posted on Jun, 14 2018 @ 05:23 PM
The times are gone when someone could list items on Ebay for a relatively reasonable price and be able to sell the item in most cases. The site seems
to have decided to cater to large bulk sellers of mostly new items which are often shipped form China or the same items being sold from within the
country for a markup (because there is no international shipping/customs). Thees sellers have large stores where they have a major economic benefit
of listing their items (they may have 10 - 10,000 of the same item available for sale) and this reduces the cost of the ad and the ridiculous amount
of time it takes to create a posting for a single item (it gets longer every time I try to post an item and I want to tear my hair out).
A recent item I wanted to sell for $70-150 (min bid of $70 reserve of $150 and buy it now for $170). This item is about $1,100 new and my item is
basically new and looks as if it was never used. The same items list for $200 buy it now (for a beat up unit) and $299-450 for other sellers for buy
it now. These have been listed for about 5-6 months so they are obviously not selling and I want to move mine - hence the price.
The cost for a listing would have been about $12 ($18 if I wanted bold and $23 for a featured item). Those are the fixed costs to post an item. Then
there is the fee they charge on the sale which I didn't even check but say 4-10% (mine would be about 6%) and then there is the Paypal fee which was
about 3.5-4% last time I checked.
Now if I wanted to make the auction featured and other "special options" I could expect to spend another $4-10 for the listing fee alone. For the
base line cost it would be $28.20 (for buy it now $150 price) with add fee - $12, 6% sales fee -$9 and 4% for paypal ($150 + $30 shipping) $7.2 for a
total of $28.20 (or about 20%) ! now if I went for bolded, featured, gallery, and other special options, then the total fee would be just under $40
(or 27%)!
So after all of this I can't see where my profit would be had I been purchasing these items for resale vs being very frugal and getting these from
extreme bargain hunting.
Am I the only one that thinks this is absolutely ridiculous? Since Ebay & Paypal are owned by same company, they make more for each purchase than
when it may seem, especially when you have pull or transfer the $$ within paypal in some situations.
Does anyone know of any other services which have a better sales structure? I don't even like using Ebay as there are often items I search for that
are completely missed and the browsing categories can be a nightmare!
I'm wondering what the potential is for a competitive service that does something in a different manner. Maybe eliminate sellers that are bulk
sellers of new products, or have them in their own category (which I would suggest). Then list all sellers that aren't US based separately. The main
listings would be for the "small sellers" who want to list a few items a month or even run a small business selling used or small amounts of new
items ( could be listed with new items). If you find a used item you like, you can click a link to show the sellers that offer the item as new and
also those sold overseas. If the seller has a used item within the ad they could also list they have the item as "new" which is a click away.
The sire would basically be built in cooperation of the users and administration. When a new item is added, the customer inputs the data relevant tot
he item (as much as possible) from make, model, part number, UPC, SKU, description & much other info. If data is missing, more info can be added by
staff if they review the item (maybe it is very popular & want to ensure it is easily found) or by subsequent sellers of that product. Over time the
database of items would grow and it would make posting new items MUCH faster as even the previous descriptions (tech data, manufacture descriptions,
etc) could be used and then "unqiue notes" could be added per item which would list things about this item that is special such as "missing volume
knob" or "modified cooling system", or "overclocked CPU" etc.
Now the buyers & sellers would have their own ID's like ebay. Buyers could have a "watch list" which they could select items they are looking for
(pick items for sale or previously sold) and add a "look out for" so they get a notice when that item is posted. For power buyers this could be a
service fee per item or some other method. There could be different account levels where a seller could list 10, 25, 50, 100, 150, 250 items at a
time and they would pay for each level of access of say $5, 10, 15, 20, 40, 50 per month to be able to list the items. Then possibly a purchase
percent based upon the length of time the item was listed with a maximum set amount - this could be paid by one party or split by both.
Payments could be made in a number of ways which could cut out paypal but I'm not going to go into that now and especially with crypto coming into
play. I have an excellent way to do this where it could be done with basically no service fee for the payment exchange and possibly a slight fee of
say .1-.25% of total cost going to the site to help facilitate the book-keeping.
I have about 20-30 other ideas to make this work but not going to post them online here. Been working on this since about 2006 but figured someone
would come out with something like this.
In addition, it would also have a review system of both the items sold (for each product/model, there would be a unique thread/sub threads where it
can be discussed) as well as review of the buyers/sellers.
This site could also be used for services and potentially employment/job postings as well as I have figured a way to work this in as well. Also there
could be charity auction sales where proceeds go to an organization and any seller can add their items under the charities banner.
The sales would also be able to be browsed by category (as broad or narrow as you wish) in regional areas such as city names or by zip code and a
radius parameter.
Has anyone else had enough with Fleabay and other sites like Craigslist (which is getting filled with people selling new items often times stolen).
I've looked at specialty sites that sell things like scientific equipment and they often charge a minimum of 25% of the final sales price and listing
fees make ebay look cheap!
I just think there needs to be a place where people can sell items that they have (old items), items that they fix or refurbish, etc without all the
profit going to the online company hosting the service!
On a side note, I'm trying to find people who are interested in "municipal" interenet (WIFI up to 2.5-3Gbps , FiOS, ethernet up to 10Gbps but more
like 1Gbps) where local municipalities have their own internet service in their community that competes with the big companies like Verizon, Comcast,
TimeWarner, Windstream, etc. This service wouldnt' be run by the local government but by a company/coop that would partner with neighboring
municipalities offering the same services to help create a better administrative structure (and help/fall back between communities), sharing wifi
access between communities, etc. All this would be faster and less expensive than the big companies and most likely there would be no data transfer
caps (depending on use). Current cost for internet is too much for some seniors on fixed budgets and this is an alternative!!