Ebay Boycott! 2/18 - 2/25

[Lauren]

Okay, I'll speak my peace then leave.

I sell on ebay. A lot, when my job at the Opera isn't going. I'll say that last year it was my most consistent stream of income.

Here's one thing to consider- as a small business in California, there is no way I could turn a profit if it weren't for ebay. I tried my own online store and had a booth at an antique store and a design studio and had too low a traffic volume to sell barely anything due to the fees I would have to pay the search engines to direct people to my site and be within the first few pages of listings. I also had to pay for hosting, advertising, and fees related to credit card transactions (monthy and transaction fees, and the cost of buying it outright). There were phone bills and rental costs, and cost of booths at expos. I had to throw in the towel and lost a lot of money (for me).

Yeah, the fees suck. A lot. Especially when they up them. But the cost is a lot less than the other fees I mentioned above.

Here's what I don't get...

Boycott selling. By all means. But the buyer is getting the deal in this, as far as I can tell. Why boycott buying? It's like a double-whammy for the sellers who now have to pay the extra charges and now have their item not sell for as much as it should?

And now I better duck out before I get slammed.

 

[Foofoogal]

Near as I've been able to determine, no... at least not one that would be cost effective for the infrequent seller.

Have you looked at www.propay.com?

 

[KittyT]

Boycott selling. By all means. But the buyer is getting the deal in this, as far as I can tell. Why boycott buying? It's like a double-whammy for the sellers who now have to pay the extra charges and now have their item not sell for as much as it should?

The problem is that whenever you buy an item, there is money going into Ebay's pocket in the form of a FVF, so you are in fact contributing to the problem. The other issue is that, as long as people are buying on Ebay, there is less of an incentive for sellers to boycott.

 

[Lauren]

That makes sense. Thank you for replying!

 

[Tango Yankee]

Have you looked at www.propay.com?

Just did, thanks to your link...

But when it comes down to the infrequent seller it's still not cost effective. It has an annual fee plus the per-transaction fees. It also has limits on transaction sizes based on how much you're willing to pay each year. If as a small seller I go with the basic package and then manage to sell a hat, suit, or widget for over $250, I can't use the service because of the transaction limits.

This is why the eBay/PayPal changes are putting small sellers between a rock and a hard place. If you want to pay for it, you can get a merchant's credit card processing account and use it, or you can use PayPal. eBay won't allow any competitive (at least, for the small seller) payment options like Google Wallet on board, though.

Regards,
Tom

 

[KittyT]

That makes sense. Thank you for replying!

I would much rather negotiate private sales and see every penny of my money go into the seller's pocket for their item!

I'm actually watching something on Ebay right now that ends during the boycott and there are no bids. I may contact the seller and tell her that if it doesn't sell, I'd be interested in negotiating a private sale with her so that she sees more profit.

Someone did this with me recently too. I sold a laptop to someone and he contacted me to let me know that if I have any more available, he would be interested in negotiating a private sale.

 

[KittyT]

But when it comes down to the infrequent seller it's still not cost effective. It has an annual fee plus the per-transaction fees. It also has limits on transaction sizes based on how much you're willing to pay each year. If as a small seller I go with the basic package and then manage to sell a hat, suit, or widget for over $250, I can't use the service because of the transaction limits.

There are a lot of other sites that people use for auction-type transactions. I will see if I can get a list from my friend to post here.

 

[Foofoogal]

widget for over $250, I can't use the service because of the transaction limits.

You just break it down into 2 payments. The advantage to Propay is you can do shows and use the system.

 

[KittyT]

This is a great page to keep track of the Ebay traffic which also has a pretty comprehensive list of the sites out there:

http://www.psunite.com/auctionsitewatch.php/

It seems that many sellers will continue to run auctions on Ebay after the boycott, but only to drive people to other auctions on alternate sites.

 

[Justdog]

Actually enlightening

Okay, I'll speak my peace then leave.

I sell on ebay. A lot, when my job at the Opera isn't going. I'll say that last year it was my most consistent stream of income.

Here's one thing to consider- as a small business in California, there is no way I could turn a profit if it weren't for ebay. I tried my own online store and had a booth at an antique store and a design studio and had too low a traffic volume to sell barely anything due to the fees I would have to pay the search engines to direct people to my site and be within the first few pages of listings. I also had to pay for hosting, advertising, and fees related to credit card transactions (monthy and transaction fees, and the cost of buying it outright). There were phone bills and rental costs, and cost of booths at expos. I had to throw in the towel and lost a lot of money (for me).

Yeah, the fees suck. A lot. Especially when they up them. But the cost is a lot less than the other fees I mentioned above.

Here's what I don't get...

Boycott selling. By all means. But the buyer is getting the deal in this, as far as I can tell. Why boycott buying? It's like a double-whammy for the sellers who now have to pay the extra charges and now have their item not sell for as much as it should?

And now I better duck out before I get slammed.

Stand tall it was a good informative opinion and changed my way of thinking.
Seems your experience was very enlightening to me.

 

[Jovan]

I don't know if it's been mentioned or not, but related to eBay, I find Google Checkout a lot better than Paypal... and this is just the buyer talking. One of the sellers I've bought from prefers it. It only requires a Google account for the buyer, and the checkout screen is laid out well and simple. [huh]

 

[nobodyspecial]

I'm a very small ebay seller and have been for several years. I could sell a lot more, but for lack of time to spend selling. My $0.02 worth on this is that for all the negatives of ebay, the positives simply outweigh them. I don't like fees any more than the next seller, but for what I personally sell, there really is no other game in town.

