Oh that feeling

[pulseofthedead]

When you sell something cheap and pay fees, only for the item to reappear for sale at 10 times the price you sold it for and the private seller who bought it  pays no fees… 

So yes my fault I sold it cheap but arent private sellers only supposed to be selling their own items, not buying on here and selling it on days later.

[lucy_farmer]

'....but aren't private sellers only supposed to be selling their own items,'

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yep, true.

Depends how long the buyer has owned it for though : was it an item that could have been used for a job or something?

If so, buyer could have bought it, used it then flogged it?

If the item was 'flipped' really quickly though, yeah the buyer is being a cheeky bar steward ...

[theelench]

It happens all the time and IMO is one of the reasons that many private sellers in niche areas have stopped selling on ebay.  In all the years I've been selling vintage glass on ebay I've only ever sold two items to business sellers who declared themselves as such.

Yet on numerous occasions I've sold items to 'private' buyers and shortly after seen my item up for sale again,  often by registered businesses.   Aren't these 'private' buyers so often the same businesses that Watch and Wait for the un-suspecting seller to send reduced Offers and never buy at full price, no matter how low that price is?

IMO businesses mis-representing themselves as private buyers is rife on ebay and just as criminal as when a business represents itself as a private seller. 

[pulseofthedead]

It was bought by a private and being  sold by the same private, only a few days after purchasing it. 
I haven’t really got a beef about her making money per se, it’s more about the ongoing private/business where I pay to sell, pay when I have sold and they are not…and privates are only supposed to be selling their own items. This is clearly not the case

I 

[cobwebcottage]

The OP has clearly said that they sold it to a private seller who is selling the item to make a profit on a private account. But you have to spin it and have a little dig at business sellers yet again.

[theelench]

On more than one occasion I've kicked myself having sold a piece of glass for far too little because I couldn't identify it, then seen it sell for much more by someone who had.  We live and learn.  Like you, for me it's not so much that they made money, but that I didn't because my research wasn't as good as theirs.

But I agree it would be even more galling when the buyer flips it within days and pays no fees.  Clearly that's not a private seller, it's a business. 

[theelench]

Isn't it right to call out businesses operating on private accounts whenever they are found doing so?  In this case they mis-represented themselves when buying from the OP and again when re-selling a few days later. 

It's definitely against ebay rules under any circumstances as ebay says that businesses should operate on a business account.

And I'd guess that if it's a criminal offence for a business to mis-represent itself when selling, then it's also just as criminal for it to buy while mis-representing itself.   The intent in both cases is to gain an unfair advantage over its competitors.

[andha-21]

Silver lining, at least you learnt something so if you ever get a similar piece of glass you may now have a better chance of identifying it.

Not much, I know, but it is something.

[pulseofthedead]

I’ve been there too. Whilst I research a lot, sometimes you just can’t know everything.

But my gripe here is a private buying and then selling it as a private…because as you know privates are only selling on their own possessions.. which just makes a mockery of the whole private/business thing.

And it’s galling just watching it happen….and I’m paying for the privilege…

My real concern in all of this is that whilst the business paying sector are covering the free fee sector, when will they start to put the fee prices up for the business sector to cover their losses from fee free.

I cannot see it being sustainable forever….

[andha-21]

@pulseofthedead 

Totally get where you're coming from. A business seller gave me a lesson when I first started offloading some of my Warhammer bits.

I'd been watching and it seemed from the stuff I was watching that auctions would be my best bet to get somewhere near what they were worth.

Alas, I failed to realise/notice that alot of the auctions that did well were from certain sellers, one of which was the business seller that got me. To this day I'd bet the difference is in followers. They have thousands, I only had a few at the time. So they got a load of models from me for around £35 and then split them and resold and got around £150 for everything.

It hurt, but it did help me learn. After that, never did another auction and just went buy it now with offers.

Still don't get what that business gets per model, but from what I've seen, nobody else really does either. They sell above market value.

But at least I'm not getting completely fleeced either.

[theelench]

Very true.  Strangely the particular bowl that I had in mind is sold on ebay reasonably often, usually without being ascribed to the correct manufacturer.  It's certainly not typical of their other products of the same period, which put many (including me) off the right trail.

Also, it's only correctly I.D'd on one site that I know of, most sellers either don't I.D it at all or have it under un-identified.  As I did, others will list it as 'unknown' or without attribution, but the few who do know of the rather obscure reference site do well whenever they buy / sell one.  

[pulseofthedead]

I was very naive when I first started on here. Didn’t know much about anything. And I probably sold many items to businesses but in the earlier days,  auctions could do really well and I was happy with what I sold stuff for. I tried to learn by completed sold  listings which in reality in how I set my prices these days unless I have a truly niche item, none having sold, so set a price and see how it goes.

