Selling on Ebay...FAILED!!!

[Adrian]

Back in 2003, I use to buy and sell on ebay. I did this as supplimental income when inbetween jobs, or just to help out. I didn't get rich doing this, but it did give me extra income.

Well, back when Donahoe stepped in early of last year and "improved" the site for buyers, allowing buyers to leave whatever feedback to the sellers, many sellers, "powersellers" up and left shop. Ebay left no recourse to the seller and if the seller wasn't able to meet the 4.3 point system in 4 different areas, ebay would ban the seller until they could meet the requirements.

Well! As my father taught me long ago. You can please all of the people none of the time, and only most of them some of the time. That being the case, how then can a seller make it on ebay. Simple fact, unless they are selling thousands of items per week, to over-ride the negatives or low star ratings, you can not make it on ebay.

That being said, my avenue to make extra money during this time when I got laid off, has me scrambling to find other sites. As most power sellers that have left ebay will attest too, Ebay is a dying breed of a once great company that has once more fallen to Greed!

Serves them right! Between their fees, no longer can the seller accept money orders/checks, as ebay wants all their funds linked to paypal, they make money hand over fist....twice!

Well, not for me anymore. I need to find a different auction site where the mighty greedbay can not follow.

Any suggestions to other auction houses?

Sorry for venting. Just trying hard right now to find food, other than food stamps. Not to mention bill collectors etc....

[abaigael04]

Don't know of any good sites, but sorry you are in that situation. the buyers know of these new rules, too and are using it to scam the sellers because there would be no recourse!

[Glub]

Honestly, find an item that you can specialize in... Find a forum full of people who will need this item. Become known on the forum. Toss mention to your product every now and again when appropriate.

Find other forums and do the same until you build a reputation amongst the communities and they start forwarding your name around for you!

Ebay was nice, but I've seen a few people who have succeeded by appealing to specialist crowds and offering them quality products they wouldn't normally be able to find in any everyday store.

Forums can be a great place to find yourself a customer. Just remember to be an active part of the community and don't go around blatantly and shamelessly advertising or anything.

[AABatteries]

It's not the greatest, but the only thing I could think of... Overstock

[Ellen4God]

Have you considered Amazon?

[Lady Hobbs]

Honestly, find an item that you can specialize in... Find a forum full of people who will need this item. Become known on the forum. Toss mention to your product every now and again when appropriate.

Find other forums and do the same until you build a reputation amongst the communities and they start forwarding your name around for you!

You do that in forums and you'll be tossed out! That's what we call spam! You do not use any forum to peddle your product that will make money for yourself.

[MCHRKiller]

Ive bought and sold alot on ebay...im a small time seller just when i decide to clean out a drawer/closet/find random things I dont want Ill post on there. Its kind of a hobby...gives me something to do. I havent encountered any problems. I have 100% feedback with around 250 transactions...so I cant say that their system is really faulted than any other. With the feedback there isnt alot that can be done to make people use it fairly. They did what they did because buyers were having a time out of sellers and leaving them bad feedback so in return the seller was leaving the buyer a negative just because they got one first. Either way the feedback setup is gonna suck. I always look at peoples seller feedback and if they have 100% on that it tells me that they are a responsible ebayer because it is hard to keep that at 100%. I also understand not wanting to allow MOs and etc be used because alot of buyers were sending out MOs and sellers may not have received them thus they didnt get their merchandise. Im sure they also like the fact they get a few cents profit with each transaction but really it is safer for buyer and seller to use Paypal.

Amazon is pretty good for selling Ive had friends sell on there, yahoo has an auction site as well. Overstock, bluefly, half, and several others are good if your looking for a bargain as well.

[korith]

I haven't sold anything on ebay a long while. They just take too huge of a cut to make it affordable anymore to sell things. Easier for me to get rid of my stuff on craigslist and other places locally. If you are selling fish related stuff can try aquabid.


By the way ebay was in the news recently.......

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_11520634

Fourth-quarter profit plunged 31 percent to $367 million compared with a year ago, but eBay met analysts' expectations for earnings per share by heavily cutting costs.

[Adrian]

Well, I am trying Ebid.net. It is close to what ebay had, slightly different, but when doing the math, ebay has over 14 million listings, where ebid has just over a million. Was the highest that I could find. I will try it and see.

I will also look into yahoo, and a few others. Who knows, I might find something. Jobs are still neigh impossible here, especially in my industry. I may need to do a career change, which puts me in one heck of a perdicament, as I would have to go back to school, and I just don't have the funds to do that. I don't have credit cards, could never get one. So my options are few and far between.

[angelcakes]

Well, I am trying Ebid.net. It is close to what ebay had, slightly different, but when doing the math, ebay has over 14 million listings, where ebid has just over a million. Was the highest that I could find. I will try it and see.

I will also look into yahoo, and a few others. Who knows, I might find something. Jobs are still neigh impossible here, especially in my industry. I may need to do a career change, which puts me in one heck of a perdicament, as I would have to go back to school, and I just don't have the funds to do that. I don't have credit cards, could never get one. So my options are few and far between.

ive sold on both ebay and ebid,
ebid is slow unless you are selling the right stuff, electronics is good on there and some amounts of jewellery gold etc,
ebay...mmmmmmmm (im just trying to think of something nice to say!) oh yeah there greedy, make to much profit, a seller has no rights and its to easy for a buyer to get an item for nothing with the great paypal dispute which always favours a buyer, ebay naturally is the cream of all auction rooms as it was the first, ideally you do need to find items that will sell on ebay such as collectables,electronics,jewellery,clothes,antique s these seem to be top sellers, another auction site is tazbar but again its slow,