been a longtime purchaser on e bay! is it me or have they screwed up the site again? I would switch away from them in a hartbeat if Icould find an alternative. So if anyone can recomend I’d welcome the info. LHS is shut down do to china virus so i’ll take all recomendations,thanks Tommy
I haven’t noticed a change, I buy fairly often off eBay. They did add an annoying add divert that requires a reload to get rid of it.
Mel
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
They update the site constantly. Can you be more specific about what is bothering you about a recent change?
Since I do not have any income, I buy infrequently now. I just bought a Mantua caboose, and I did not notice any noteworthy changes.
-Kevin
I haven’t noticed any significant changes from a buyers’ view, but when I sell very occasionally, of course the fees continue to climb.
As for alternatives, good luck. I did find eBid.net, based in the UK. There are some US sellers, but many are outside the US. In their Model RR and Trains category, there are currently about 3,600 listings, as compared to over 1 million in the same category on eBay. So yeah, not much of an alternative.
I’ve been a buyer/seller on Ebay since 2001…
In my experience, from a buyer’s point of view, the only change is that some sellers take paypal and some don’t (having you pay via Ebay and CCs.). Also, Ebay now collects taxes on most sales.
From a sellers point of view, it seems like every year they change the process somewhat. They have made it easier, but if you are away from it for a year or so, there is a new learning curve.
Ebay has worked extremely well for me, and I have no complaints. While the seller’s overall fees tend to average up to about 30 percent overall (depending on selling price, etc.), I’m OK with that. After all, where else could I get the service and security for all the different stuff I’ve sold over the years…
Caveat here… the “30 percent” is from prior years when I would have up to 104 auctions at year end. I recently sold 18 auctions, and when I get the Ebay/PP numbers I will recalculate.
30 percent? Isn’t it more like 13%? 10% to eBay and 3% to PayPal?
Rich
It has been a while since I sold anything, but I remember the fees ranging between 15% and 25%. This includes the insertion fee, buy it now option fee, final value fee, and PayPal fee.
-Kevin
eBay has been waiving insertion fees and BIN fees for a long time now.
I sold a lot of used golf clubs over the summer and my only fee was a 10% final value fee. Another 3% went to PayPal. That was it!
Rich
That is interesting.
When I was selling, the insertion fee was based on the initial bid price. Auctions $1.00 or less were almost free. Maybe that is why we are seeing fewer “true” auctions with a $1.00 start and no reserve.
I was always surprised how many shoppers used Buy It Now on items with a $1.00 starting bid. I might have something with a $1.00 start and a $65.00 Buy It Now, and pretty often the Buy It Now would be used.
-Kevin
thanks for all the replys. what’s you feelings bout shipping charges?
First, note that my extensive experience involves listing some leftover items as first time seller this past week and making one whole $18 sale thus far. My goal was to learn the EBay system in advance of a day when I might want to whittle down my loco fleet.
I feared that shipping would be complicated by having to work with USPS, so I was pleased that I can select the mode on EBay and get a significant discount and just print the label. It took me awhile to understand all the options but some online videos and a bit of experimenting did the trick. Of course, shipping supplies and cost are a significant add-on to small, inexpensive items and make them relatively hard to sell (at a reasonable total cost) is my take.
Of course, one pays the 10% fee on the shipping so sellers do not up the shipping cost and lower the sales price to lessen the EBay take.
It took some effort to get the right supplies in place: padded envelopes, small boxes, etc. USPS flat rate boxes are free but expensive shipping cost unless the item is pretty heavy. I did order some free Priority Mail shoeboxes for the future as those might be right for diesel locos.
It was an interesting process to learn the system.
One thing I wonder about is visibility of my items when posted. If someone is looking for Rix xyz, they will find my item easily with a search. But I presume many browsing buyers just scroll through newest postings to see what is newly available. (I often search for HO Union Pacific and sort by newly listed.) If my Rix xyz was posted days ago, no one is likely to be scrolling back that far as very many new items are posted, say in Model Railroads & Trains / HO scale, per day. I wonder if my posted items will get any attention after initial posting unless someone searches for that specific item (or brand).
I haven’t sold on there for about 2 years, I’m going to have to check it all out, again, as I will have many things coming up that need to be gone.
As far as shipping charges, no matter where you go to buy or sell, there are shipping charges. As they say, it is what it is.
Mike.
Paul, your eBay listing will show the number of “Views”. That is very helpful to check periodically on whether or not your listing is continuing to draw attention as time wears on.
Rich
On eBay, the buyer pays the shipping charges…and sales tax. However, the seller pays the 10% final value fee which includes both the sales price and the shipping charge.
Rich
Some fees have been eliminated, and I never use a reserve price anymore because they rob you on that one. If the bids are way too low as to be completely unacceptable, I just end the auction early and say the item is no longer available for sale. Piece of cake. You can even relist it later. It’s one way of getting around the reserve price listing fees.
The Paypal fee is 3%. The Ebay selling fee is still generally 10%. They want you to offer free shipping, so they will take that 10% out of any shipping charge you apply, also. I just sold a bunch of stuff in the last two weeks, netting myself $1300 in cash. I did better than $125 per diesel unit and was relatively happy. Some were brand new in box, and some were mint/test run only.
Yes, I like to try new things. Sometimes I am disappointed and blowout the ones I don’t like or don’t really need to keep on Ebay. The buyers are getting a good deal from me.
I have not found any other site or group that offers the same ability to move product. The key is to set a reasonable enough starting bid so that people will bid. Since I am forced to offer free shipping by their fee structure, that means I avoid selling a single freight car anymore. Instead, I group them into pairs of like things: either both road numbers of a given item or two very similar items.
Also, invariably if/when I tried to charge shipping, the buyers complain as if somehow I had the ability to set USPS shipping rates. It forces one to just offer free shipping if you don’t want your ratings damaged by shipping cost comments. I never charge anything for boxes, tape, bubblewrap, etc. The buyers complain about straight up USPS shipping costs. I just make the shipping cost “free” and set my minimum bid price accordingly.
Before anyone comments about boxes being “free”, there are certain HO diesels whose manufacturer supp
Good write up, John. [Y]
Rich
As a seller, I was always puzzled by Ebay’s calculation of shipping fees and thought they were in error. My DiL clued me in, Ebay has a deal with the Post Office and you can ship Priority Mail, in a non priority box, cheaper if you buy postage thru Ebay, that you can if you go to the Post Office yourself.
I have never sold anything on Ebay but was thinking I should try. Can you explain the reserve fee issue?
A reserve in any auction is the price, below which, the seller can refuse to accept the highest bid.
If you want at least $700, and that is you reserve price, for your brass Big Boy, and the highest bid is 699 or 300, you don’t have to sell. Ebay charges you $5 or 7.5% whichever is greater, up to $250.
It’s really not worth doing for less expensive stuff. But suppose you want at least, pick a price $15 for something. On a good day it may sell for $25, but you see that some similars have sold for $10. You decide it’s not worth your time to box and mail it at $10, so start the auction at $15.
I never use reserve, and started all my auctions at $1.00 opening bid.
My experience has made it seem that if you get a lot of action early, with low bids bringing the price up, you will get more action at the end. All you need is two snipers to get a good final price… attract them early with an enticing low bid.
Plus, this is more fun.
For fun… search ebay for model train item auctions that are $1.00, and bid on a few of them. Watch what happens over the next 7 days, and see if this is for you.
CHECK SHIPPING COSTS! You don’t want to bid on something with a $1.00 opening bid an $50.00 shipping. That happens.
-Kevin