Ebay working for you again!

[Locksmith]

I could understand if a person got a bad deal at a local store, he might not want to shop there again. BUT if that person said nothing to the owner about the problem and gave him no chance to resolve it, that's just spite and ignorance.
To go on ebay, and have a bad experience once, and judge 20 million other members by that experience, makes no sense. For every bad experience, how many great ones are there? What do you lose by not interacting with those other 20 million people, who might have something you want? (I paid $75.00 for a Starrett digital height gauge in a wooden box, barely used,on ebay. The book price was $300+. Would I have lost that deal?)
To put it another way: If you got a bad piece of meat in an A&P supermarket in Des Moines, and moved to Omaha 3 years later and lived across the street from an A&P, would you not shop there because of your past experience in Des Moines?
Let's reduce it to the rediculous a little more: If you got a bad piece of meat, would you stop eating meat?
If you are thinking that answering YES to both of these examples would be foolish, then you are getting my point about some peoples attitudes about ebay.

[aboard_epsilon]

Locksmith
You may have had good deals on ebay in the past, like many of us have had ...
but they have been changing things in the last two years.

These changes are effecting our possible good deals

As well as the increasing rates
You have now...
No ability to search completed listings older than two weeks ...used to be as much as 9 months a couple off years ago

This will drive the prices up as newbies cannot re-search, now, prices of rare items that have sold in the past ...therefor cant see the prices they went for.
the only research they can now do is on machinery dealers grossly inflated prices ...and they will end up basing there bids on those prices ...so don't think your going to be getting any bargains for much longer ...it's ending soon !!!

We cannot now see bidders who are up against us ...ebays idea of helping us ...so that we don't get second chance offers ...only hides shill bidders now.

ebay is doing all it can to drive prices up ...so they get more percentage of their increased percentage....
in the end ....prices of second hand goods will be much or more, than brand new,Ive noticed that this is happening more and more, as the changes take place .

All the best.....mark

[Frank Ford]

In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production (i.e., non-management) worker was 431-to-1 . . . it's quite a leap year over year, and it ranks on the high end historically. In 1990, for instance, CEOs made about 107 times more than the average worker, while in 1982, the average CEO made only 42 times more. - - CNNMoney.com


Living with the level of corporate and personal greed we have, I hope nobody really expects eBay to act differently. As long as we buy their product, they'll attempt sell it to us a the highest price we will pay. Just, I might add, as do we, the sellers of items on ebay.

Personally, I find eBay's fees to be well within my level of tolerance considering the access to a worldwide market of buyers and sellers.

I'm with you, Locksmith. Ebay is an incredible resource. I've found any number of really obscure things there, and have sold some very specialized things for way more than I could ever get locally.

Cheers,

Frank Ford
FRETS.COM
Gryphon Stringed Instruments
My Home Shop Pages

[John Stevenson]

We cannot now see bidders who are up against us ...ebays idea of helping us ...so that we don't get second chance offers ...only hides shill bidders now.
All the best.....mark

But even that isn't working.
They now look and see who bids up to £100 and note ebay names.
Once over £100 these change to bidder 1, bidder 2 etc but due to their homework they now know all bidders up to £100.

Now they have to wait and take a chance that one of these will come second or third, no matter who wins.

So now when they approach you over a second chance it's more likely they are genuine otherwise how do they know to contact you.

OK more work for them but they aren't second chancing £100 items but going for bigger fish.

What they should have done is scrap the second chance offer and make them relist.

.

[Locksmith]

Mark,
I appreciate your comment, but read it again and think about what I'm saying:

The listing fee IS NOT a percentage; The Final Value Fee IS a Percentage and they've dropped the percentage. Remember, they don't get the FVF if the item doesn't sell. All they get, if the item doesn't sell, is the listing fee.

As for how long you can research, I am concerned with what an item is selling for NOW, not nine months ago. Think about it: people start selling "X" on ebay in June and are getting $10.00 for it. It takes off and around Christmas, you're lucky to find one for $25.00. What good does it do me to know I could have bought it for $10.00 6 months ago?

What's I think you're missing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that this whole thing is market driven, but at the same time, the beginning pricing is at the discretion of the seller, but the end is controlled by the bidders. While everyone else may be selling "X" for $25.00, there will always be some one who sells it for $12.00 buy it now and is happy to make the profit he makes. Looking at past sales isn't going to help you find the guy that's selling cheap, and you can't do anything about the guy you're bidding against who is willing to pay $20.00 when you won't pay more than $18.00. Ebay only has control over what they charge, not what the customers pay.


