What is it with people and ebay?

[whatever]

Way ahead.

Way ahead.

E Bay is the greatest world wide market place on the planet. Name me one place where anyone can start a business with world wide sales exposure and use any currency world wide. Absolutely no out of pocket expenses to start up. You can find many faults and bitch about anything but the bottom line is if you learn the rules any body can make money. I buy and sell on E Bay and have everything go wrong in 7 years. I am still $30,000 ahead.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

E Bay is the greatest world wide market place on the planet. Name me one place where anyone can start a business with world wide sales exposure and use any currency world wide. Absolutely no out of pocket expenses to start up. You can find many faults and bitch about anything but the bottom line is if you learn the rules any body can make money. I buy and sell on E Bay and have everything go wrong in 7 years. I am still $30,000 ahead.

If selling on eBay is your business and not just something you do occasionally to get rid of stuff you don't want, then $30,000 in 7 yrs is very little money. Anyway, no one here is saying ebay is bad for sellers, its just not as good for buyers anymore because some sellers have gotten stupid on prices and the buyers have too. Cheaper often to buy new or from a reputable dealer like KEH.

 

[whatever]

If selling on eBay is your business and not just something you do occasionally to get rid of stuff you don't want, then $30,000 in 7 yrs is very little money. Anyway, no one here is saying ebay is bad for sellers, its just not as good for buyers anymore because some sellers have gotten stupid on prices and the buyers have too. Cheaper often to buy new or from a reputable dealer like KEH.

Strictly part time buy and sell for me. Any person can find great bargains in there own city like, yard sales and so on. If I wasn’t so lazy I could easily make more. I have paid for most of my leica lens with my E Bay earnings. Most shoppers go to E Bay to find the value of a product before they buy or sell.
According to you buyers and sellers are getting stupid. I’ll tell you what, I don’t require a IQ test to do business with anyone in the real world of free enterprise. In my opinion it is stupid to make a judgment about a group of people you don’t know anything about.

 

[Frontman]

I sell on eBay as well, and of course I am the last person who would complain about bidders paying more for something than what it is worth. On the other hand I try to be fair with what I charge for my items. I have to take into account the fees and such which eBay charges, and I also have to allow for the currency exchange rate since my eBay items are priced in dollars which be changed for yen.

As for my BIN prices, I usually set them midway between the the high and low auction sale price I have gotten in the past.

I do guarantee the items I sell, and I do honor my guarantees, as others here on the forum know.

To be fair to eBay, I have found more than a few bargains there. Occasionally some items get bid ridiculously high, some people want an item and don't want to lose it to someone else. Some items don't come up that often, or someone may have been outbid on an item they wanted once or twice (or 5 times) before.

I sell about 5 cameras a week on eBay. I enjoy running my little business, I can play with all kinds of stuff, satisfy my urge to tinker, and I make a little money to boot. It's not at all bad to me.

 

[chris00nj]

I've sold some stuff on eBay when they've gone unsold on the classifieds here. It's more of a hassle and more costly, but you do have a bigger market.

When selling, I've found things to go for higher than expected, and some things to go for a lot less. I remember the pain of selling a beautiful Komura 105/3.5 LTM for $27.

When buying, people may not be aware of keh.com or other sales sites. Besides these sites aren't perfect either. Keh just uses a stock photo, if any, and the description is rather limited too.

I've tried to understand the menality of the go-kevin-cameras type sellers. A lot of what they have goes unsold and you can get elsewhere for cheaper. However for some things they are the only seller. Also, if something rare, like a real Luftwaffe camera sells at auction for $2,000, the value isn't quite at $2,000. It means that the winning bidder was willing to pay at least a $1 more than the 2nd bidder. The winning bidder may have been willing to pay $3,000.

 

[atlcruiser]

If selling on eBay is your business and not just something you do occasionally to get rid of stuff you don't want, then $30,000 in 7 yrs is very little money. Anyway, no one here is saying ebay is bad for sellers, its just not as good for buyers anymore because some sellers have gotten stupid on prices and the buyers have too. Cheaper often to buy new or from a reputable dealer like KEH.

How in the world is it bad for buyers?

I can go to my local "digital" camera shop and pay $90 for a filter. I can order it on line from B+H for $50 w/$5 shipping. That does not make my local shop bad to buy at...the choice is with me.

When folks pay too much money for an item on e bay how does that effect me? I choose to either bid or not bid based on how much I want that item AND how much that item is worht on the open market...not just the e bay market.

This is a perfect example of the free market. I sell a bit on e bay but I buy a LOT for my business there. I shop prices and, in some areas, I find no one can beat the prices for some items.

An informed buyer makes good decisions. It is not the responsibility of anyone but the buyer to decide if the item is worth the price being asked.

If we take a VERY small slice of e bay, the used film camera items, we might see an overall higher price than one would see at places such as KEH, B+H used, RFF classifieds etc.... The items would not be lsted at those prices if they did not sell.

Again, the informed buyer can make the right decision.

 

[varjag]

Ebay is a great place to get stuff at the market price, worldwide market price. So of course what kind of deal you have depends on your location. It is a bad idea to shop for teapots at Ebay if you are in China.

A film picker here can cost $20, a roll of tri-x is pushing $10, and used camera market is minuscule. I do much of my gear shopping on Ebay.