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Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Old 11-17-16, 08:51 AM
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Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

So, this morning I received a very disturbing email from Half.com. Here is the meaty part:

Dear Seller,

We’re writing to let you know that Half.com will be increasing our standard commission rates in all categories starting December 16, 2016. Here’s a detailed look at how commission rates will change:


Selling Price Current Rate Rate as of 12/16/2016
$0.75 - $50.00 15.0% ->25.0%
$50.01 - $100.00 12.5% -> 22.5%
$100.01 - $250.00 10.0% -> 20.0%
$250.01 - $500.00 7.5%->17.5%
> $500.00 5.0%->15.0%
Absolutely ludicrous. I promptly sent them an email and told them where to go (without cursing). I mean, I do this all on the side...I'm not trying to make money (just get a little back for stuff I don't need anymore). It just frustrates the living heck out of me...because I spent all of that time building up my rep on there. I know they are just trying to kill off the site, but they were better off just killing the site (say December 31st, it's gone) and move everything to Ebay. I guess I have to start an account on Amazon (if they are still 15%), or stick it all on Ebay.

I mean I know I can post it here, but let's face facts...I wouldn't sell many even if I did a fire sale. So, if you sell on Half.com or have ever sold on Half.com, I urge you to write them (also without cursing)...and tell them this is horrible.
Old 11-17-16, 10:53 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Shit, I remember when half.com was actually half on the prices. And that was like 15 years ago. Im surprised the site had last this long.

All of these sites tho, amazon, ebay, etc, its just not worth it anymore. I cut way back on blind buying and impulse, since it is just much harder to get rid of things. Once I lost MovieStop to trade movies in, that really hurt.
Old 11-17-16, 03:46 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

I saw the email this morning and could not believe that they practically doubled their commission rates.
I thought Amazon was high, looks like with this increase they will top them.
Old 11-17-16, 04:09 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

It's spelled G-R-E-E-D!

As of this morning, I've sent them a 'nice' e-mail demanding that they cancel my seller account, and also conveniently informing them that I'm never going to shop there again, as either a seller OR a buyer.

I fervently hope many others follow suit, to send the unassailable message that the extent of their avariciousness has broken the camel's back at last.
Old 11-17-16, 04:13 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

How much does eBay take out including paypal fees? I sell on both but never pay much attention to how much they take out. It won't even be worth the effort selling cheap DVDs.
Old 11-17-16, 06:11 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Ebay owns half.

On the ebay site, most of us are paying just under 10% (though it varies by category & sale amount).

I'm really no longer selling enough on ebay to care. I keep saying I'm going to go website only & collectable films only .........
Old 11-17-16, 07:54 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Soon, it will become so expensive to get rid of stuff online, that the old retro, honest to goodness garage sale will come back into vogue as a viable option to actually make a little cash instead of giving it all away to greedy internet Executives. Good riddance to Half.com other similar auction sites like Ebay, and Amazon's "Seller Marketplace". The latter has become a jackal pack of large clearinghouses anyway. The common person who wants to sell a book, DVD, or Blu-ray is lost in an unwinnable war against all of those places anyway.
Old 11-17-16, 09:02 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

I'm surprised half.com is still around. I would've figured eBay would have absorbed it by now.

Between eBay and Amazon marketplace, it seems like half would be forgotten by most consumers, especially after they became "half" in name only.
Old 11-18-16, 05:28 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

I haven't used Half.com in a very long time but in the early 2000's when they first came around, before they were bought out by eBay, I sold off my entire CD collection of around 500 discs. They all sold ridiculously fast, like in a couple of months & their cut was very reasonable back then.
Old 11-18-16, 09:16 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Yep, it is so weird that Half.com, Ebay...sites that spoke constantly to get us smaller sellers on board who were really just trying to dump our inventory to get some of our money back (and not get 5 to 10 cents on the dollar at Half Price Books or a swap shop)...have completely went the other way and could give two shits about us.

I mean, I guess I just have to throw up a sale page on my site though I didn't really want to do that because then you have to start worrying about SSL and all of that crap. That and my page is just a simple blog more or less with the domain name I always wanted, lol. My page also doesn't get many hits in comparison to Half.com or Ebay or Amazon either. *sigh*, argh.
Old 11-19-16, 05:40 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Could be a way of Half.com telling us the end is near, since traffic purportedly has rapidly declined on the site in recent years. They're trying to make up the difference in reduced volume, while maintaining the same commisson intake as before when the site was indeed busy. This is bound to fail, it will just end up alienating and / or insulting those loyal Half.com buyers and sellers who have been shopping on the site for all of those years.
Old 11-21-16, 09:19 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Originally Posted by Josh-da-man
I'm surprised half.com is still around. I would've figured eBay would have absorbed it by now.

Between eBay and Amazon marketplace, it seems like half would be forgotten by most consumers, especially after they became "half" in name only.
I quit selling on Half.com about two years ago. I used to sell on their site exclusively but found the traffic was getting less and less year after year. Then I started seeing marking my stuff down to try to move it and the same exact items were selling on ebay for even more. So the traffic at half.com sucks nowadays. They are obviously trying to kill the site.

The good deals are long gone from there unless you want to buy a well-worn book for cheap. Otherwise it is Amazon marketplace or ebay. I don't know of any others.

I remember ebay trying to kill half.com pretty soon after they purchased it which made zero sense to me. At the time, half.com was really popular and you could only sell items there for half the price or less period. Ebay came along and fucked it all up.

