EBay fees now 14%!

[Paul T.]

Am I the only person to be struck by eBay's huge price increases?

Lately I've sold nearly all my gear thru RFF and been very satisfied. But when I had a 85/1.4 Nikkor to sell, being an evil SLR item, I thought I'd try eBay. Sold the item, got a good price. THen today I got the invoice and nearly fainted: a 10% final value fee. PLus of course their PayPal cut, which from memory is around 3.6% but has probably gone up too.

I looked briefly to see when the prices went up, and noticed several threads where sollers have commented that listing prices went up 40% in February, on top of another hike last year. Last summer I listed some items for a friends, and the total fees including PayPal were around 10%. So how come the media haven't reported one of the world's biggest new media companies hiking their prices to such a ludicrous degree?

I know they have to make back the $1billion they paid for Skype. But this must surely be another nail in the coffin.

IN short, this means that RFF, if you didn't think so already, is a much better place for camera deals. But how the hell am I gonna sell the partly dismantled orange spherical 60s TV sitting in the corner of my living room?

 

[Pickett Wilson]

If you want to reach the potential audience that eBay gives our auctions, your choices are...well, there aren't any. We just increase the reserve price on our auctions, or consider it the cost of doing business if we don't put reserves on items. I've never really understood the hostility toward eBay making money.

 

[nobbylon]

i've given up selling both here and ebay.
ebay because it's way too expensive
rff because of paypal

 

[Paul T.]

If you want to reach the potential audience that eBay gives our auctions, your choices are...well, there aren't any. We just increase the reserve price on our auctions, or consider it the cost of doing business if we don't put reserves on items. I've never really understood the hostility toward eBay making money.

Ah. So you have no resentment towards a 40% hike in fees.

Where do you live? I shall open a corner store near you.

 

[Terao]

What is the mainland European (predominately) objection to Paypal? Is it because IBAN transfers are so easy/free (its not the case in the UK). So many German/Dutch/French buyers/sellers seem to prefer using almost anything but Paypal as a transaction method.
Just curious - is it just the fees involved? I find splitting them 50/50 works well, as used to be the case when bank transfers weren't free...

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Paul, every seller deals with the same fees. It doesn't put you at a competitive disadvantage. Just ask more for what you sell. If there were a really competitive auction site offering lower fees, that would be different. But there isn't. And what eBay charges doesn't effect me at all.

 

[kuvvy]

I too have found that Ebay prices have jumped quite a bit. If has been suggested I were to up my prices then I reckon most of the items wouldn't sell. I certainly couldn't put them up by such a large percentage.
I currently have a Canon G7 and a Hexar Silver I'm hoping to sell but whether it will be Ebay now I can't say. I reckon RFF is gonna be my first try from now on. As for Paypal, I've never had a problem with it.

 

[.ken]

I've listed a few items here on RFF that did not sell and I was able to sell on ebay... then that ebay buyer turned around and resold the same items on RFF and someone bought it! It's quite interesting, really...

 

[sanmich]

i've given up selling both here and ebay.
ebay because it's way too expensive
rff because of paypal

So what do you do?

 

[kully]

In the UK, unless you're a business seller or selling a contract mobile phone or property there is a 10% charge.

http://pages.ebay.co.uk/help/sell/fees.html

 

[photobizzz]

I personally don't like the eBay fees but it is the only game in town for online auctions so I do use them for some stuff. PayPal is just too gosh darn handy and I have never had any issues, actually paypal has worked on my behalf several times so I cant say anything bad about the service, although I have heard horror stories...

 

[kully]

This is what worries me about all the big companies, they start off cool and cute and attract loads of users. Then when they are the biggest 'game in town' they start hiking up their price (whether that be money, or displayed advertising or service degradation) and people complain but realise that they themselves caused the predicament.

Of course, nothing is evil (except for non-comedy quiz shows on BBC Radio 4).

 

[johannielscom]

I'm selling a Hexar RF Limited kit (unused) through evilBay (actually the cheapest on sale at the moment, any takers? 🙂 ), it will be one of my last sales. Used to buy national in The Netherlands and sell international through evilBay, but it's no fun anymore. I'm not complaining though, I did this for five years, trading up and making profits, it has paid for most of my beloved Leica gear.

