kayak99

I buy a few things on ebay if I find it cheaper there (from someone with a good reputation) but stopped selling. Hopefully one of these techno magnates will bring some safe sane competition. For now Craigslist has produced some nice sales and cold hard cash!!

Travis McClain

Do you know (or mind sharing) which sites your friend has taken to using?

...I have a sneaking suspicion this is going to factor into my earlier question.

I'm sure eBay is feeling the squeeze, the same as everyone else. The problem is, companies are led by the people at the top and when they panic, the only thing they care about is prolonging their own salaries, rather than concentrating on what is in the interests of their company. The folks running eBay would rather draw out their fat salaries another month or two (and lay off a fifth of their workforce) than to scale back what they're making and keep the company as close to what it was a year ago. Trust me, "Griff" isn't going to go without, so long as there's someone else's paycheck to cash.

Eventually, economic fundamentals will compel the greedy ones running these companies to either jump ship or revise their priorities. Hopefully, the void will be filled by less greedy, more sensible leaders.

whotony

here's one i havent seen before----

"Important Message

At least one of your Detailed Seller Ratings has fallen below the required minimum Seller Performance Standard of 4.3. (Your ratings can be viewed in your Seller Dashboard.)

What this means

When one or more ratings is below 4.3, your listings may appear lower in search results and you won't be able to register new accounts until your ratings in all four categories are 4.3 or above. If any of your ratings falls below 4.1, you won't be able to list new items.

We know you care about your customers, and understand that these things happen. We’d like to help you get your Detailed Seller Ratings back up where they belong.

*

Use our customer-satisfaction guidelines to help raise your ratings.

*

See more tips on how to create and maintain a great buyer experience.

*

Review the eBay Seller Performance policy."

I have 100% but some bozo gave me a neutral after an item shipped media took 16 days to arrive.

Gizmo

Which is why I don't sell on eBay anymore. They cater to PowerSellers, not individuals like me trying to unload an extra Blu-ray title or Action Figure.

pvdfan

The best on the seller rating was buy.com's. It was(might still be) under the required rating on shipping charges and their shipping was always free.

hydroflame

Ya, ebay is introducing some new policies to try to get the sellers back after the "buyer" policy change a while ago

kevin75

now that usps shipping costs have gone up yet again (priority mail flat rate boxes are now over $10), i think i will only use ebay as a last resort.

i did find this over at consumerist (linked from wsj)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123257451678903687.html

EBay Inc. reported a 31% slump in fourth-quarter profit and a rare quarterly revenue decline, as the online seller struggled with one of the worst environments for consumer demand in decades.

Revenue fell 6.7% as shoppers pared holiday budgets and shifted away from eBay's core online auctions. And eBay indicated that conditions remain uncertain in the current quarter, issuing ranges for revenue and profit that are below estimates on Wall Street.

Jeremy517

I wonder if eBay had to eat any of the cost of the Live search discount. If not, their numbers would be grossly inflated, even though they are down overall, since there were so many Live-related sales that would not have occurred otherwise.

hindolio

revenue up, profits down, discounts inflated, consumers paring down,...

it all pales in comparison to the travesty that is the new "my ebay" page imho.

Al_Tahoe

Excellent point! I spent about $4,000 at eBay during the 4th quarter. Without the Live.com discount, that number would have been exactly 0.

big whoppa

I just noticed that USPS released a small priority flat rate box. It costs about $5 to ship. A good compromise.

jpb07

They're at it again...

whotony

I haven't used ebay is a long time, is that etter?

jpb07

Not even close. They are continuing their habit of screwing over the sellers. I'll be shocked if they don't take a big hit and lose a lot of sellers. It's essentially a 100% FVF hike on most auctions. With this they have screwed over volume sellers with the FVF increase and occasional sellers with insertion and FVF.

Jacoby Ellsbury

Starting March 30, 2010 selling on eBay will be a better deal than ever!
List Auction-style FREE--no Insertion Fees--when you start your Auction-style listing under $1. 10-15 cent savings


Get new, lower Insertion Fees for all other start prices.