What little I sell now goes to ebay. You can at least put your own pix and better descriptions on ebay than on half. And again...the traffic. I am not a fan of their feedback system but not really a fan of Amazon's either. I haven't had much trouble with scammers luckily but I tend to stay far away from selling anything over $200 bucks there.
Old 12-04-16, 08:55 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

I feel that raising the fees is another way for ebay to kill half.com. They've been trying to do this for years.
Old 12-13-16, 01:40 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Just a gentle reminder, this is the last week at the old rate. Starting Friday, it goes up *sigh*. Probably after the new year, I'll start Ebaying my current inventory...probably at the tune of about 10 or so a month. At least my feedback carries over. Still is a huge disappointment.
Old 12-14-16, 10:30 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

I've been buying less from Ebay lately because it seems to consist mainly of Ebay Stores that are asking more for their stuff than what I can pick it up for from Amazon and other online stores. It's become ridiculous, there are actually very few people auctioning their stuff there anymore. And the prices! My god... Is Ebay trying to become some hoity-toity marketplace for high-end merchandise and to hell with the little guy or what?


Re: half.com...I haven't found a good deal at Half for quite awhile.
Old 12-15-16, 03:09 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Ebay and half.com have become cesspools of scalpers, retail sellers, and scammers. Quite ridiculous and unfair. The average guy doesn't bother with selling smaller items anymore due to this greed and corruption that is now baked into the Ebay brand name.

All the fun is gone, as are any monetary incentives which once existed. Especially with Ebay / Half.com raising fees to such a runaway extent as they are doing in this calculated move on 12/16.
Old 06-16-17, 11:40 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

Well, they finally did it. They went and killed it.
Half.com will be closing on August 31, 2017
http://pages.half.ebay.com/help/account/closing.html
The seller fees chased off all the sellers. I hadn't made a sale since 2013, and forgot I had inventory listed on there. I unexpectedly made a sale earlier this year. I figured that after all the fees, and much higher postage in recent years, I only made about $0.30 on the sale. I would've made $1.50-2.00 a couple years ago. After that sale, I removed all the rest of my inventory from Half. My lower priced items would've resulted in a loss for me.

As a buyer, I'm a little sad. It's always better to have more options. I actually bought stuff on there twice in the last 2 years.
Old 06-17-17, 07:44 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

I haven't bought or sold with Half in likely over a decade. Not surprising though with so many other outlets to buy used merchandise that buyers can use. It is sad that another way to sell merchandise is going away.
Old 06-17-17, 04:38 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

A shameless self-fulfilling prophecy... They knew doubling fees would kill it, and half is now dead. And the Ebay monster gobbles up more and more.

During its heyday of 2000-2005, I was selling $20-25k per year on Half. The last time I made a sale was in 2015, for all of $29.

Now, I think we "little" sellers will go back to garage sales. Actually, I'm done with this racket, and got most of my "stuff" sold at least 10 years ago, so I timed it pretty well, ie before insane fees, scammers, scalpers, and huge commercial (Chinese) outfits took over selling in the online realm.

Woe to any "small-fry" (ie, under $100k per year seller) who wishes to sell anything online today without being fleeced... That ship has sailed, sadly...
Old 06-18-17, 08:20 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

My observation is that market saturation killed DVD/Blu, books, and CD's. You can pick out almost any book on Amazon, in any edition, and there are 10+ for sale - often for $.01 + $3.99 S&H (or similar).

Amazon doesn't like media anymore either. They raised their book/media FBA (fulfillment) fees in Jan or Feb. And that made it nearly impossible to compete, as you have to raise your prices by a few dollars to make anything. I can only imagine the millions (or tens of millions) of books that got baled and recycled.

As it goes, they're the ones who know what's making money and what's not. Paying employees to pack and ship books for $3 probably wasn't netting them any money. So they changed.

Repricing automation also strangled the market. Sellers outprice each other until they're selling an item for $.01 and taking a net loss after paying overhead.
Old 06-25-17, 03:59 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

^ In complete agreement. What a waste of time, resources, energy, effort, and materials. A huge percentage IS NOT recycled and simply ends up in some sad junk heap, dump, or landfill.

"Market saturation" means nobody in the long run benefits, not even Amazon, as they and Half.com have "moved on."

This is a sad state of affairs. It epitomizes "first world problems" and "throw-away society."

There must be a better way, man.
Old 06-25-17, 11:46 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

What happens to Half.com, Oregon?
Old 06-25-17, 12:14 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

I started selling on Half when they sent you Half.com stickers to put on the packages.
Not really much to add other than to reiterate the high prices, high commissions, buyer's-rights-above-all, and a not-so-slow spiral into oblivion. I wasn't going to retire off of it, but between getting rid of stuff at fair prices (to both buyer and seller), and the likelihood of the original purchase being a deal, I recouped a lot of costs and made some money in some cases.

Definitely not the same anymore.

Not to sound like Cranky Old Man, but I believe the internet, while it offers a lot more than it used to, is actually overall getting worse than it was ten-15 years ago.
Old 06-25-17, 01:40 PM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

I've been using Half.com as a shopper since it first opened but this closure seemed inevitable. I noticed fewer and fewer sellers with listings for the used CDs I like browsing. The site had more and more items with no active listings. This move seems to have been years in the planning.

In the glory days I liked using Half more than other used sites like eBay and even Amazon.

There are fewer and fewer decent outlets for used media. Amazon uses its fees structure to keep its marketplace sellers at a competitive disadvantage with Amazon's own items. That makes it very difficult as a shopper to find any used goodies on Amazon at a fair market price.
Old 06-26-17, 09:36 AM
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Re: Half.com - Seller's commission rate going WAY UP!

A little sad, but no surprise. I never put anything back on Half after they spiked their fees and I spent my time private selling through various channels. Of course that way is much harder, but you do what you got to do. . I think I might try a local facebook group too but the negative to that is I really don't want to meet people face to face. (And then it feels like a drug deal of sorts too).

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