Results 21 to 30 of 48
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03-01-2005, 01:05 PM #21
tutall, I have done very good on Beckett. Its good for selling $1 cards. I have about a 90% rate of getting paid. I give 7 days to pay, then I dont hold the card any longer.
S.A.M.,
You can email the seller through Naxcom and tell him you made an offer lower then his asking price. Then he can take it if wants. Just dont buy/sell off site via email or Naxcom will give both of you the boot.
Good Luck, John
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03-01-2005, 06:12 PM #22
SAM
If it's not screwing the little guy then nothing in the world is wrong. I'd give my left arm to go back to the day of a small marketplace of buyers and get book value and higher for everything i sell. Back before ebay I could make a nice living on cards. Now I can barely pay the bills. So who cares if I have a multimillion marketplace of buyers.
And it is losing $80 bucks a week because I had that same huge market place before paypal came along. eBay found a new way to screw the little guy.
Does a mall tell its stores they have a faster way to process payments but to do it they will screw each store for a fee on sales?????? No,,, because they already pay rent. Well my ebay fees are high enough that ebay shouldn't need the paypal transaction fees added on top.
Plain and simple ebay is greedy and they know they can screw the little guy, because the little guy has only two choices. Pay all the stupid fees or be stuck with the product.
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03-01-2005, 06:32 PM #23
Ebay isnt greedy, it is providing a service to its clients. Paypal is more fair than foul. I like selling a card and seeing the money hit BAM! 30 secs later (in some cases). This expidites the whole procees, and I am able to send the card out the very same day to its destination. Pay Pal is quick, convenient, secure place to receive/pay for items. Just as you loath its percent fee, do you really think anything is free in life? When you pay with Pay Pal, theres no more running to the post office, licking a 40 cent stamp, hoping your check/money doesnt get lost. To run Pay Pal it takes many workers, administrators, overhead, et al to keep the ship afloat. Pay Pal is THE BEST thing Ebay has done, and remember, you mustn't use it.
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03-01-2005, 06:35 PM #24
Well I can see your point being a seller, but as a buyer eBay has created a marketplace where I can get almost two of anything I want. Before eBay card shops were able to charge near book value because in all likelihood the card being offered was only one of the few in the area.
As far as the eBay PayPal connection, you're not forced to use PayPal so if you don't like the fees only accept money orders, or checks. The thing is that eBay bought PayPal because so many of their users were already using it so by owning PayPal they are able to offer better integration and features. I would only agree with you if eBay said to use their site you HAD to use PayPal, which they don't, it just so happens to be the most convenient/widely used service. The real fee culprit here is the credit card companies.
For instance Paystone, with it's micropayment-friendly fee structure, may have easily taken PayPal's place as the de facto payment standard on eBay but they didn't, and the reason is that credit card companies charge steep fees, especially at the micropayment level. These credit card fees are the direct cause for PayPal's high fees.
Another question I have for you is are you taking into account table fees at shows and the investment cost of putting up a storefront (I assume that's how you used to sell your cards), when comparing them to eBay/PayPal fees?
I also think that it's completely fair for eBay to charge fees. It's just like flea market or card show table fees.
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03-01-2005, 07:26 PM #25
OK atrofaggression, after you go pick up an economics 101 book then you can get back to me on the more fair then foul.
SAM
Yes I take into account all of the fees that would have been included in a normal store. I pay a little less in ebay and paypal fees a month then it would cost to run a store again. So now on ebay i'm lucky to get 45% of book then minus all the fees, before i easily got 100% of book minus rent business tax and so on. So ebays huge marketplace of buyers doesn't help.
Not only do i have more buyers because of ebay but i also have more competiton. And competiton like artof from above that obviously isn't in the business full time. I have to compete with a guy that has a good full time job and decides to sell of his collection and get whatever he can for it. He doesn't even think of the fees and never even considers the product cost.
And yes I am forced to take paypal or i lose out on bidders that won't buy unless i do take it. And fees aside,,,, paypal might be a good idea but still ebay has made it that you notice paypal accepted items faster with the icon. Also on the search the first option box to check is "Items listed with PayPal". They force it in your face so they make more money. And btw artofagression that right there IS GREED.
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03-01-2005, 08:10 PM #26
I wonder who is GREEDY, SAM, you or Ebay. remember, thank this quasi-capitalistic society that allows you to compete on a global scale, to reach out and to have more potential customers. Youre only seeing things as the glass being half empty.
Ebay, as I dust off my Eco 101 book, provides the market with a modicum of supply and demand in ref to the card market. For years and years, cards were overpriced. What i mean by that is although you want to sell a card for book value, how often have you bought cards at book value??? Ebay has skewed the market, or should I say card companies like Upper Deck making tewnty million sets a year per sport have. The demand isnt there to meet the surplus of supply. Therein lies the problem. The market is flooded with 1/1's, auto jerseys, legendary players, etc. Once (dont hold your breath) the market corrects itself, you'll be able to command a better price for your cards. Also, take into consideration Ebay is an AUCTION SITE!!! Whens the last time someone went to an auction expecting to pay full price for an article.
If you run your business solely on Ebay, you could conceiveably run it out of your house - now you mustnt pay rent, utilities, or accumalate depreciation on building. Ebay has saved you money in this manner.
As far as your business goes, I have no pity whatsoever. Ebay, Pay Pal, whomever, is competing for revenue just like you are. If they have better strategic operations, marketing mix, and vertical intergration than you do, well tough sh**. Nothing is 'thrown' in your face, Pay Pal is another feature to provide fast & safe transactions. Look, whatever scale you think i sell on, i lose money to Pay Pal as well, and i view it as a necessary evil. This is a 'brick and mortar' society anymore; you have to keep up with the Jones'. If you cant make it work for you, someone else will make it work for them.
Ebay was started on the ground level, just like you. You must either take the bad with the good, or sit on the sidelines and continue to pout - I'll gladly take your customer base.
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03-01-2005, 08:13 PM #27
One idea SAM, offer your customers a % off the price, say cut the Pay Pal fee right down the middle with them, if they would pay via check/money order.....only food for thought....
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03-01-2005, 08:17 PM #28
wrong person, not SAM, the above-listed messages are for NEAL...sorry!
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03-01-2005, 09:11 PM #29
No worries, I liked your points artof. And neal from your statements it seems like in the world of card collecting you used to be the big guy not the little guy. I think eBay has helped the littel guy but at the expense of the big guy.
I also agree with artof that the card companies are really to blame here. They overcharge and overproduce, to the point where most things you pull from a $4 pack can only be sold for $.99 or less.
Although some people are making money on cards. I don't know how they're doing it but, there are a ton of sellers on eBay that sell 100s and 100s of cards all the time. One option that seems to hold some merit is purchasing lots at a discount and reselling them piecemeal.
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03-01-2005, 09:50 PM #30
I had to add my two cents. I can't believe the charge I got hit by paypal for a card that sold for $475 on Ebay. I haven't even checked the Ebay fee yet, but Paypal took almost $20. WOW I think I will use the practice of allowing Paypal as a payment to keep everyone involved with the auction, but I will encourage other forms of payments by offering FREE s/h that would include insurance. If I had provided that I would have saved about $10 - $15 by not getting the Paypal hit.
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