should i leave or should i stay?

[casbit33]

 I don't know if i should leave ebay or try other auction sites. Everytime there is a new policy or change it always seems to badly affect sellers. eg negative feedback button removed, money back guarantee rip off,  defect system etc Hardly any sales any more.

I don't know if it's worth staying with ebay or trying other sites. I have found a few but they are not as well known as ebay and don't know if i would be wasting my time to try them all. 

[casbit33]

I have had dvd cases cracked in padded envelopes before. So now i have to wrap a lot more which puts the price up to parcel rate plus all the fees etc. Annoying but Australia post don't give a toss what they break so i just have to wrap to avoid it.

[bakeandfry]

I dont sell anymore ( on ebay anyway) 

[casbit33]

Thanks to everyone for your help.

I have decided to stay but might scale down on each of my accounts. I have also started listing on Quicksales, Swapace, Swapmeet, Ebid and Gumtree. Thinking about trying Amazon, but not doing Craigs list.

[lane-ends]

You can fiddle with listings and justify anything,. but at the end of the day it is buyer perception that gets you sales. Increased sales gets you on Ebays highest search rankings that bring in more sales. Volumes of sales gives you profit regardless of splitting hairs over fees and costs on individual listings.

Buyers want things quick and easy, squabbling over a few cents and dollars comes across as amateurish. Ebay is no longer the realm for amateurs anymore, buyers wont cop it.

As far as other sites as an option. How many of your buyers are even actually aware of these sites? Those that do how many search those sites only, or do they search Ebay first then those as an afterthought. Most new sites are initially bolsters by the disgruntled sellers that have gone there and are trying to bolster sales. The novelty wears off until there is an even bigger proportion of listings per buyer.. If there are few ongoing sales then fee% is hardly important.

Ebay is going through a transitional stage. Who knows what the future will bring

[springyzone]

I had a look at a few of your sale items.

To me, it would be worth your while trying other avenues as well as staying on ebay.

The following is purely a a personal perception. I thought that on the whole the postage costs weren't too bad, although there were some products which were about $3 but postage was over $9. As a buyer, postage costs do matter but it would depend on if the overall total price still came out better than a shop price.

I did feel if you have not sold a lot of jewellery, it could be because it is low cost costume jewellery. There isn't anything wrong with the price as such and even with postage a lot of items are only about $6 or so, but the problem is there is a lot of similar stuff in the shops and at much the same price. Every retail store seems to have sales so i wouldn't be surprised if people feel they might be able to pick up something of similar quality or more on sale.

I used to sell on ebay and I found that trying to sell items that weren't well known, respected brands was uphill work.

You may do well at actual markets and stalls where people can see your goods.

[Anonymous]

---

@casbit33 wrote:

I have had dvd cases cracked in padded envelopes before. So now i have to wrap a lot more which puts the price up to parcel rate plus all the fees etc. Annoying but Australia post don't give a toss what they break so i just have to wrap to avoid it.

---

serious?

i use padded bubble envelopes and have never had a buyer complain of a cracked case before

you'll never make money selling DVDs with postage at parcel rate

For me its $1.40 +14c = $1.55 (unless its 2+ disc set then its $2.10 +14c)

[casbit33]

Don't you lose money by only charging $1.55 ?  Do you take into account the fees from both ebay and paypal as well as the cost of the padded bag. As postage would be $1.40, i really don't think 15c is going to cover the rest.

[collect247]

Non store sellers get charged more for fees than store sellers

[mic-s-korea]

Yep, I agree. parcel rate for CDs and DVDs is a no-brainer ... however, from memory E-bay's post system with 'discount rates' defaults to parcel rate.

DVDs almost never have problems and if need be on the rare occasion a CD case cracks it can be sorted by simply sending a replacement one.

One issue is that with low priced CD and DVD international sales now incure this huge fee on the internatinal postage, so it may be worth listing them only for Aussie sales.

As re the OP ... I'm just winding down selling things to keep in touch for if I decide to invest in some quality items to sell in future. The trouble really is the door is right open for scammers these days. Putting up say $90 to make maybe $40 from it, with all the time and effort was only just worth it, add to that the increased risk that can now drag on for 6 months, and I may as well just do extra hours at my regular job.

I'm basically a music collector who likes to keep in touch with the community and make a bit of cash here and there to buy stuff for my own collection. There are now other sites online which more and more people are using that don't constantly push the 'we're all about the money' line, thus I find a lot of collectors/sellers have gone where the fun/interest in the products is. I actually do most my buying on these sites. Purely, doing the numbers on E-bay for many people it's just not worth the effort/risk if it's only all about the money.

I hope now that E-bay has split from Paypal they can formulate a new deal for non-mega sellers to keep them here. I like E-bay but I too have that stay/go thought a lot. My dad used to sell and buy a lot on E-bay (high red star) and he walked away completely a few years back after the forced Paypal thing ... he said the other day that he's forgotten his password for it.