My typical auction, though the variation in auctions is huge, looks something like this:
Selling price - $35
Ebay/Paypal fees - $6
Thrift shop cost - $7
Profit - $22

For my $6 in fees I get access to worldwide shoppers, seamless integration into paypal (I've never had a paypal problem), seamless integration into mailing services and the post office provides free boxes. When I want cash from my paypal account it arrives in my bank account in a few days time.

For me, the $6 in fees is a reasonable trade off. Until someone invents a better mousetrap ebay will remain the only game in town for me.

 

[KittyT]

For me, the $6 in fees is a reasonable trade off. Until someone invents a better mousetrap ebay will remain the only game in town for me.

See, the thing is that as long as people aren't willing to work to make something else work, it won't, plain and simple. There are growing pains with something like this and some people have to be willing to band together to push something new or no progress would ever be made in any field, period. If you're willing to settle, that's great, but there are a lot of people out there who want to work for something better that puts more money in their pockets and less into the pockets of a corporation who is consistently willing to screw the same folks who make them money.

Have you calculated how much your profits are going to dip with the new fee structure in place? I agree that in the past the tradeoff has been acceptable to me. But with a final value fee of just under 10% on the first $25 of an item, it's just no longer going to be worth it to me to sell items unless I can be assured they're going to carry a higher value on Ebay.

Then again, I don't sell on Ebay for a living and I understand that most sellers are willing to pay for the exposure. The question is - is it worth it to push buyers to other sites with the hope that in the future there will be exposure there? I believe it is, but I am also idealistic and strongly guided by my principles.

 

[KittyT]

Also, yesterday was the last day of the Ebay boycott! Many thanks to those of you who decided to participate.

 

[leaette]

how did the boycott go? did Ebay acknowlege it? Did they comment on it? Did people really boycott it? Any results?

 

[KittyT]

how did the boycott go? did Ebay acknowlege it? Did they comment on it? Did people really boycott it? Any results?

You can view charts of posting numbers for the boycott week at http://www.psunite.com/auctionsitewatch.php/. I also posted a few numbers thoughout the course of this tread:

http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=510953&postcount=1
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=512715&postcount=28
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/showpost.php?p=517328&postcount=57


I do not know if Ebay acknowledged it formally, but right after the boycott started, they ran some listing specials, dropping the initial posting fee in an attempt to get more sellers to list items.

 

[nobodyspecial]

There clearly is some fine line at which fees will make ebay selling not worth the time. I don't know where that is, but I'm not there yet. At this point I'm not yet willing to jump ship. I don't know that anybody is getting screwed, sellers simply need to decide whether they can make money in the current environment. It's entirely possible a second auction site becomes viable, possibly for smaller sellers while ebay becomes a site for larger sellers. For me ebay is just a hobby, I can understand how full time sellers feel squeezed, I'm just in it for fun money.

 

[Tango Yankee]

When I want cash from my paypal account it arrives in my bank account in a few days time.

Now that's one of the things that's annoyed me about PayPal. When I make a purchase with money out of my checking account then Bam! The money's gone from my checking account. But if I want my money transferred from my PP account to my bank account, it takes a few days time. Why? No reason in the world it can't go that fast both ways though in PP's reasoning the delay is due to your bank's policies.

I tend to think that they do it because they can continue earning interest on your money during that period and there's nothing you can do about it.

If you're a hobby seller with less than 100 feedbacks (or you fail to meet any of the many other criteria eBay is implementing) then they'll keep your money for 21 days (perhaps less if, again, certain criteria are met) and then you'll still have that few days delay in getting the money into your checking account. In the meantime you've got to ship the item with your own money--money you could be using for something else rather than boosting PP's earnings.

Bottom line is that the fees are just a small part of why so many sellers are upset. Many have said they'd have complained but taken it if it were just a fee increase. It's not.

Now I'm not saying I'm walking away from eBay completely--I'm not. As a buyer it's difficult to find the sorts of things I'm looking for anywhere else. As a seller I'll probably start listing my difficult-to-sell-on-eBay items such as stingy brim hats in small sizes on other sites that do not charge insert fees and keep them there until they sell. Other items that I think would bring a good price I'll probably still list on eBay for a while.

I probably won't buy anything from Blujay.com again, though. I bought a salt and pepper shaker set from a seller on Blujay on Christmas Eve. Got back an address to send a money order. Sent it a few days later. Since then, nothing from the seller despite my many attempts to contact her. The email I sent to Blujay support came back as undeliverable. I'm only out $9, but burn me once... Might put something out there as a seller though, but buy? Likely not.

Too bad; it was a hat and hat rack shaker set!

Cheers,
Tom

 

[nobodyspecial]

I suspect that paypal fees are chump change compared to interest on the money float that paypal earns. I'm certain they have the cash investing side of the business down to a science. If there is one very legitimate gripe of paypal is the lag time of several days for receiving one's own cash. The new 21 day rule is really nuts, and can certainly be considered abusive. I do have to hand it to the folks who thought of the original idea of paypal as a business venture, sheer genius.

 

[Foofoogal]

Bottom line is that the fees are just a small part of why so many sellers are upset.

I love ebay just like everyone else for the good reasons but the flip side is definitely there to many.
Sort of like if you only knew. Reminds me of OZ really and wizard behind the curtain.