Theres no point sticking a really high price on something which would never sell at that price so you have be flexible on price.

But the dynamics have now changed on here.You cannot have fee free for privates that are clearly acting as businesss which in my case is more than obvious…

She paid £10 for my item which I paid the fees on. She sold it for £45 of which she paid NO fees….had she been a business she would have also paid the fees.

This is why the free fee fiasco is so messed up…,

[1956glyn]

Its quite often easy to tell by someones feedback if they are buying to sell.

If flipping an item appears to be a one off then i would give the seller the benefit of the doubt......maybe there was nothing wrong with the item but decided they didnt like it when received.

I have a saved seller who i am sure started off as a genuine private seller selling jewellery.   Over the past few months they are defo buying job lots on Ebay  and then splitting them up and listing items separately.     I can see this from their feedback 😞      Their amount of listings and sales have increased considerably from around 25 per month to hundreds 😞

[pulseofthedead]

It could be true in some cases but have been on here for too long and  I can see clearly that she is buying to flip.  She only sells the same stuff so clearly not selling off her personal possessions
Actually she doesn’t leave feedback for purchases….

Well we can sit and think that all private sellers are private, but in reality that is not the case…

I am just so dis illusioned with the whole thing…

[andha-21]

"But the dynamics have now changed on here.You cannot have fee free for privates that are clearly acting as businesss which in my case is more than obvious…

She paid £10 for my item which I paid the fees on. She sold it for £45 of which she paid NO fees….had she been a business she would have also paid the fees.

This is why the free fee fiasco is so messed up…,"

Like I said before, I get where you're coming from but in the instance you are describing I honestly don't think Fee Free is the problem. It's that the buyer that bought from you should have a business account.

& as an aside, when a seller has to compensate for buyer fees to actually sell something then it isn't really fee free anyway. It's just more disingenuous marketing from eBay.

[1956glyn]

Yes me too.     Even to the point where i just cannot be bothered to list anything at the minute nor am i buying anything.

[theelench]

I collected (far too much) since the '70s and was never very interested in the names or history behind the items.  I just liked the style and designs.  

That changed when I started selling on ebay.  I found I enjoyed researching on-line, especially as it didn't involve buying (often) expensive books when I'd rather spend money on improving my collection than starting a library.  I was surprised to find that I'd  had a particular liking for A. H. Williamson designs, Bagley and Walther glass and had bought many pieces of all of them over the years. 

But even now I still have pieces that I can't I.D and that have even stumped world class experts in glass.  

I agree that your recent experience "makes a mockery of the whole private / business thing", especially when it's done so rapidly and blatantly.  But as I said, IMO it happens all the time on ebay.  Ironically I've usually discovered that I've sold items to businesses buying on private accounts because they've been on my Saved Sellers List and seen my items being sold under their business account.  I've also seen my items being re-sold by "private" sellers and wonder how many others have done the same, but which I didn't see.

Even more ironically perhaps is that two of the offending businesses are among the sellers I respect for the quality of their items for sale, their listings format and accuracy.  I might envy their eye-watering mark up, but don't resent it.  They have earned their enviable reputations in their specialist niches within the niche that I'm interested in and paid me what I considered to be the reasonable price I put on the items.  But the fact remains, they are at least bending, if not breaking ebay rules and probably laws as well.

So far as I can see ebay is at last doing something about this problem, or at least the more visible side of it (businesses selling on private accounts) and trying to cover their lost revenue with the BPF,  SD and holding private seller's cash.  How many genuine private sellers ebay will loose because of those measures and how many "private" sellers will re-register properly as businesses, only ebay will know.  Ebay has been raising its percentage 'take' on every transaction for years so under one pretext or another, fees will still rise.  To me the bigger problem businesses such as yours will face is the lost sales as private sellers leave ebay.

[theelench]

I don't know about followers but ditto what you're saying in vintage glass.  The two sellers I mention in the other post regularly get prices for items that I also have for sale that I can only dream of.  Yes they're businesses.  Yes, they are very professional (especially their photos).  Yes, they have years of glowing FB.  But why they get 4 times my price for the same (sometimes quite common) item is a mystery to me.

[theelench]

These days I don't just use ebay Sold items to try to get my prices, I also use google shopping as it gives prices from various other sites.  Ebay prices are often low,  Etsy often higher and some smaller sites (Delacampe) just outrageous.  I usually go for somewhere between ebay and etsy.

[bojangled]

@theelench 

Have you tried worthpoint?

Jo