Lull at eBay?


Get very little from Aussie sellers now, did when I first returned to the hobby, mostly from ebay (ironically from one of the members in the first club I joined). Have bought from Bonzy69 when he's had a good special that makes his price and local postage comparable to what it would cost from Klein's (which is rare). I don't mind waiting the couple of weeks or so to save the money. There could be some good prices available still, as long as the sellers bought their stock in when the AU$ was high, and they haven't padded it up to match where it is now.

Klein's is always my first Port o' call, and largely because of their unmatched by anyone else I've seen, real time stock count. Even before you get your receipt, once you've paid, you can go back to the item/s and see that the in stock amount has been adjusted to reflect your purchase. Dislike intensely, traders, where you wait in limbo for them to confirm your purchase and have absolutely no indication of how many of an item they have, and worse, you place your order, only to be told "Sorry, we only had, or we have sold out". It's very rare that anyone beats Klein's prices anyway.
G'day back Toot....Would love to buy from MB Klien sometime..Maybe when our dollar is even remotely close the the USD..At the moment the AUD is about 80 US cents..add on postage and it's not so good..One day though...who knows..Cheers Rod..
 
At the moment, shipping for 1 loco from MBK is about $US50 via USPS Priority International. For 2 similar locos, $US4.00 more.
 
I've been on eBay since 1999, but don't think I've bought any model train items myself. Sold a bunch many years ago, but in the past few years I've mostly bought small photo gear such as batteries and chargers, remotes, etc. Being in Canada my first choice for any of these items is from sellers in China, who usually have free shipping.

eBay's Global Shipping rip off is killing any items I might want to buy from US sellers. Just recently looked at a remote control for my DSLR that had time lapse capability. Found basically the same item from Chinese sellers with free shipping, but US sellers shipping through Global Shipping would have been around $16.50. For a relatively small item that would fit in a padded envelope, and cost around $18.00! They say their Global Shipping plan operators (Pitney Bowes I believe) will prepare the customs documents for the seller. The only customs document for low value items (under $200.00 I think) is a small green sticker that you list the item and the value. That's it. And they want us to pay $14.00 more for someone to do that? Thanks but no thanks.

I recently bought an old film camera body from a Japanese seller. Old type, made with metal and relatively heavy. My cost for shipping? $20.00. This included tracking info direct to my e-mail inbox, and arrived here in Canada in four days!
 
I no longer deal with the Global Shipping thing. :mad:
Last time I did my $15 item went from Minnesota (an hours drive from here) to Ohio, down to Erlenger Kentucky, up past Ohio to Toronto, then on to Winnipeg and finally here. $24 for that wonderful service opposed to $8 USPS.

A number of sellers are opting out as well when they discover that the added expense to the buyer bites them in the ass in the form of final value shipping fees!
 
And when ebay overcharges on the shipping, that puts up the FV fee. Where does that get extracted from? The price the seller got for their item of course. There was an old song "Anything you can do, I can do better..........". Hopefully, sellers are waking up to the effects on their bottom line and the only way ebay will also wake up to what they are doing, is when it affects theirs.
 
G'day Toot....went into EBAY last night to see what Bonzy 69 had...Even he doesn't have as much as he used to...52 DCC locos , and not a great deal else at the moment..I got my BLI SD40-2s x2 and 4 x ES44 AC s by Intermountain there also...so he's done alright out of me..Nothing much at LC either at present...Never mind , I have enough to keep me busy...Cheers Rod..
 
So, that begs the question - the market is still there, but where is it going? There has to be a reasonable site to buy and sell from.
 
So, that begs the question - the market is still there, but where is it going? There has to be a reasonable site to buy and sell from.

I did write to them once, pointing out the ramifications of their new policies, but they didn't favour me with a reply, so until they see and feel the consequences and start wondering why (and maybe listen to their clientele), we'll just have to sit it out, will give a competitor an opportunity to come up with an alternative. It almost happened in Aus quite a few years ago when they tried to force everyone to use only Paypal and sellers moved to another fledgling site, because the buyers lodged a complaint with the Govt fair trading body about denial of payment choice (got upheld by the way). The thing that brought disaffected buyers back was an increase in buyer protection coverage which the local site couldn't match.

These sorts of scenarios only come about when one organisation becomes the chief player, which ebay virtually has.
 
This forum and things like yahoo groups are the way to go. You have to be patient and sometimes you have to do a little more legwork. I've had tremendous success on the ho yahoo groups over the years and mostly avoided eBay. The no fees of the yahoo groups is worth the smaller but targeted and informed audience you're engaging.

