I don't think I would comeback to ebay as seller.

Thanks for the info on MPB. The kit I plan to sell off is old so not via them. In the past I have used Red Dot, reliable but I'm not sure they get the best prices for LTM stuff. I have a couple of bits that could go to what was Westlicht but haven't worked out what post Brexit duties etc might now be payable. Might even be tempted to list something on here for a change though I have bad experiences of selling to the US.

Ebay, dunno, never had a problem but it seems increasingly odd and I suspect the enthusiasts no longer spend time trawling through the junk.

Last year I sold a converted ltm body via Ebay for a price that I was happy with. A week later it was re-listed at double that price and yes, it is still there.
 
Squeezing profit margins to almost next to nothing and sellers are expected to take it up the....no thank you. It helps proliferate the ever increasing cost to buy since sellers need to raise prices to offset the commission.
The third party merchants are the only ones that truly profit....
 
I've bought and sold via Ebay since 1998—I've probably turned a few thousand transactions by now. Prices/costs are higher now than they were then, which means I charge more for packing and prep to accommodate that when selling; shipping has ALWAYS been an add-on cost when I'm selling, and if you're not local to the USA, I need the buyer's address to provide a real price for that. Shipping internationally in the past year has become quite expensive, regardless of whether it's Ebay or some other vendor. And yes: It has been part of tax law for years that sales tax for internet purchases have been required for buyers/sellers to report, it only just became enforced with new regulations in the past year or two.

In simple terms: Ebay provides the biggest audience for stuff available at present, and it takes work to sell profitably, it takes work to buy safely and at reasonable cost. Other venues also exist and are equally or more useful in more limited ways... Always pick whatever venue does the best job for your needs, whatever "best job" might mean to you.

G
 
I have also bought and sold much on ebay (since 1997), particularly photographic gear. My main dislikes at this point re: selling are how complex the process has become and the fee increases. I also preferred the days when Paypal was the default payment system. Craig's List I think is less efficient for photographic sales when you live in primarily rural areas, like I do. If I had known how much certain analogue photo gear would appreciate in value over the last three years, I would have delayed quite a few sales, especially a Voigtlander R2...
 
rumbliegeos said:
........If I had known how much certain analogue photo gear would appreciate in value over the last three years, I would have delayed quite a few sales, especially a Voigtlander R2...
Click to expand...

Who says laziness doesn't pay? I haven't sold anything in years. Maybe ten at least. Cracks me up. Every time I check something I am like, wha? Stuff just keeps going up and up.
 
Small inexpensive stuff...,. ebay is an option; buy or sell. For more expensive stuff.......I have mostly used RFF, both buy and sell. Very rarely FM or Dan Tamarkin. Craigslist can be fun or frustrating. I have to evaluate the market when considering craigslist. Sometimes my stuff is too esoteric. Sometimes my stuff just draws out the flakes. Sometimes however I meet a fellow enthusiast and have a great time.
 
Ebay soiled its own nest a few years ago after making a series of misguided decisions. Dumping PayPal for its own system (to grab the cash) that really doesn't provide the global protection offered by the former, was only one of several. Shifting almost all its protection from the seller to the buyer was another. Almost every photo gear seller on Ebay has had problems with feral buyers since - as I did in 2019 with someone who had buyer's remorse, fabricated an excuse to get their money back, and then wanted to keep the camera, until I threatened civil court (small debt) action by a lawyer - fortunately for me, both the buyer and seller lived in Melbourne, so I could do this. Only then did I get the camera back, without any assistance at all from the cut-and-paste template customer service staff at Ebay.

As a direct result, I've not sold anything on Ebay since and I now restrict my buying to whenever I can get the best possible price on small items, usually after checking all other available options - charity shops often turn up many small items at much lower prices than Ebay sellers want, often because the op shops are where the items being offered on Ebay are sourced anyway.

Until 2019 I bought +/-AUD$2000 worth of items every year, from Ebay, but after they shafted me on that camera sale, I've not spent anywhere near this on Ebay in three years. Their loss.

I have noticed this year that very few sellers are now offering quality cameras, lenses and other photo items on Ebay. Even as recently as one year ago, I could input a camera brand name (for example, Fujifilm XT2) and find several items on offer Now... nothing. Occasionally, one turns up. Not often.

A little lateral thinking can solve problems here. Often as not, there are alternatives to selling on Ebay, most likely a consignment sale (and consequently a smaller payment) with a reputable camera dealer, without the hassles of having to deal with rogue purchasers out for what they can easily get, or those annoying buyers' remorse transactions.

To me, it's that Ebay has now had its day, and its time as an important merchandiser is quickly passing. As for suitable (and easily accessible) alternatives, well...
 
Caution is the watchword. For our classical scholars and pedants like myself, caveat emptor. I have done alright on eBay. I buy from folks rated 98.5% or above. I have gotten good Jupiters, good Canons, several, four Leicas, a Pentax Q-S1 and just recently the lovely Cooke Amotal. All at market prices or below. The point being that not all sellers on eBay are crooks. When shopping for the Amotal I found a few folks who were selling ragged ones at inflated prices, some whose names were bandied about here as a shade less than super ethical. I was lucky to run across a domestic seller with a clean lens at a fair price. I have been careful with the Jupiters, too. I call it "shopping."

