Again: Alternatives to ebay

[Bill]

I've been wondering why the last two things I bought from ebay charged postage at below cost. Now I know. I went to advertise a decent external soundcard for a low start price auction, weighed it and worked out the postage cost, got to the final stage only to be told that for this item the maximum postage I could charge was £0.00. As postage was going to be about £3.00, I naturally went back and put the price up by a bit more than that. That will work for the next few days while they have their bizarre no listing fees offer, but after that it looks like the end of ebay for me for small value items. My son, who buys and sells better stuff than me, tells me that he is almost always now losing money on p & p, and so adjusts the price accordingly.

I appreciate that people 'made a bit' on the postage, but only the terminally stupid would not add postage and auction price before bidding, and this now seems to mark the end of "99p" starting price give it a punt offers.

No doubt they have brought in a bunch of business graduates to advise on their model.

What is the most likely to succeed ebay as the most viable on line auction outfit? If I were younger, I'd be seriously thinking of starting one up.

[Chris_W]

I hear ebid is a growing one. Whether it will ever have the pulling power of ebay remains to be seen. I'm much more comfortable using Amazon & Playtrade but there is a limit to what you can sell on there.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

When did all this sort? Glancing through Ebay most p&p charges are the same as they always were.

FWIW I stay clear of items with high charges on principle. But luckily these days most know to take into account postal charges when bidding - wasn't so in the early days.

[Andy Cap]

It would be stupid not to take P&P into account, because it must always be worth knowing what an item can be bought for locally. On the other hand, the other day I bought a laptop case that had no bids, I'm sure because of the high P&P charges, and ended up with a bargain. :-)

Andy C

[Dave Starling]

In practice Ebay have a monopoly and they can ride roughshod over everyone. You only have to look at their decision to change the user interface last year without giving longtime users a classic vs modern option The high fees are killing it off for the small time users and in most cases its not worth selling. I suppose you can understand their chance with P&P policy for fee avoidance when you see listings from the far East for a =A35 BIN with =A330 P&P.

Its worth seeing if there is CheapCycle yahoo group in your area. Its an variation to FreeCycle and you are allowed to sell items up to =A3500. An item I was going to take the tip got =A315 and a very pleased punter. Carboot sales shouldn't be forgotton although they do have a stigma for some people.

Dave

[Steve Firth]

I set P&P on items I sell at whatever the price is that P&P will cost. This seems to work OK. Loading P&P onto the bid seems no different in practice. I'm uncertain what the OP is on about the ebay postage calculator is an option, not a mandatory feature. It's still possible to type in the postage value as it ever was.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That's what I thought - and the last thing I sold was quite recently.

One thing that does annoy is some only offering RM data post for quite low value items. I can see it might avoid a 'non delivery' scam - but I've sent lots of things by ordinary post without problem.

[Steve]

I assume its related to this :

"From 15th June sellers listing in selected categories in Video Games, Mobile & Home Phones, Consumer Electronics, Computing, Photography, and Clothes, Shoes & Accessories will be required to offer free P&P as their first domestic postage option."

[Steve Firth]

Same here, I send most stuff first class post and charge accordingly. I only get worked up about it if the sale value is high and the buyer looks a bit dodgy. I insisted that the buyer who bid for an electronic drum kit should either collect in person or pay for a signed-for courier delivery mostly because during the transaction they used two addresses and three names. In the end they coughed up by PayPal and paid for a courier. I got the cash, no payback demanded which surprised me.

[Scott M]

Over the years I've bought several low value things on ebay that, overall, cost the seller money to get rid of by the time ebay fees, paypal fees, postage and envelope were deducted. And that's before the time and effort of actually photographing the thing and having to list it.

[Bill]

In message , Steve writes

Silly me. I should have read the fine print and listed it as a desktop soundcard. The categories always have seemed a bit arbitrary anyway, but it looks as though I'll have to find a vague one that has no restrictions in future.

I'll research cheapcycle locally. Freecycle has been good for getting rid of stuff. Gave 2 big diesel engines away only last week.

Not sure about ebid after a quick look. Not a lot on there and very vague categories, but maybe in future....

I really don't understand ebay's problem about postage costs. Like a previous poster, all I've ever done is add the price and postage to decide what to bid, and I've got bargains where the postage has been high and there have been few bids.

I've bought lots of stuff from Hong Kong for between 01p and 99p plus a moderate postage. For example my RJ45/usb cable tester has been worth its weight in gold recently, and is the sort of thing that has made ebay what it is. Why complicating things improves them, I don't know.

[R D S]

Someone who posts on a web forum I use has set this up.

barely gets any use, obviously, but I thought i'd give it a plug since you asked.

[PeterC]

Thanks for the tip on Cheapcycle. Just looked at Northampton and there were

2 messages last November! Looks as if it's not going as well as Freecycle is. I'll keep an eye on it, just in case.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Same here - and with selling too. It's a bit like a car boot sale - I'm pretty certain some who sell there don't make enough money to cover their costs. It's just a harmless hobby.

[Owain]

They don't charge final value fees on postage costs. With 10 million listings online on ebay.co.uk at any time, any extra ha'pennies they can scrounge per item in fees all adds up nicely.

Owain

[Mike Barnes]

I've sold about a hundred items and I have definitely made money but I do it mostly because my unwanted stuff is re-used rather than going to landfill.

[Scott M]

I was going to pour scorn and say "daft way to throw money away" but then I suppose the majority of hobbies cost more than is ever returned - literally a way to "pass time".

Although with the hassle, abusive buyers, arcane rules and so on, it doesn't sound terribly restful! :-)

[Peter Johnson]

They have convinced themselves that items with free postage are more popular and attract higher bids. They imposed the free postage on DVDs first and recently expanded it to other items. I suppose it's one way of dealing with the people who sold things for 99p and charged £20 postage.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Indeed. One man's hobby is another's waste of money.

I've made somewhere over 500 sales and purchases on Ebay - mainly purchases and had precisely 4 problems. All but one resolved - and the one which wasn't was where I collected and paid cash.

[Jules]

Indeed. Never bought anything on there, never want to. I sold about five or six items, and it was a painful, time-consuming process to do so.

I've found it's *far* easier to buy/sell collect/give-away items via Freecycle, local ads, local newsgroups etc. than it is to deal with EBay. If they had more competition I suspect it'd be very different (but even then I have issues with the way auctions tend to over-inflate the value of things)

Heck, I'll t ake a look at that myself - sounds interesting. Our local Freecycle list is a bit of a joke; folk demanding high-value items yet offering things that are 'easy' to give away. It's a far cry from the Cambridge one that I was used to...

I miss car boot sales over on this side of the Pond. Althought we do have

*lots* of yard/garage sales, which folk tend to treat almost as a treasure-hunt kind of game (it's kind of fun rushing the the next site, and bumping into folk you've seen at other sites) - but nothing beats a good ol' car boot sale for convenience...

cheers

Jules