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 | 06 July 2012 05:07 |
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| tonycsm Photographer  Location United Kingdom East Yorkshire Driffield | I use eBay but only for newer things that are no longer available in the shops or the items which went out of production many years ago with no chance of finding them. Many years ago when I was a pro singer/guitarist living on my own and on tour for many weeks at a time, my expensive trout/salmon fishing gear, much of it inherited from my the late father was stolen from my unattended home which unfortunately coincided with my home insurance lapsing during my long tour so I wasn't covered at the time. ( I wasn't quite so responsible back then as I hope I am today LOL) After that event, I never took back up trout fishing until last year when I took time out from working and decided to use eBay to replace most of the now vintage gear I had stolen. I got some great bargains and the gear I bought is still as good and usable today as it was back when fist made and I have replicated almost everything I had stolen. The problem I find with eBay is that fishing equipment made by the likes of Hardy Bros etc fetch absolutely stupid prices, just because of the name and greedy people/chancers try to cash in by sticking ridiculous prices on them - the same goes for older guitar amps! Greedy people artificially push up the prices. I agree that there are fewer bargains on eBay these days and I guess it must be a sellers nightmare - I only buy from eBay ( never sell) but most of the time, I've found sellers to be pretty honest. I'm not really sure, given the way many dishonest buyers now behave, I'd ever want to sell via eBay! The angst just doesn't seem to be worth it! |
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| www.le-femme.co.uk | ||
| 06 July 2012 05:23 |
| artistoli Photographer  Location Europe Malta Xlendi, Gozo | A fair few years back I worked at a 'bricks and mortar' eBay store down in London called Flog it 4 U (on Haverstock Hill for any of you locals). eBay don't have any company stores, but this was one of the 'drop shops' based on the American model, where you drop something in and then they list it and sell it for you on eBay, taking a cut of the profit. As we were constantly dealing with eBay day-in, day-out, and because we were quite a volume seller (by the standards of the time), we had our own point-of-contact at eBay and got to know it pretty well. Even back then though (and we are talking a good six years ago) several things were becoming very apparent: 1. Buyers were becoming more and more demanding, to the point of very unrealistic expectations. eBay kind of created its own monster there by constantly encouraging a bargain fever. 2. Sellers were getting squeezed from every direction; eBay fees, buyer expectations, increasing shipping costs, increasing competition from the far eastern sellers, increasing PayPal fees. 3. The time, effort and stress of shipping items was getting prohibitive (shipping things that are often delicate, usually different sizes and weights etc is not the same as big companies shipping standardised boxes). 4. eBay were shifting their focus towards the big companies and away from small sellers, though they didn't dare (and still don't dare) to admit this. At the end of the day selling on eBay is extremely time and effort intensive for the majority of sellers. Writing good listings, getting good images, packaging and getting shipping organised, dealing with questions and complaints etc all takes up time and so costs money. The problem is that because these costs aren't always apparent to people they often don't fully factor them in. Also because the fees are all over the place they can be tough to keep track of. On top of all that many people end up focusing on eBay (partly because it takes up so much of their time anyway) and letting other sales avenues slacken. This then means that they become dependent on eBay and are then at the mercy of any changes to terms and fees that eBay and their buddies at PayPal make. For some specialists selling items with a very high profit margin (certain antiques, jewellery and high-end fashion items actually sell very well) then it can be worth the effort and expenditure of time and money. Likewise for big companies that already have good logistics and back-end operations it can be a lucrative avenue to integrate into their existing business model (I've also worked for a company doing just that). However, for the vast majority of sellers eBay no longer makes any real sense. Sure, there are plenty of people harping on about how they 'earn good money' from eBay selling flip-flops, CDs and alike, and sometimes they even write articles and appear on TV news shows, but in truth most of them just haven't actually understood their own business and aren't really on top of their accounts - its easy to make a high turnover and fool yourself into thinking you are doing well on eBay, but very tough to actually make a profit that makes it worth your time and effort.  |
| 08 July 2012 07:48 |
| maxina Model  Location United Kingdom London london | After selling on Ebay for years i have given up and now just do antique fairs and bootsale's instead as this is what i originally did before Ebay,ive been burnt a few times by buyers and people wasting my time not to mention the rocketing postage price's but ive learnt to accept this and move on to better things .  |
 | 08 July 2012 15:01 |
| grahamsphotography Photographer  Location United Kingdom West Sussex Chichester | Just returned a lens that was listed as excellent, but turned out to be a dog. 8 out of 10 of the last E-Bay buys have turned out bad, am thinking of giving up on them entirely. I think it may be something to do with the recession and people deperate to flog off anything to make money. |
| 08 July 2012 20:10 |
| grahamsphotography Photographer Location United Kingdom West Sussex Chichester | can`t believe it, just noticed she got the lens I returned back on E-Bay still described in good condition. |
| 09 July 2012 00:55 |
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| GlasgowPhotographer Photographer  Location United Kingdom Strathclyde Glasgow | has anyone noticed the trends to sell some items well over the buy new price? I mean an item costing £50 listed at £100 or similar - usually from bulk sellers. Same item is listed at normal priceas well by these people. This looking for the unwary? |
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| Regards, George http://www.monapics.com/html/blog.html | ||
| 09 July 2012 04:10 |
| letspartyparty Photographer Location United Kingdom South Yorkshire | Ive been on Ebay for 7 years and it has been going downhill for a while. This is a good tip..if you sell high value items wait for a free listing weekend and state that it is for collection only. List it for 10 days and put your mobile number on there saying that the item can be "viewed" before you bid. If someone comes round and makes you an offer remove the item. Works every time  |
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