Brad
 
eBay has been including shipping in the final value fees for several years. Not a new thing. Also not an unfair thing. They do have to make money, and sellers were flat out ripping them off. I get that nobody really wants to pay fees, but without fees eBay doesn't exist. Frankly, until recently their fees actually weren't bad. On another note, Global shipping is NOT included in final value fees even today, the seller only pays fees on the cost of shipping it to the global shipping center, which is the same as any other domestic US shipping. The only ripoff on global shipping is to the customer, not the seller. Well, except that nobody can afford to pay those inflated intl. shipping charges & therefore don't buy.

I sold a lot on eBay when they gave "buy it now" listings free insertion fees instead of just auctions. I was actually doing pretty well. But THEN came global shipping BS and they also turned around and took away the free insertion on BIN unless you subscribed to a "store" and paid that extra money each month. Auctions don't do well, honestly, and for sellers who don't sell mass quantities the stores just kill their profit, so they're stuck. They also raised their fees (in most cases) to a flat 10% of all purchases, and THEN you have to pay 3% to Paypal on top of that. Basically eBay wants to become a platform for big sellers and businesses, and they're adjusting their policies and pricing to discourage small sellers. It's working.
 
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Seems we in Aus have only today been hit as sellers with this FV on postage, came across this after I Googled the question, When did Ebay start charging FV on shipping.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/ne...ll-as-item-sales/story-fnlrw4is-1226865947231

And it also seems I'm not alone in raising this issue, the question turned up 586,000 responses. https://www.google.com.au/?gws_rd=ssl#q=when+did+ebay+start+charging+final+value+fees+on+shipping

They must've rolled it out in different markets at different times. I was paying FV on shipping here in the US when I first started selling trains, which is at least 2 if not closer to 3 years ago. Weird that they'd hit different markets at different times, but the legal differences may have caused a delay? Either that or it wasn't as big a problem in some markets as others. Who knows? It would have been nice if EVERYone played by the rules and didn't screw over those who were honest about things. Not that eBay is complaining. While it was a legitimate problem and a legitimate abuse, I can guarantee you they're pretty happy with the extra income.
 
I was also dismayed to read in that Aussie report that ebay had bought their only online competition here as well. (Gumtree.com.au). At the moment you can still list for free and only pay extra if you want to enhance your ads visibility on the site, or if you want to bump it up. Wonder how long that'll last. Unfortunately our monopoly laws here are lax.
 
Isn't ebay and PayPal splitting up now, wonder how that will effect things...never sold on ebay, just bought and there's been times when I've decided against it, because the S/H have been so much more than the item itself, that I've thought 'what the...?'
Ebay better wake up, or the hole that they're digging for themselves, will get too deep for them to get out of...
 
You can still ask the seller via the "ask a question" right down at the bottom of the page (used to be "contact the seller" in the panel at top right of the page) and use the Postage query button, before you bid or buy for a revised price. But of course, you then have to wait while he/she does their sums and you then both agree/accept it. Can't say you've got any guarantee that the agreement will stick when push comes to shove. All designed (including shoving the "ask a question" down where it's almost un-noticeable) to make it "too hard", "not worth the hassle".
 
Not sure why, i had about 6 Athearn boxcars for $10.00 with best offer option, s/h 2.65 & got 0 offers or bids. These cars were discontinued & mint in box. I sell other stuff & this was the 1st full week since November that i went a week w/o anything selling.
 
Ah well, I went to a buy & sell day at one of my clubs today, it was quiet. I sold nothing. Maybe it's a general global malaise :(
 
Things seem to have started to pick up a little at eBay. I think a lot of the issue is seasonal. Right now, I'm trying to find time to do some train work while planting and watering outside. Throw the kids and work in there and the trains unfortunately lose out. Hopefully a rainy day and some time off of work can fix that.

In the US anyway, I think trains sell for a little bit in the early part of November (sorry krn001, I don't know why yours didn't) and then sales warm up a little after January 1, when people's credit cards start to recover from Christmas. Come April, things die off again for the reasons mentioned above. I think that if we have a hot summer, business may pick up again. I have some items I need to liquidate.
 
Evil Bay has always been a wrought, IMO. As has been mentioned, anything decent (in the main) can be purchased retail or from other places for the same, or less or not much greater prices and with greater reliability and surety.

As with most things, there is always the exception to the rule, and evil bay is no different, I'm sure. All in all though, it (evil bay) is its own worse enemy.
 



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