What happened to eBay?

[daniel_priest]

I used to sell on eBay a few years back and although it was expensive for sellers, it was manageable. I have recently started selling again and it's abysmal! No views, extortionate selling fees, silly "promotion" percentages (10% before fees to sell a product isn't normal). I sold an item for £25 and got £13 of it. There's absolutely no excuse for this. Amazon literally ship your items and handle all customer interactions and even the returns (if any) and their fees are lower than eBay's! I'm done with eBay now, it's just not seller friendly anymore. They're just greedy. 

[akemp1]

From what I can tell the private buyers are looking elsewhere due to the excessive fee layers ebay have added to private seller listings which has had a knock-on impact to business sellers who are therefore having to pay increasing amounts in promotions to get any eyeballs to look at their stuff with the end result being it's now often not worth a private buyer, private seller or business seller using this platform anymore.

Self-inflicted decline caused by excessive greed and misjudgment of people's tolerances.

Ebay are wasting their money on advertising until they resolve the fundamental defects in their proposition as they will only teach an increasing percentage of the population how unattractive they are.

[superchallenge]

Why would you pay an entirely optional 10% promotion fee if you don't agree with it? Just amend the percentage or disable promotion.

Plus eBay's fees are not great, but Amazon's referral fee starts at 8% and is 15.30% on the majority of categories, BEFORE they charge you a closing fee, plan fee, storage fee, and fulfilment fee. Oh, and they might just decide one day that you've somehow vexed them in an unspecified way and issue you with a Section 3 that effectively bans you from the platform because well...they decided. And then they'll charge you to get your stock back, or destroy it and charge you a disposal fee.

It's crazy how you sold an item for £25 with no views though. Gotta love that.

[theelench]

I think it's also true say that it's not only the ever increasing fees.

I'm down-sizing my glass collection, using the proceeds to buy fewer but more valuable (and even more beautiful pieces).   Leaving my heirs who are not interested in my collection with less to clear and that they can possibly profit from when I'm gone.

From what I understand, if I bought an item on ebay for between £100 - £500 all I would be offered as the choice of carrier is RM or Evri.  The only options I can select are Standard or Express and even then ebay reserves the right to change whatever I or the seller choose to something else if it suits them / their rake-off is bigger.

This isn't just about the money or even that I'll be fully compensated if whoever ebay decides should deliver the item manages to smash it.  These works of art are becoming harder to find and I wouldn't be happy to think I had caused there to be one less in the world by going along with ebay's madness.

Please have a look at the Pierre D'Avesn opalescent fan vase for sale on ebay right now.  Would anyone in their right mind suggest that it should be sent SD ?

[jills_cardclearout]

Yes, I came back a couple of months ago looking to reactivate a couple of old business accounts, but pretty much changed my mind after reviewing the current fees.

I used to sell low value items and made a limited living out of it.

Now I'm going to have to rethink my plan and find new lines to sell before I can set up on here. And then you read all the threads about plummeting sales and wonder if it's worth it!

Of course all the people still  cheerfully making sales don't hang around posting so got to take it with a pinch of salt... 

[akemp1]

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@theelench wrote:

Please have a look at the Pierre D'Avesn opalescent fan vase for sale on ebay right now.  Would anyone in their right mind suggest that it should be sent SD ?

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If it's the £2k listing it looks like the seller has actually chosen to send via Evri not SD? So they wouldn't be covered at all as Evri exclude glass. That's crazy maybe you should tell them.

[the-nutwood-collection]

That's a fabulous vase - I wish I could afford it.

However, it's a business seller so, at the moment, unaffected by managed shipping and, as a business seller, probably knows how to pack such a wondrous item.

[jma2815]

I wouldn’t be able to sleep if that was my listing. So many things could go wrong with something so delicate and then I’d be out £2k and that beautiful rare object would be gone. Putting it on ebay seems like madness. 

[edwardian-dreams]

That kind of thing needs to go special delivery with Royal Mail

but if it’s the same one I’m looking at at 7.50 postage it isn’t , but you can’t know for sure 

they may have out a nominal postage price on 

[honeymonster007]

Noticed the postage price as well but going by the items in their shop figure they must know what their doing, maybe they work out the postage after the sale perhaps. Wonder what their solds look like.

That vase looks amazing, would love to be able to deal in items like that. 

[jills_cardclearout]

It does look amazing, but I can't help wondering how much is down to the right lighting.

Would I be slightly disappointed when I got it out the package?

Bet they are wondering what happened to their views today!

[edwardian-dreams]

Their sold items have similarly low postage costs for expensive stuff

agree they must know what they’re doing 

even if sending with evri if packed like Fort Knox x 5 can be ok

its just the amount of of parcels they lose which is a worry/risk always 

[theelench]

I wish I could afford it !!  I'm looking for a different design (at less than half that price).  I agree they must know what they're doing, looking at their FB they don't seem to have any that mentions bad packaging or broken items.  I'm confident I could pack it to arrive safely, but if I had one for sale I probably wouldn't put on ebay.

My point was more that with ebay now deciding the carrier and recommending the service and level of compensation (if any), how many private sellers will be told to send equally fragile items by ebay's one size fits all formula.

If I was sending that vase it wouldn't be in a "Medium Parcel" size box or the evri equivalent, it would be sent in a larger "Parcelforce" size box, at least double boxed with the fans completely encased in padding and with several inches of 'peanuts' on all sides.