New 9% selling fee on eBay

[riddler 0]

Well, I guess this just changed a few months ago. I've sold things on eBay - maybe once a year, for over 10 years now. It's been over a year since the last time I sold anything there. I just sold a cell phone, and got hit with a 9% eBay selling fee.

Well, that sucks! Anyway, avoid eBay like the plague. A 9% commission, when you have to do most of the work of posting and packaging, just isn't worth it.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD

[Squeak 17]

would/could you have sold it elswhere without lossing the 9%?


9% loss of somthing is better than 100% of nothing

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[likestojump 3]

Do you happen to know what the buyers premium is when selling on a traditional auction ? Many times it's over 9%.

BTW, your statement is very deceptive, as if I was to sell a $1000 item i would not be hit with a $90 fee, but only with $50, as the fee is capped. (this is for auction style listing, for fixed-price listing the fee is tiered, and gets down to 2% of amounts over $1K)

eBay fee schedule : http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

Avoid like a plague ???? Sure, go ahead and do that. No one is ever forced to sell on eBay, but they do provide access to "worlds largest fleamarket"

[normiss 622]

I always heard it described as "world's largest clearing house of stolen goods".

Be sure to add the Paypal fees on top.
Lack of decent SELLER protection.

meh, I'll pass thank you.

[likestojump 3]

Quote

I always heard it described as "world's largest clearing house of stolen goods".

Be sure to add the Paypal fees on top.
Lack of decent SELLER protection.

meh, I'll pass thank you.

add Paypal fees ? Why ? If you were to ask for a Money order, there would be no Paypal fees. If you were to sell outside of eBay, and accept Paypal - there would still be fees, regardless of the market you are selling on.

Seller protection ? They offer it, and it works.

Are they perfect ? NO, they are not. But please don't expect hand holding from any entity you do biz with. Common sense is the seller's/buyer's responsibility, not the auction house's.

[normiss 622]

Fully understand and agree with your perspective.
That has not been my experience with ebay.

[Hvance 0]

They offer a service that is unmatched; they could probably charge more and do reasonably well. 9% is not excessive, especially considering typical auction collections.

If there were easier ways to sell in a similar fashion, people would jump on them. But...

I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.

[turtlespeed 212]

Quote

Fully understand and agree with your perspective.
That has not been my experience with ebay.

He seems to be passionate about Ebay, no?

I'm not usually into the whole 3-way thing, but you got me a little excited with that. - Skymama
BTR #1 / OTB^5 Official #2 / Hellfish #408 / VSCR #108/Tortuga/Orfun

[skybytch 259]

I already do. No fees on craigslist. No shipping or worries about scams either if you only deal local and only accept cash.

[normiss 622]

+1

[skyjumpenfool 2]

Yup! +1 here also...

If fees get too high, some bright entrepreneur will start competing with E-bay. After all, it's a free market (or so we're told).

I stopped using E-Bay as often. As a consumer, your biggest tool against high prices is free choice!!

Birdshit & Fools Productions

"Son, only two things fall from the sky."

[absane 0]

Listing fees + 9% + Paypal fees are ridiculous... but, I don't use eBay to make a profit when I'm selling items. I use it to sell things I own and don't need anymore. After bringing in about $700 in the last 2 months or so, I think I got to keep about 80% of the money.

Don't forget to pull!

[likestojump 3]

Quote

Quote

Fully understand and agree with your perspective.
That has not been my experience with ebay.

He seems to be passionate about Ebay, no?

I am not passionate about eBay - I am passionate about presenting 100% of the facts, an objective view of things, as opposed to a myopic subjective sample size ONE opinion.

It may have something to do with a lifetime of selling things online/phone , since before eBay was born and graphic browsers were invented.

like another poster said - feel free to use another medium. Craigslist is supposed to be local classifieds, so it doesn't work (as well) for selling things to a wider/nationwide/worldwide audience.

[DrewEckhardt 0]

Quote

Yup! +1 here also...

If fees get too high, some bright entrepreneur will start competing with E-bay. After all, it's a free market (or so we're told).

There are over twenty on-line auction sites, although I couldn't name any apart from e-bay and u-bid.

[riddler 0]

Yeah, I agree with Craigslist. It's mostly free. Maybe that's part of why I think a 9% sellers fee is outrageous. The other part of that is I'm just not used to it. I've sold things on eBay for years, and this is the first I've encountered such a markup.

I've sold things on craigslist, too, and I'll stick to that for now. At least until eBay starts charging for that, too.

I certainly think it was deceptive of eBay to change the terms and not put it in a large font when I logged in. My guess is that any revenue they are seeing is from suckers like me that didn't know they changed their pricing model.

Trapped on the surface of a sphere. XKCD