General > General Technical Chat

Would you really sell on ebay ?

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rsjsouza:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on October 05, 2020, 11:01:35 pm ---(...)It is the "amateur buyers" that are the problem: (...)

--- End quote ---
Not only a lack of understanding but, depending on the culture, people tend to see profit as evil, which lends to the perception they are being taken advantage.


--- Quote from: james_s on October 05, 2020, 11:59:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: rsjsouza on October 05, 2020, 09:50:39 pm ---Precisely. So many other outlets started to charge for access to their portals (news outlets, for example) and people complain but forget they need to pay the bills.

--- End quote ---

They made the mistake of making it free early on, offering all of their content and then everybody including me got in the mentality of expecting news to be free. Now when I find a news site that has a paywall I leave and go elsewhere to find the same news. I realize they have to pay the bills but I'm not sure how they can put that one back in the bag.

--- End quote ---
Well, to be honest, in the beginning the costs of running an online operation were very low and it was probably perceived as a fad by the big news corporations. When the whole thing started to increase in dimension and smaller ventures were gaining ground, the large corporations saw themselves with a somewhat bleak perspective: either charge and shoo away people to other news organizations still running free or keep the free operation and try other means of revenue (ads, pop ups, etc.) - they even had agreements with ISPs providing services to their subscribers. The reality nowadays is that a great deal of these organizations are comprised of "journalists" that copy each other or always use the same news aggregator sites, thus dilluting the value of the news content.

wraper:

--- Quote from: james_s on October 05, 2020, 11:59:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: rsjsouza on October 05, 2020, 09:50:39 pm ---Precisely. So many other outlets started to charge for access to their portals (news outlets, for example) and people complain but forget they need to pay the bills.

--- End quote ---

They made the mistake of making it free early on, offering all of their content and then everybody including me got in the mentality of expecting news to be free. Now when I find a news site that has a paywall I leave and go elsewhere to find the same news. I realize they have to pay the bills but I'm not sure how they can put that one back in the bag.

--- End quote ---
Considering that 99% of what's behind that paywall is just the same unverified copy/paste trash full of agenda to the brim, I see no reason to pay for it.

Simon:
I do find the quality of ebay poor. The front end looks lovely for the customer, the back end for a seller is a mishmash of 2 or 3 different interface versions either borrowed from other ebay sites or they just could not be arsed to finish the job. It's a really poor show with bugs that I pointed out and that the acknowledged several years age still there.

zzattack:
I'm absolutely appalled by the blatant robbery of the eBay+Paypal mafia, but yes, occassionaly I use it to sell stuff.

My latest sale incurred over 20% in fees. Breakdown:
 - Item sold for $1600, which would be about €1363.80 according to XE.com
 - Paypal took $62.70 for the transaction (3.9%)
 - With their unfavourable conversion rate, the withdrawable amount of the remaining $1537.30 equalled €1256.61
 - because of new seller, high risk bullshit, Paypal mafia holds the money for 21 days -- rather annoying but no further monetary loss
 - eBay commission is 10% over $160 + VAT (21% in my country), charged in euros, totalling up to an invoice for €168.66
I end up with €1087.95, so there's €275.85 lost in transaction fees, VAT, commission and conversion rates. This is 20.2%.

Rather outrageous, but so was my selling price. I did not expect to sell the item in the first place, much less for what I was asking.
I will likely 'feel forced' to use eBay again sometime in the future, and I will more than likely feel robbed again after calculating how much they took. But without them, there wouldn't be anything to take, and I'd be stuck with something I'd rather exchange for some monetary compensation.

Simon:
I don't feel robbed, I just rob the customer in turn (and tell them) if more people did that their dominance would be less.

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