as possible.

There can be no doubt that the introduction of these latest measures by ebay is an attempt to squeeze yet more money from those that interact with the site. Are ebay's fees overly high? Possibly, though I have heard it said that you would pay similar percentages in a real auction, and the latter obviously does not have the worldwide exposure that ebay does, Sotheby's excepted!

You can consider ebay's fees unethical/unfair all you like, but implementing measures that increase profit is nothing less than the correct business decision.

Big +1. Ebay is not screwing anyone. You don't have to use them to sell your stuff. Have a yard sale. No fees at all!

 

[Highlander]

Not if it forces too many people to leave/stop using ebay, which I hope happens soon.

Do you seriously consider that ebay will not monitor the situation and recant if they find the net effect of the introduction of the latest measures is a reduction in profit?

Likewise with, for example, psbfan9 moving to an alternative host. If ebay finds they are haemorrhaging members to alterative online auction sites just you watch them suddenly cut fees/offer incentives to squeeze out the competition in order to combat the situation.

Just good business.

 

[90gstman]

I think the thing that set me off the other day was the whole principal of charging the seller for the profit the shipping company makes. If they would have said we are raising the normal fees from 9% to 10% I think I would have just brushed it off as I have every year. I think I'm going to look for other avenues to sell things.

Hey droht, I like your yard sale idea. I had one last year and made over $300 on junk that I couldn't fit in the trash can. I can't belive what people will buy.

 

[Seth=L]

Well if that was their reasoning that certainly doesn't help the people getting screwed by the ridiculous shipping fees...it just puts more money in ebay's pocket.

You can report listings/sellers that charge unreasonable shipping costs, and get their listings removed.

In the past I have reported ebay sellers for having jacked up shipping prices, nothing happened.

Ebay is doing this because of people abusing the system. If sellers didn't try to skirt ebay fees by charging outlandish shipping fees (basically trying to cheat eBay) while having a low BIN price or low starting bid they wouldn't have begun charging a percentage on shipping.

Please spare the argument that eBay makes enough money and shouldn't worry about it (not that anyone would come right out and say it like that, but I know several people think that way). It's as simple as a few people abusing the system to ruin it for everyone else. I don't blame eBay for this course of action.

 

[Seth=L]

Because of eBay's fee increases, I have started using BooCoo with good results and more money in MY pocket. They are starting to get a larger following with many coming from eBay.

You can transfer your eBay rating to Boocoo which is nice.

https://www.boocoo.com/auction/Index.asp

It's really hard to get interested in an auction site that has very little of what you're looking to sell. If there's not much of it there, then not many people are shopping there. Ebay shoppers commonly go there looking for a specific item, and they are commonly willing to pay average market value and sometimes higher depending on the rarity and condition of the item.

 

[Seth=L]

Hey droht, I like your yard sale idea. I had one last year and made over $300 on junk that I couldn't fit in the trash can. I can't belive what people will buy.

You probably sold at least one item that was worth thousands of dollars.

 

[audiofox]

The sad truth for small scale sellers is that is is not practical for eBay to cater to them because of the low returns, and their lunch is getting eaten by Amazon and others on the set sale (ie, BIN) business, so they are scrambling to fix their revenue model in an attempt to maintain some level of growth-clearly they have not figured it out yet since they continue to diddle with their fee structure. The problem is that they still like to market themselves as being like they were back in the old days (I've had an Ebay account and have used them as a seller since they called themselves AuctionWeb back in the late 90s), but they really are not-in those days, the small seller was their only market and was sufficient for their growth objectives at that time, which is not the case today.

 

[Alex2507]

... implementing measures that increase profit is nothing less than the correct business decision.

I knew I knew you from somewhere.

 

[Highlander]

I knew I knew you from somewhere.

A fine looking young man, if I do say so myself.

[note to self: must get those teeth looked at.]