Think about it. The Mona Lisa is worth millions, right? Why ? Because someone is willing to pay that for it. In reality, it has almost no value at all; you can't eat it or do anything with it but hang it on the wall. Conversely, what is the value of a pound rice in a place where people are starving? Much more than that painting could ever be worth, yet you could buy it here for a few cents. Am I making sense?

People piss and moan about ebay making money, like they are stealing it. Sorry, but I, and everyone else, wouldn't have the opportunities that are available if ebay weren't here. I sold an old model steam tractor to a guy in Australia who paid about double what I paid for it some years ago, and the postage. It was what he wanted, at a price that was fair to him(Remember, he chose the price, I didn't). I never would have reached that guy without ebay.

[Locksmith]

Something else I left out of my last post:

Nobody mentions the zillions of sellers who sell things that they bought and no longer use, or never opened gifts, etc. I do a goodly amount of that. There's no "Profit" there, strictly speaking. If anything, it's salvage of some thing that was going to be thrown out. Ebay, by creating a huge market for things like this, is generating a huge amount of cash that would not otherwise be there.

What galls me is when people have the idea that If "Joe" makes a lot of money, there's less there for "Tom". This attitude is what propels class envy: He has it and I don't, and that's not fair and he should give me some of his.
There is not a finite amount of money; it doesn't work that way. Wealth can be created, which most people don't get. I'm not rich, but I sure as hell "Get it".
Example : An empty store. A guy rents it and starts a deli. He needs equipment, cold cuts, potato chips and all that. He has dozens of suppliers delivering to him. Somebody has to grow or make what he buys, and somebody gets paid to do it. Maybe a few new deli's open in the city and now the potato chip guy needs to buy another truck to service the area and hire another driver. Who's he buying the truck from? Did it help pay the guy who built it in Detriot? Is that guy spending his money on something else.
It's not hard to see. The guy who opened the deli has created wealth.

Last thing: When people complain about someone having "Too Much" money, I have to ask: When's the last time a poor man gave you a job?

[Locksmith]

Mark,
I appreciate your comment, but read it again and think about what I'm saying:

The listing fee IS NOT a percentage; The Final Value Fee IS a Percentage and they've dropped the percentage. Remember, they don't get the FVF if the item doesn't sell. All they get, if the item doesn't sell, is the listing fee.

As for how long you can research, I am concerned with what an item is selling for NOW, not nine months ago. Think about it: people start selling "X" on ebay in June and are getting $10.00 for it. It takes off and around Christmas, you're lucky to find one for $25.00. What good does it do me to know I could have bought it for $10.00 6 months ago?

What's I think you're missing, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that this whole thing is market driven, but at the same time, the beginning pricing is at the discretion of the seller, but the end is controlled by the bidders. While everyone else may be selling "X" for $25.00, there will always be some one who sells it for $12.00 buy it now and is happy to make the profit he makes. Looking at past sales isn't going to help you find the guy that's selling cheap, and you can't do anything about the guy you're bidding against who is willing to pay $20.00 when you won't pay more than $18.00. Ebay only has control over what they charge, not what the customers pay.


Think about it. The Mona Lisa is worth millions, right? Why ? Because someone is willing to pay that for it. In reality, it has almost no value at all; you can't eat it or do anything with it but hang it on the wall. Conversely, what is the value of a pound rice in a place where people are starving? Much more than that painting could ever be worth, yet you could buy it here for a few cents. Am I making sense?

People piss and moan about ebay making money, like they are stealing it. Sorry, but I, and everyone else, wouldn't have the opportunities that are available if ebay weren't here. I sold an old model steam tractor to a guy in Australia who paid about double what I paid for it some years ago, and the postage. It was what he wanted, at a price that was fair to him(Remember, he chose the price, I didn't). I never would have reached that guy without ebay.

[IOWOLF]

When you start judging worth by if you can eat it or not,You have no perspective,Your kidding right?

Sell your computer and get a bag of rice, at least you will not be here sticking up for Ebay.Do you own stock or what?

[Joel]

Do you own stock or what?

Believe it or not, people who are capable of independent thought can form objective opinions about a group, even if they do not belong to the group.

[IOWOLF]

Wow, was that Independent thought?

damn let me write that down.