posted on March 2, 2001 07:57:49 AM
If I don't sell on eBay, I won't BUY on eBay. I'm a small seller, who sells to make extra money to BUY items.
All the fees are taking the fun as well as the small profit out of the process. Many big sellers say if the fees are too much then you shouldn't be selling, well if I don't sell it's going to hurt you more than me.
There are many small, hobby sellers, who only sell to make a little and I do mean little extra money so that they can buy on ebay. So if your making a living on ebay, don't expect the drop in the number of small sellers to lead to an INCREASE your business, expect a DECREASE in your sales and your final bid prices.
Everyone from the auction management companies, to the credit card payment companies, and even the auction sites all seem to want to drive out the small hobby seller. Well if these sites don't start coming up with graduated fee schedules so that small sellers can participate, everyone is going to lose in the end.
Many people have noticed ebay sales have been slowing over the past few months. During those months, we've seen a rise in ebay listing fees, postage fees, paypal's new $100 limit. With goto, AW and even honesty instituting new fees, expect sales to decline even more.
Big companies seem to think that it's just good business to eliminate the small seller, but it's the small, hobby sellers that make ebay what it is by putting their small profits back into the ebay marketplace.
To state it more clearly-when people no longer have extra cash to spend, sales decrease-that's called a recession.
[ edited by astraea on Mar 2, 2001 08:02 AM ]
posted on March 2, 2001 08:13:18 AM
You should do what most other sellers do, make the buyer cover your costs. Most buyers wouldn't notice an extra .25¢ tacked on to their final bill because they don't have to watch their pennies like sellers need to. Actually, since I reverted to shipping more things first class mail, the price for shipping has gone down for most of my buyers so it's not like the buyers are getting burdened with extra costs.
