And holy crap. Final Value Fees have broken 10%... not even counting Paypal taking another 8% or so (and being required), they are getting almost 20% for running a website. I've been using eBay for about 15 yrs now, and it was somewhere around 2% when I started... and it worked better. I can't believe another site hasn't run them out of business simply by undercutting them, there's plenty of damned room to do so, they must be making about 90% profit or better.
So I haven't sold on eBay for several months:
- Thread starter SliceOfLife
- Start date
Computers, bandwidth, and the IT department is not cheap for a business using that model.
Others have tried, and failed because they simply don't get the viral exposure that is needed.
One man tried to compete with Paypal and his resulting legal problems and public smear campaign would prevent anyone from repeating that mistake.
Others have tried, and failed because they simply don't get the viral exposure that is needed.
One man tried to compete with Paypal and his resulting legal problems and public smear campaign would prevent anyone from repeating that mistake.
PayPal takes 8%? I thought it was 2.9% plus $.30.
I think it's an extra 5% if the customer pays using a CC instead of a direct bank transfer.
Daaaaaaaang.
I agree that eBay fees have really risen. Wonder if their volume is down. Since they own PayPal, it galls me that I have to pay the auction fee on the shipping $$ I receive.
Sellers used to shift the majority of the price of an items towards shipping to avoid fees. For example, they'd take a $20.00 item, put it up as a Buy-It-Now (BIN) listing, set the price as $.99, and the shipping would be $19.00.
eBay saw that so they charged fees on shipping to put a stop to it.
I sure hope there is a legitimate rival to this 'service' called PayBay or ePal or whatever unholy combination you want to call eBay these days. Every time these fees go up it is passed on directly to the purchaser. Sooner or later there has to coming a tipping point to the balance. I am not a huge eBay user and never have been. I thought when it first came about it was a good thing for every day items and other useless stuff you found in your garage. You sent the seller a money order and he then shipped the item(s). This was all about risk management. It tended to keep prices low to offset the risk of sending unencumbered monies. No one wanted to risk hundreds of dollars sent to a stranger on the promise the goods would be sent. Then people(you have to think against their better judgement) started taking those risks anyway. So we've seen escalating security measures and costs now it is little more than an online store front for rent. I really would like to see people lay off the place for awhile and see if it doesn't shake things up a bit.
Cheers, Todd
Cheers, Todd
the last bit of your post is sort of like when people say 'dont buy gasoline/diesel on this day to stick it to the oil companies' with the hopes that it will make the price of fuel go down, the problem is, I go many days without buying fuel, even weeks and I know I'm not alone, the thing of it is that we mostly all use oil based fuels in our vehicles and those companies who control the oil dictate the price, and when you need to go somewhere and your vehicle has no fuel you need to buy some, and thats where they have us by the short and curly's!
Ebay sort of works on the same principal, its the biggest site for selling things in the world, and the format its based on makes money, its convenient, and there is no other service out there like it that has the same kind of exposure, and people use it for those reasons
I agree that if you were able to get everyone to stop using it, at least use it much less for a long period of time there may be an effect, but in all reality its just a drop in a bucket until everyone can get on the same page
Ebay sort of works on the same principal, its the biggest site for selling things in the world, and the format its based on makes money, its convenient, and there is no other service out there like it that has the same kind of exposure, and people use it for those reasons
I agree that if you were able to get everyone to stop using it, at least use it much less for a long period of time there may be an effect, but in all reality its just a drop in a bucket until everyone can get on the same page
It's worse for an international user, add the low CAD dollar, currency conversion fees and recently the GSP scam I've not bought but 1-2 things in the past year from EBay.
Ebay has a lot of exposure
Because of their sheer volume, I think it will be hard to beat them in the near future, but I think for anything vintage or hand crafted Etsy will give them a run for their money. Now if Google ever decided to get into the auction business . . .
I have three items left to sell on eBay, and once they are gone that is it. They are pricing themselves out of my market.
Bingo.
There are probably 5 or 6 alternatives to eBay, and some banks like Chase offer alternatives to Paypal.
But they are small-time. If you are a seller and want the maximum bid, or the quickest sale for a buy-it-now, do you go to the local garage sale, the local college swap meet, or a major gun/camping/boat/computer show held at a convention hall?
You can preach "stick it to the man" all you want and sell only on Etsy or one of the alternatives, but in the end, you are sticking it to yourself as a seller. You may not be paying 20% of your sales price in fees, but you're getting 40% less for your product, or your "buy it now" items are sitting on the shelf for weeks rather than hours. eBay will get along just fine without you.
That's what it will take. Just like someone opening an upstart car company and trying to compete with Detroit/Japan/Korea and not offering something very special like Tesla, an individual will get ripped to shreds trying to wedge in on eBay's market.
It will take an established entity with name recognition... AND thought well of (how are Bing and the Windows phone doing compared to the market as a whole?)
Google has become the Xerox of the 21st century. I "Google" things even though my primary search engine and home page are Yahoo... just as I made "Xerox" copies in 1985 on a Ricoh copier.
I didn't realize that PayPal charges the seller more for credit card fees . . . dang . . . I do know that I don't trust anyone with my bank account.
5% seems exorbitant, to be honest.
I do really like the idea of a trusted intermediary where I can buy things from random sellers across the globe without them ever getting my credit card/financial information. At worst, I'm only out the PayPal charge (unless PayPal gets hacked) . . . Without that, I'd be much more leery of buying things from someone I don't know rather than a trusted vendor.
5% seems exorbitant, to be honest.
I do really like the idea of a trusted intermediary where I can buy things from random sellers across the globe without them ever getting my credit card/financial information. At worst, I'm only out the PayPal charge (unless PayPal gets hacked) . . . Without that, I'd be much more leery of buying things from someone I don't know rather than a trusted vendor.
Banks charge between 3% and 7% for "plastric" transactions. I think it's 3% for debit cards processed as "debit" using the PIN as opposed to credit using a signature.
Paypal is simply passing the charge along to the seller, as the seller is the legal seller, Paypal is simply the broker.
If you had your own merchant account and took CC payments directly, it would cost you just as much as going through Paypal between the CC fees and the account fees.
It is a violation of Paypal's policies for the seller to charge more to cover CC fees, and it is in fact a violation of bank policy for a seller to do so, which is why Paypal charges the seller and not the buyer.
Sellers can charge more to cover the CC fees, but they must charge the same price to cash customers (of course, if the sale is on the books).
Paypal IS making a profit, but only due to the economy of scale with respect to the monthly merchant account fees that an individual seller would have to pay... Paypal's size reduces the percentage impact of their own fees, but their seller per-sale fees are less than what it would cost a small-time business to accept CC directly. This is one of a number of reasons many businesses ONLY process transactions through Paypal or Google Checkout.
Personally, I prefer to checkout through Paypal, as that way I am only exposing my CC information to a "known" entity. I'll continue to use PP until I develop a trust in the business. I have no problem using my CC with WCS or a number of other vendors here, but my first few transactions with all of them were through PP.
Thanks! I also prefer to use PayPal. I thought that credit card fees were in the neighborhood of 1-3% . . . apparently not!
3% used to be standard, but some banks have been increasing their fees across the board over the last 10 years to pull in greater profits.
It sounds like a lot, but if you look at what auctioneers are making, I think you'll find it's comparable or even less. I've heard 15 to 20 percent at farm auctions.
I hate losing that much, but then again, I'd only get a small percentage, if anything, if I tried to sell the few things I've sold locally.
I hate losing that much, but then again, I'd only get a small percentage, if anything, if I tried to sell the few things I've sold locally.
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