Alexb2000
En-Route
I have been an ebay user for a long time. I have both bought and sold MANY items on ebay. Back in the day (early 2000's) it was the place to buy and sell anything. Lately I have been doing less and less with ebay and more with places like Amazon.
Examples:
Selling. I just sold a bunch of aviation books and a King IFR DVD set. They brought $55. I was charged over $10 in fees to sell, ended up $3 short of the actual shipping, so as a percentage a pretty heavy hit. I can remember when the cost of selling with CC fees was 5% now they are ~20%.
Buying. Simply put the auction format has been destroyed by shill bidding. Ebay has taken a really lax approach to dealing with shill bidders as long as they eat the fees when the shill gets caught. For example I just bid on an item it started at .99 and I put a max of $20 in with 5 days to go. In less than 8 hours I was outbid by a bidder with 140 bids and most importantly 100% of the bidders activity was on the sellers items. I mean come on, what are the odds. The seller by the way is not some fly by night 1 feedback seller, nope. Top 1% of all ebay sellers, numerous awards, etc. All of their auctions are so obviously shill bid it's crazy, yet ebay does nothing.
Last it is no secret that ebay is not doing well. The issue basically comes down to investors demanding ever increasing top and bottom lines. Naturally to address that fees have been raised every year. However, according to the newest user agreement that goes into effect June 1, ebay can now sell your information to anyone. That includes your purchases, address, telephone number, cell number, email address, etc. and those purchasers will have the right to market directly to you in any form they want. That includes recorded calls (I hate those) to your cell phone, direct calls, mailings, spam, you name it.
Anyway, I'd like to hear the groups thoughts on ebay.
Examples:
Selling. I just sold a bunch of aviation books and a King IFR DVD set. They brought $55. I was charged over $10 in fees to sell, ended up $3 short of the actual shipping, so as a percentage a pretty heavy hit. I can remember when the cost of selling with CC fees was 5% now they are ~20%.
Buying. Simply put the auction format has been destroyed by shill bidding. Ebay has taken a really lax approach to dealing with shill bidders as long as they eat the fees when the shill gets caught. For example I just bid on an item it started at .99 and I put a max of $20 in with 5 days to go. In less than 8 hours I was outbid by a bidder with 140 bids and most importantly 100% of the bidders activity was on the sellers items. I mean come on, what are the odds. The seller by the way is not some fly by night 1 feedback seller, nope. Top 1% of all ebay sellers, numerous awards, etc. All of their auctions are so obviously shill bid it's crazy, yet ebay does nothing.
Last it is no secret that ebay is not doing well. The issue basically comes down to investors demanding ever increasing top and bottom lines. Naturally to address that fees have been raised every year. However, according to the newest user agreement that goes into effect June 1, ebay can now sell your information to anyone. That includes your purchases, address, telephone number, cell number, email address, etc. and those purchasers will have the right to market directly to you in any form they want. That includes recorded calls (I hate those) to your cell phone, direct calls, mailings, spam, you name it.
Anyway, I'd like to hear the groups thoughts on ebay.
How many times have you looked at something online and for days you see ads for that product or service wherever you go online? Happens everyday. If you look at a car on cars.com and make an inquiry via email, they sell that information to other dealers! I just found out about this last week, so I'll be canceling my cars.com ads.