I've no major trouble with PayPal, but mainly with the evilBay fees and mostly their 'improved' feedback system, where impatient buyers only have the seller at hand to blame if their national postal services screw up. Jammed between a rock and a hard place: if I list fast shipping with international track&trace, fees top EUR 100 (actual fees!), if I cut the costs, it takes at least a week and a half. Either way, I'm losing. Those fools shouldn't have bought Skype, but DHL or UPS or FedEx. :bang:

 

[Kevin]

I've recently started looking around for other auction sites that do not charge any fees. There's one here in Germany called Auvito and I might give that place a try next.

In times like this it amazes me that companies such as eBay raise their prices to try to compensate for lower revenues.

My local lab is also trying the same thing. This week they raised the prices of slide and b&w development by over 100%, from 3.99 Euro a roll to 8.09 Euro.

That means no more slide film for me and back to the darkroom for the b&w.

 

[splitimageview]

Ebay is the world's marketplace for photographic gear, they've done a great job; if they hadn't, they wouldn't be the world's marketplace.

Where else are you going to get so many people looking at your stuff for sale?

I had a Summicron-C 40 listed on RFF and got zero inquiries at $339. It went on ebay and reached $495. So, about those fees again? 😉

 

[chris00nj]

If eBay's prices go too high, people may form seperate communities with classifieds like RFF. I don't agree with people who call it evilBay. No one is forced to use eBay. The only thing that is "evil" is when money is forcefully taken out of my wallet. That only happens if I'm being robbed or on April 15th (tax day in the US).

When a gallon of gasoline rose above $3 last year, some people starting calling the oil companies evil or that they were colluding (I guess they also colluded the crash too). Some of the same people then go out any buy a $5 quart of Fiji water without any misgivings.

I'm not an eBay cheerleader. I think the fees are high as well. I vote that their fees are too high by listing my stuff on RFF first.

Between eBay's & paypal's fees, the average is usually 8%-10%. They only get as high as 14% if the item is <=$25. Yeah the 4% paypal fee can get expensive but it is convienent. I don't have to wait to send a check or email my credit card information to everyone.

 

[splitimageview]

Pretty much everyone is ok using credit cards, but merchant fees for that convenience raises the cost of every product you buy. I don't recall anyone ever complaining that Visa/Mastercard are making too much money.

In the old days, I might place a classified ad in the local paper, and it may generate 2 or 3 calls and who knows what I might be able to see the gear for. The ad would cost $30 or so to run for a week. $30 in ebay fees represents an $800 sale, and I've never failed to get a buyer...not so with local classifieds.

 

[RayPA]

Am I the only person to be struck by eBay's huge price increases?

I live ~30 miles up the freeway from eBay. I'll go give them a kick in the shin for you. Be right back. 😉😛

Seriously, no one likes a pay hike, but what are you gonna do? About all you can do is b-itch about it. eBay has damn near cornered the market for online auctions. There are other auction sites like...umm.... 🙁

The other major online marketplace is Amazon. A friend of mine sells books on Amazon. She's not a store or a business. She's just a person with a bunch of books she wants to sell. Maybe Amazon will open things up in the future and allow a classified section (?).

BTW, this news will probably result in higher RFF classified fees.

/

 

[Paul T.]

I don't call them evil. I just object to a 40% hike in fees.

I say this in sadness, because I loved eBay so much. I cleared out dozens of radios, old trains, Elvis 78s, sheet music and jeans from my loft, bought Leicas, a 1951 Kiev, a 1965 Heuer Carrera.. eBay provided me with my only spending money for the last four or five years. I'm sorry that they wasted a million on Skype and are now sucking money out of its clientele, because I don't think it will work for anyone, long-term.

 

[dannynono]

I liked eBay for what it offered 3-4 years ago, but with the increasing competition of other sites to buy/sell directly and the increase in shoddy goods/sellers on ebay (and the decrease in good deals) I find myself using it as a last resort - if at all.

I still like paypal, but have had to increase my password strength there after someone hacked my account and passed a bogus transaction (charges were reversed).