Re: Done After 9 Years of Selling on Ebay

On 21 Mar 2007 22:28:43 -0700, "gojody" <gojody@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Ebay USED TO BE A FUN hobby for me. Now it's become
too expensive to list inexpensive items that may or may not sell.
It was finding good homes for those small, day-to-day items
that made me enjoy the hobby.

I don't list much on ebay anymore. There's too much competition
elsewhere that costs little or nothing to list on.

Yeah, I still run a few ebay auctions, but not many.
----

OK, I've been in this as long as you. And despite the inevitable
responses we will get from the half dozen regulars who seem to live to
respond with such incites as "dont let the door hit ya in the ass" and
such, I find your experiences identical to mine.

Ebays changes are very similar to the demise to the "flea market" in
the 80'sand 90's. Back then I sold there and did pretty good. I used
to sweep thru a few markets during my first ebay years and did well
with that also. I'd go home with a truckload of stuff to auction off
and a Sunday morning usually netted me a few hundred bucks easy.

Look at the scene now: Most of the so-called sellers are dollar store
owners, over-ripe produce sellers, junk jewelry sellers etc. It's not
a flea market anymore. Its a bizzar or a carny sideshow. Last time I
was at a big one there were two forture tellers! Many semitrailers
parked in the back rows. these are not guys cleaning out their attics.
The place is sold out before sunrise. The few real sellers are swamped
by the bulk dealers with their tube socks and brand new dollar store
junk that nobody wants.

this same mentality has taken over lots of catagories in ebay. You
cant fight it. These people will sell hundreds of lots and if they
make a starvation wage doing it they will hang in there. If they dont
make enough bucks, they can always just keep the money and forget
about shipping the product.

Meanwhile ebay makes it all the more difficult for us. 10 years ago
listing was a breeze. Forget "Mr. Lister" or "Turbo lister" or
whatever. The regular "List my Item" was ONE SINGLE PAGE! You could
bang off listings in a minute. You could even modify the page yourself
and make it even faster. There was no NEXT......NEXT.....NEXT
nonsense, no Javascript.

And just about everything sold! With multiple bids! You had bids days
before the auction ended, not minutes or seconds. I'd gladly pay the
listing fees if this was the situation today. But if you sell only
half your stuff, you are paying double listing fees. Sell the average
of 30 % and you are paying triple. And thats if you shun PayPal that
syphons off another 5 to 10 percent. Way more if you have a sale of a
cheap and heavy item.

I'll never give up altogether. There are always a few items that make
sense to auction off. But the glory days are over for sellers of
collectibles, personal stuff, household odds-n-ends. Ebay belongs to
the pros who work on very narrow profit margins.

It was a sweet ride, but now its over.

And now its time for the crew to chime in and tell me I'm an idiot
with a tiny little ***.
.

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