Either way, pay one easy Final Value Fee of 9% of the winning bid (but never more than $50)-and pay only if your item sells. Currently it is 8.75% of the first $25 and 3.5% of the next $25-1000 and 1.5% of the remaining amount over $1000

Examples
Selling price, new commission old commission
$50 $4.50 $3.06
$100 $9 $4.81
$150 $13.50 $6.55
$200 $18 $8.31

The only way this new format would ever save you money is if you sold something for less than a couple dollars or more than two thousand dollars, nothing in between will be cheaper to sell



List in Fixed Price for 50¢, with Final Value Fees for the most part staying the same.
This is currently 15 cents for media and 35 cents for everything else.
This new standard fee structure will replace the current "first 5 listings free"--you'll pay no Insertion Fees whenever you list Auction-style and start pricing under $1!*

dx23

That is what they want. Get rid of the small sellers and just rely on the Power Sellers. Their goal is to turn eBay into an Amazon.com clone. The problem is that their management is just full of idiots and they will lose everything. I would not be surprised to see eBay turn into the Amazon clone by the end of this year and then be purchased by Amazon.com in 2013, when all eBay stock is worth less than a dollar.

Troy Stiffler

Haha. People still list $1 "auctions" on eBay? That's really cute, eBay.

For the record, the tier for my current listings start at 12% and work down from there. Unless they're also changing those rules, none of this applies to me (nor 90% of eBay). Most people do 'fixed price' and 'store' listings now, anyways. Everything is so saturated on eBay that, unless you're just pawning off your personal stuff, it's easy to lose money buying and selling. And, at this point, it's much simpler to take your stuff to a pawn shop. You get about the same amount, less hassle.

SethDLH

Speaking of stock, I'm somewhat surprised we haven't seen a news story about eBay stock holders jumping ship yet...

Robertwoj

How does it not apply to you? Your listing price is either under $1 or captured under "all other start prices." Either way, every auction is now subject to the new FVF of 9%. What am I missing from your post?

jpb07

I've been on there for over 10 years now. I've sold two kinds of things....the '85 Bears season on DVD prior to NFL Films releasing full games (and the crackdown on those types of DVDs from the trading scene) and football tickets. This is really going to drive people that sell tickets off the site...probably to stubhub which ironically they bought a few years ago. On the principle of the thing I will likely sell the tickets via Craigslist or just take whatever the brokers are buying them for. With their shipping cost policies (used to roll about 50% of the ebay/pp fees into the S/H cost), search priority policy, PP only policy, and now this I will end up giving them almost $30 more per 2 ticket auction now than I did 2 years ago.

Does anyone know of another decent auction site?

Troy Stiffler

There are three different types of listings; "auction", "fixed price" and "store" listings. Right now, they all have different closing fee structures. "Auctions" generally cost more to list, but less to close.

It's all pretty stupid and they're just playing around with the numbers to make an extra .5% or something.

FYI, eBay's closing fee info is located at http://pages.ebay.com/help/sell/fees.html

Jacoby Ellsbury

Heat

The vast majority of stuff I do on eBay is for under $25 so the effect on my sales / purchases will be minimal.

C_Fletch

Not to be a proponent of Ebay, they are screwing the sellers as a whole.

That said, since I have power seller status as well as being a top rated seller, I receive a 20% discount on all of my final value fees. Just thought I would add that. Fees were lowered from $100 to about $80 for the month. Of course this is all a shell game here. Lower insertion prices and then jack up the final value fees. Then when the roar over the raise in price ends, repeat process. That's in essence what they have done year, after, year.

Let the flaming continue.

RonG617

The only thing I hate is the way Ebay makes it sound like they are doing you a great favor and giving you great savings with any of their new plans. For me it always ends up losing more to them in the end. That being said, my last two auctions are going off tonight and I think that will be it for me with Ebay.