nearing the end of on-line selling ?.

[diecastcarsvicki]

just had a chat with my local post office.

i live in a suburb west of Melbourne where our post office covers a large area.

the lady at p/o told me since mid january they have been reciving approx 40% less in parcels from sellers and they did have 4 contractors doing deliverys but now have two and one is only part time 3 days a week.

one has to wonder are online sales that bad or is it more that sellers have stopped selling due to little to no profit. usally on a saturday morning i would expect a line at p/o but mid morning i was the only one there to post. 

[robinsonmarineparts]

Similar story at my local P.O

[clarry100]

Yes my local PO has said its been very quiet for them too this past few weeks.

[barney_rubbles]

For me personally one of the main advantages for buying online, especially places like ebay, was being able to buy things for much less than what i would pay in a physical store. But in the last 6 mths I have found less & less 'bargains' on ebay as far as new items go. Also the non online shops have gotten their act together & realized they had to slash their prices to rake back some of the customers they lost to online sales. So its looking less & less attractive to me to buy items on ebay when i'm not saving much from buying it in store.

            Of course there is the convenience of being able to shop from my loungeroom & not waste time finding car parks then walking around the local shopping centre but this is being offset by higher postage prices & if something goes wrong with say an electronics item i have to stuff around packing & posting it back to the seller. Again, with clothing, i was taking a gamble before if it didn't fit it was not so much of a loss because i got a bargain. Those bargains just aren't coming up as often especially with 2nd hand items because smaller sellers just can't be bothered anymore, why would they/we when ebay just keeps making it harder & harder!

           So yes i can & have aleady seen the death of online selling & buying 😞

[toycrazyau]

I would say that it is more of a case that sellers are coming to the realisation that there are much cheaper options than using Australia Post.

I use Temando for most of my bookings and as an example I just booked a box to go from Sydney to a suburb in Perth. The box size is 40x31x15 cm and weighs 1.5kg. The cost to send via courier (in this case Couriers Please were the cheapest) was $12.80. Australia Post cost would have been $25.45.

[barney_rubbles]

great if you can find cheaper postage through couriers but how many outlets do they have? are sellers going to save enough money that its worth their while going out of their way if theres not one in their suburb...

[wehavethatau]

Quite simply, in most cases it is now cheaper to buy at a B&M store than it is on eBay. In recent years, sellers have been forced to up prices to cover increasing eBay/Paypal fees and increasing postage costs making eBay no longer the cheapest place to buy something like it used to be.

[davewil1964]

More to the point -

Are the buyers going to be home to accept delivery? If not, how far will they have to travel to collect from the depot?

Which is why I don't use couriers.

[vintagemodcar]

I think it is not so much that the sellers dont want to sell but more the case of when you do sell an item you have to take in to account the - The Final Value Fee - The Final Value fee on Shipping [Postage] - Then the Postage it's self. I sold a Mini the other day for $14.50, out of this I was charged - $1.02 Final Value Fee - $0.43 Final Value Fee on Shipping - Then there is Postage Either you charge the customer or pay another $7.20 , and even though it may not sound like much [$1.45 out of $14.50] dont forget the $49.50 per month just to have a store on ebay wether you sell or not.

All these fees add up. I am only a small opperator, last month I generated $1066.00 in sales and paid $362.00 in fees. In total 33.73% of all sales went to fees.

I think what people are really saying to Ebay is Start looking at what you are charging. People are finding other sale forums that are cheaper and this is the reason they are leaving.

It is not the death of on line sales but more the case of other venues seeing an oppertunity to under cut Ebay and take a bigger slice of the pie.

The problem is though, try telling the people at Ebay this. THEY JUST DONT WANT TO KNOW.

[treasuress.4207]

I'm not so sure about that.  I think in a lot of cases Australia Post has cut its own throat.  For example, where Australia Post's 500g satchel is 7.15 (minimum), Couriers Please express offers a 1kg satchel which is not only bigger, but costs roughly $9 and they pick up from your door.  I think a lot of sellers are looking at alternate shipping.  It really was a kick in the guts for anyone selling small (but thicker than 2cm) items when AP did away with their small parcels.  I mean, who wants to pay $7.15 to have a Hot Wheels Car worth four or five bucks shipped?

Just my 2c worth 😉