eBay commissions

[chang]

Has anyone noticed how much eBay commissions have gone up?

In the old days, there were small insertion fees for running your auction. Then eBay took 9% and PayPal took 3%, making 12% in all.

What I’ve noticed has changed:

1. The insertion fees have been eliminated, resulting in gazillions of useless fixed price ads at ridiculous prices that no sane person would ever pay.

2. eBay got rid of PayPal, ostensibly to improve the "customer experience". (But see 3. below.)

3. eBay increased their commissions, at the same time making them extremely complicated, opaque and hard to identify. Even a Google search turns up a variety of answers. Some say 1-15%, others say 12.55%, and there are numerous other commission schedules, most of which don't agree.

Bottom line: eBay makes it fun and easy to sell things, and creates an experience where the seller doesn't know, doesn't realize, doesn't understand, and doesn't think about the commission that eBay takes until long after the auction is over, if then.

What a brilliant company! They also have a way of cajoling you to make bids and offers, which results in people actually paying more for some items than if they just ordered them from Amazon.

The psychology involved behind eBay is amazing. When you make the highest bid, the app on your phone makes a "ding" sound that actually tingles with excitement. I would not be surprised if they had a team of sonic engineers and neurologists develop that sound.

I am not an eBay crazie, but I do buy and sell on eBay occasionally. I really ought to check out their stock. I think the company has one of the most innovative business models ever created.

[ignatz]

I was active on Ebay a bit in the 1990s as seller and buyer. Much less so since. I haven't sold since maybe 1999?

At that time, it was semi-worthwhile to sell stuff worth say 10 bucks. I assume that is long gone, considering the value of time (packaging and standing in line at the post office).

When Ebay and Paypal were joined at the hip, a seller had little protection against a crooked buyer.....Paypal nearly always favoring the buyer in a dispute, which could easily be contrived ("he sent me an empty box", among other gems). Has that gone away since the Ebay/Paypal divorce?

I have no idea of their earnings and have not tracked the stock, but I'd assume they for practical purposes have NO competition. Cost of entry prohibitive?

[Chahta]

eBay is a great business model. The livelihood of many people. Selling things there does require you to carefully watch costs levied. I don't do much anymore but did use it when I was restoring cars. I am glad they dumped PayPal. I hate that company. They screwed me out of a payment from a fraudulent buyer.


ignatz, the competition is Marketplace and Craigslist. Both a little different than eBay.

[FD1000]

I hardly sell stuff ever. I think I sold 1-2 things over the last years.

Buying things? Amazon is much worse than Ebay finding the best prices
Amazon doesn't show you the best prices, you have to work for that.
You enter a max price and Amazon disregard it.
Amazon competes against other merchants on the same products with lower prices and show its product first.
Amazon does show you international seller even if you ask specifically, you can't even ask for only international.

I love searching eBay because it gives me what I ask. Then, I can find it at Amazon and order it.  
But I hardly use eBay because returning merchandise costs money and a nightmare to go to the post office, while it's free and easy with Amazon. Sure, I pay for half Amazon prime, but I like Amazon movies.
Amazon has an amazing customer Service, no matter what I ask, they always give it to me.

Walmart is the only real competitor, but returning to the store, where I shop weekly, takes time with their slow clerks. Last week a bought a third-party merchandise and Walmart told me I have to wait until they ship it and only the seller will give me the credit.  No sir, it's the last time.  Amazon refunds my money just 2-3 hours after UPS picks up the package, including third party.

At the end, Amazon is far superior to anybody

[javajoe]

FD1000, do you know about camelcamelcamel? It's an awesome price-checking and alert website I've been using for years. All you have to do is find a product you're looking to buy on Amazon, copy the URL, and then paste it into camelcamelcamel. It will then show you the entire history of the lottery/variable pricing, so you know if you're truly getting a good price. You can even set deal alerts so it emails you whenever it hits your desired price target.

[FD1000]

Nov 9, 2021 13:56:07 GMT javajoe said:

FD1000 , do you know about camelcamelcamel? It's an awesome price-checking and alert website I've been using for years. All you have to do is find a product you're looking to buy on Amazon, copy the URL, and then paste it into camelcamelcamel. It will then show you the entire history of the lottery/variable pricing, so you know if you're truly getting a good price. You can even set deal alerts so it emails you whenever it hits your desired price target.

Thanks, tried it with several items and it didn't work

One example
1) At Amazon(link). Right now $19.99
2) At camelcamelcamel (link).  "$49.99  3rd Party New Price  as of 2021-09-23 03:50"

[javajoe]

FD1000, I have used that site for over 10 years and have 100+ price alerts set for a variety of items (electronics, home goods, tools etc), so it's your loss if want to disregard.

[Deleted]

Also, for an inline visual display of an item's price history at Amazon, I use the "Keepa" extension on Chrome. More info at keepa.com/ .

--- Frank

[chang]

Anyone think eBay stock is a buy now?

The big March 2020 - October 2021 runup has been wiped out, and it's back on its LT support level (or just above). It's still an amazing business model.

Edit: Maybe wait until the Nov 2 earnings report? The recent pattern has been a 3Q earnings disappointment and a big drop in stock price (Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon …). Then again, the market always does the opposite of what I expect.

[chang]

OT on eBay psychology: I advertised an item in a 7-day auction starting at $139. Just for the heck of it, I included a “Buy It Now” option at $199. It’s a popular item (a collectible Buck knife) so I got 7 watchers very quickly, but still no bids after 3 days. I know how these sales go; most of the bids come during the final hour and minutes of the auction. (I have bought things many times with a bid during the last 30 seconds.)

But yesterday, to my surprise, my phone sounded “ka-ching!” (the unique eBay sound) and someone bought it for $199 — before there were any bids, and only about halfway through the auction. I can’t figure out why … unless they really wanted it (which obviously they did) and were afraid that someone else would “Buy It Now”.

Of course, there’s a risk with “Buy It Now” that you’ll miss a potential bidding war, that could bid up the price even higher. I’ve had that happen once or twice, resulting in a final price much higher than I expected.

EBay always has a surprise up its sleeve.