When one thinks about it, dealing with an almost anonymous seller halfway around the globe requires extreme caution. I would not want to have to depend upon eBay to make me whole again on a busted deal. As usual, YMMV.
 
p.giannakis said:
I agree. It has started getting full of equipment that sellers have tried to "repair" themselves.
Click to expand...

I noticed recently that a certain seller from the Netherlands has put up about a dozen cameras of a certain make and model, at highly inflated prices, given most of them are non-op, and none of them are even close to mint. What I find particularly bothersome about this is some of them appear to have been bought from other ebay sellers a year or two or three ago, for prices that were too high for the condition then (I keep my eyes open for this particular camera, which is by no means popular, or common, so I've seen pretty much every ebay example that's been offered over the years). I guess they discovered the cameras were too rough to fix and are trying to recoup the cost on bad purchases now. It's very, very strange to me.

Part of the problem is that buyers are no longer smart enough to just pass on things in bad condition. It used to be only items in mint condition got mint prices. If it wasn't mint, that meant a heavy reduction in price, something "good" wasn't worth near as much as something "mint". Now it seems something completely broken is valued at 99.5% the price of something mint!
 
Mos6502 said:
I noticed recently that a certain seller from the Netherlands has put up about a dozen cameras of a certain make and model, at highly inflated prices, given most of them are non-op, and none of them are even close to mint. What I find particularly bothersome about this is some of them appear to have been bought from other ebay sellers a year or two or three ago, for prices that were too high for the condition then (I keep my eyes open for this particular camera, which is by no means popular, or common, so I've seen pretty much every ebay example that's been offered over the years). I guess they discovered the cameras were too rough to fix and are trying to recoup the cost on bad purchases now. It's very, very strange to me.

Part of the problem is that buyers are no longer smart enough to just pass on things in bad condition. It used to be only items in mint condition got mint prices. If it wasn't mint, that meant a heavy reduction in price, something "good" wasn't worth near as much as something "mint". Now it seems something completely broken is valued at 99.5% the price of something mint!
Click to expand...

Here is another example when I opened eBay today although this has a bit more reasonable price (£30)

Screenshot_20220615-074046_eBay.jpg
 
Ebay will be gone within a few years they are operating as a holding company basically.

Last week i bought a summicron from a seller. the lens arrived with some separation and focus issues not described. i requested a return and it was accepted, and immediately my payment was refunded. at that point the transaction was entirely closed and i had no way to print a return label or anyway to get the sellers proper return address from ebay.

I called ebay and they said the seller must have closed the return and refunded the money on accident before he received the lens. the service representative told me i don’t have to do anything at all and there is no way to reopen the return to obtain the sellers label or return address.

i have messaged the seller hoping he will provide me with an address for me to return the item, but this kind of thing should never happen.
 
If anybody at ebay is reading these threads, I offer a somewhat in-between perspective.

Being a non-business seller since 2000 I've worked hard to maintain my positive feedback (I have literally 1 neutral out of 1000s in 22 years). That's not something I want to throw away. BUT, because their fees continue to rise, it is now a forum of last resort for most of my buying and selling today. Just that simple for me. When I started there, they were charging sellers about 5% and the buyer usually sent a money order or check (remember those?) as Paypal wasn't even a thing yet. That reciprocal feedback was ultra important back then, and negative feedback could be left for buyers if they tried any funny business.

I know life moves on, and things have changed, most notably we get our items much faster now that payments are handled online. But somewhere along the line I think ebay lost their way. Not entirely though. I guess the largest visible indicator of them losing their way has to be the proliferation of endless identical auctions for cheap, mass produced items; multiple seller accounts that appear to be the same seller using the same template over and over, stock photos and non-existent (or indecipherable) descriptions.

Another more behind-the-scenes issue that has distanced me from them has been their complete lack of advocacy on behalf of buyers regarding the collection of state sales tax in the US. I'm not the type of person that thinks all taxes are bad and unnecessary. Quite the contrary. But there SHOULD have been a middle ground for online sales. Your state collecting the same amount of taxes from an out-of-state, mail-only sale as they do from physical retailers in that state, is just crap. Ebay (and other large online entities) just laid down and died on this issue when they absolutely had the legal and political influence to at the very least demand a fairer, more universal form of taxation for online sales. But because it was going to be a cost entirely born by their customers and not themselves...we got crickets.

Likewise this nonsense of now having an IRS 1099 form sent to you when you sell more than $600 in a year. A $600 threshold for selling used, personal (already taxed) items In 2022??? Give me a break. Photography is a hobby for which I operate at a provable loss, if I were to consider it a business. (The 1099 form was never intended to apply to things like hobbies or yard sales, etc). Again...we just heard crickets from Ebay and their ilk on this one. Because they THINK it doesn't affect their corporate bottom line.

We went from tax loophole land to full-bore double taxation in the space of a couple years. It is a sickening instance of squandering perhaps the only opportunity we had to address the new paradigm of online commerce in a way that was both fair to individuals while also supporting the things we need from government.
 
i simply will never turn in a paypal or ebay 1099. i do everything else by the books so if they want to waste more time and money coming after me for what, in the end, would result as a tax credit for me (always selling at a loss,) then let them.
 
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