wabio

Question for all the Ebay buyers and sellers out there. Is it even worth buying and selling stuff on Ebay anymore now that the USPS has raised it's shipping rates again? I'm sure UPS will soon follow suit.

I mean, besides the collectible or hard to find items, I find it less likely for me to buy things from Ebay just to try to save five or ten dollars. I just can't see myself buying a ten dollar item that I have to pay nine dollars in shipping for. Especially since I still have to deal with the possibility of fraud, waiting a week or two to receive my item, returning broken items, and god forbid...handling insurance claims for mishandled shipping.

As for selling, unless I'm selling something of value (greater than...say $50), it just doesn't seem worth all the effort to have to.....list the item, answer all the bidders questions, cash checks, package and ship the item, track the item and correspond with the buyer, handle various problems, yada yada...all for a measly eight or nine bucks profit!

What do you guys think, is Ebay on the downturn?

Johnny Zhivago

Sold ~ $400 worth of DVDs in the past two weeks... So, yes, it's worth ~ $400, minus fees, to me... Of those, I have received 85%-90% of payments within 10 days. For every 1 bad transaction, I'll have 30+ good ones. Shipping rates don't matter much to me, I pass those on to the buyers... If you can't pay shipping, don't bid.

marty888

I sell videos, DVDs and CDs, with my shipping/handling charges based on 1st class mail - and that only went up 3 cents! No big deal.

Trout

A CD sent first class is about $1.20, so thats not too bad, and if you use Pay-pal or E-bay payments, you don't have to worry about cashing checks and such.

MistisoMan

This may skew a bit off topic, but how much did shipping rates go up? I know they went up, it was on the news and all, but the prices I have been paying (particularly for shipping) haven't changed. I still see people charging prices ranging from free to $5 for shipping.

rkndkn

MistisoMan,

First class mail only went up 3 cents for the first ounce. Priority Mail for up to 1 lb. went up from $3.50 to $3.85.

Anyway, it does seem to be more of a buyer's market right now. The DVDs I've bid on haven't had more than a couple people bidding. As a newbie seller, I made a big mistake of starting the bidding too low, expecting it to go higher. Can't count on that, so now I'm trying to open it higher.

kevin75

yeah, i haven't had the best of luck selling dvd's lately. very few bidders and not as much profit as i have gotten in the past. however, i have found some good deals on some OOP books that i have been wanting so that is a plus.

icondude

As to if it's worht it then it depends upon what your using eBay for. Obviosuly it's great for finding out of print and or spare parts for old stuff, etc. but as for selling I find it useful for cleaning out the preverbial closet. For the most part when I sell it's something I'm likely to throw out if it doesn't sell so I'm happy to get anything for it.

Lonestar9

Yeah, it's still worth it, it's been harder for a while to find good deals on DVD's, etc.....but it can be done.....I very rarely sell on EBay, so i'm glad it's a buyers market....
I've found many items for a good/great price, but outrageous shipping charges, and so those are no sale for me.....but for other items it's great.

ninkasi

USPS ship rates haven't gone up THAT much unless you ship something Priority and it's over 1lb. Priority over 1lb now gets ZONED-they charge a different rate depending on how far your package is going-that could get pricey. You can pretty much always ship a dvd for under a 1lb (or vhs tape for that matter), though. Also, dvds, vhs, books, etc can go the cheap Media Mail route and that hasn't gone up that much either & isn't zoned. As far as BUYING dvds through Ebay I've found that Ebay sellers, on the whole, are MUCH more reliable than your average online dvd store. Fairly recently I pre-ordered the Smallville dvd from Videoflicks. Well, I never got it and the site said it was trying to order more. So, I couldn't even get it from pre-ordering through them. The same week I ordered 2 different dvds from Buy.com. Both dvds had "this item ships within 24-48 hours" next to them. About a WEEK passes and I get an e-mail saying they are BOTH on backorder. Jeez! So, I cancelled both my Videoflicks and Buy.com orders and bought all these dvds from Ebay and Half.com (also Ebay) and they are ON THE WAY (saved some money too!). No more online stores for me from now on. I'll stick to Half, Ebay or Brick & Mortar.

photo_guy

Watch out for Buy.com; they have a talent for suddenly shipping items to you just after you cancel your order. I have had this happen many times - to the point that I almost do it as standard practice. Order, wait a week & check status, cancel order and...tada...item arrives a few days later.

calhoun07

That's why I refuse to order from Buy.com. You have to pull teeth if you change your mind about any order with them. I got two copies of Sopranos season one because of them. I had such a hard time with them about it, I said screw it, and gave season one to a family member as a gift (and got them hooked on the show!). But I will never order from Buy.com again because of their policies about cancelling orders.

kilcher

Another thing to keep in mind, you don't have to ship things priority. If that's what you've been doing you can always switch to first class which is still pretty reasonable.

DVDho78DTS

I pretty much just sell on eBay now except for an occansional buy not related to DVD. I have Priority Mail video sized boxes shipped to me for free in bulk (10 or 25). As a buyer, we want choices on shipping, so I give the buyer the choice of $1.42 via Media mail or $3.85 via Priority Mail for a DVD.

All I do is turn the Priority Mail box inside out if they want it shipped Media Mail. Works just as good.

dvde

I stopped selling on ebay, because the last few times the people don't bother paying. Their prices are just to high these days. You use to get great deals (just like all dot.coms), but not anymore.

icondude

I bought two returned (i.e.- questionable) 300W power inverters shipped for $20. One of them only needed a fuse, the other needed something else requiring some soldering. I just sold one of them for $26, on eBay and I'm keeping the other (both are in perfect working condition).

GatorDeb

You know that's illegal right?

grunter

When I sell on ebay again, I'll no longer include priority mail as an option. I got royally screwed on my last shipment. My t-shirt sales vary in weight - but generally hover around the 1 lb. mark. If it's even an ounce over - the priority shipping rate can easily double.

And there goes my marginal profit.

I'll only ship first class or media mail from now on.

The Inspector

And not only that, but they are now putting the priority box logo (lightly) on the other side just for this reason.

The reason ebay is slow is because the summer. Ebay always slows down during the summer months. Of course, it's not helping with people losing 40% of their life savings in 401K's...

Wait until September rolls around. Those 15 dollar bids will once again be 20 and the stock market will begin it's slow rebound.

DVDho78DTS

Actually, I didn't know that. I just thought of doing this after they raised the prices for Priority Mail. I emailed the USPS to see if this was considered misuse (knew it was after reading their terms of agreement) while having two auctions going with the two shipping options, but I was able to change one before there was a bid. The other auction ended before I got the email back but the winner chose the Priority option since the 3 DVDs sold for $65. I would have paid the difference if he chose Media Mail.

I guess I should have known that it was illegal but it didn't even occur to me since they still would be getting my money. Anyway, thanks for pointing it out. You can check my auctions to see that I'm no lying by entering my email address in the seller past auctions tab.

I always believe if you are a good person (karma) things will be in your favor. This is just another example.