EBay BIN Pricing Has Gone Berserk

[centrehice]

For the times, they are a changin........ Bob Dylan

eBay in it's infinite wisdom, always wanted to seek out and destroy the .99 cent Auction Seller. They did it thru increased Final Value Fees, they did it initially by raising .99 cent Listing Fees for a 2 month time about 4 years ago to .35 cents. They stopped buyers from leaving negative feedback.


Result:

Large Sellers left in droves, eBay stores saw a 38% collapse.

Small Sellers left, and didn't return.

Large Conglomerates and Clothing Stores, Large Electronics Stores and Large Discounters began showing up.

Counterfeiters from Mainland China began to take over categories.



Jump forward to today.


eBay has gone from a bargain basement discount auction site, to an overpriced Retail Showcase, all in the space of about 1 1/2 years.

With "Sell Demand" now running the show, even Boathouse Bob can do a BIN for $1,000.000 for his 12 year old TV that he paid 69.99 for.


eBay should be careful...... There are warning signs.

First Warning Sign that all is not well: Offering 100 free listings to sellers that begin auctions at .99 cents or less. (This is my bread and butter, so I am embracing it)

As of April 19, you can add a BIN (for free) as well as start your auction for free, again the free BIN can only be incorporated into an auction format, again 100 free BIN's with auction per month.

The Emperor has no clothes.......


Why all of a sudden on eBay, are people so keen to Overpay? Are they Overpaying? It appears in many categories they are. I cannot tell as I do not visit any of the concluding auctions.

I have reviewed some buyers feedback and am dumfounded that they are paying Full Book and 75% of book for cards without even batting an eyelash.
I also realize that these same buyers weren't around even 2-3 years ago.

For deals that I found in 1 minute 4 years ago on eBay, it takes me 6-7 hours on the computer, and those deals are few and far between.

Anybody else see a huge shift in Buying Behaviour, like we have seen in eBay Selling Behaviour?

Are the new adults in the World that didn't have money or access to eBay 11-12 years ago, now willing to Overpay??? I can't put my finger on it, but it's happening.


Comments Please.

[Roaring70s]

I agree centrehice. I used to buy alot of stuff off ebay for dirt cheap but it seems those days are gone.

[sjw241]

eBay have basically made it impossible to make a buck anymore. If I don't ship the item with tracking the buyer makes a claim and gets his money back. I lose the item and the money. If I charge for shipping with tracking, the buyer hits me with a 1 or 2 on shipping DSR, which has gotten me restrictions on how many items I can sell. They tell me to ship for free. I tell them to let me list free and have no final value fee. They say they can't do that, well why do they think I can ship for free? Its really funny how people can complain about my shipping rate but they just bought a $25 BV card for 99 cents and $2.99 shipping. I might as well just leave the cards on my porch with a sign that says FREE TAKE EM! I'd be further ahead in the end. I could go on forever..........

[centrehice]

eBay have basically made it impossible to make a buck anymore. If I don't ship the item with tracking the buyer makes a claim and gets his money back. I lose the item and the money. If I charge for shipping with tracking, the buyer hits me with a 1 or 2 on shipping DSR, which has gotten me restrictions on how many items I can sell. They tell me to ship for free. I tell them to let me list free and have no final value fee. They say they can't do that, well why do they think I can ship for free? Its really funny how people can complain about my shipping rate but they just bought a $25 BV card for 99 cents and $2.99 shipping. I might as well just leave the cards on my porch with a sign that says FREE TAKE EM! I'd be further ahead in the end. I could go on forever..........

.................................................. .....................

The best way to avoid this nonsense is to not sell High-End Cards on eBay, simple as that. I will not sell or ship a card to any eBay user that lives outside the United States unless it has a Book Value of less than $60.00.

In terms of selling, I do 90% of my business back home to Canadians, but these sales are between .99 cents and $20.00. Most of my customers take advantage of my ridiculously low combined shipping and buy from 2-25 cards at a time via single card auctions. I know my exact cost per card, per auction, and I make nothing but good money. Sure I have to sell a lot more cards, but I seldom have any hassle.

I will trade with the members on here and sell to them, but unless I can ship the card with a Delivery Confirmation of .80 cents domestically, I will not take the risk of having it cross any border and be subjected to theft, or dishonesty.

I have even gone so far as to trade very expensive cards for a greater number of lower value cards to sell that way online.

In 12 years on eBay, and after over 5,000 individual auctions, I have only had one claim, and that was overturned as it eventually arrived to the customer.

[Bluedogcards]

Yep ebay is putting me out of business with there fees, i sold alot of 2 to 12 dollars cards and did pretty good with that, but the fees are killing me now, my shipping charger are good and have a 4.9 rating, now ebay wants to charge a fee for shipping i don't make money on shipping maybe 50 cents. I hardly sell cards any more moved to vintaged stuff i find a sales, much better

[Krazykanuk]

Very well said.

I am sick of ebay and their rediculous fees. Lack of competition and greed is ruining eBay. Time for a new competitor!!!

[iidaemmi]

There's never been so less Gilmour cards available than now. This issue has continued more than six months.

Harri

[ReimerFan]

Ebay wants to be Amazon simple as that. They are making it difficult and not profitable to sell lower end items. The one thing that made ebay great in the past was that they allowed you to find any item, had a fair feedback system and reasonable fees. Since then they have done nothing but squeeze sellers for every penny they can get, cut off basically all seller rights, put strict limitations on selling, allowed big box companies to come in at "diamond rates" where they pay next to no fees.

I used to love ebay, now I use it only when I have to. It still works to unload items but each time you sell something you feel screwed by ebay, and worry about getting screwed by the buyer. Its really not worth it.

I had someone send me a $200 card the other day without a sig or even delivery confirmation. I emailed him that day and let him know that if I were a fraudster he would have absolutely no recourse in me getting all my money back from paypal and keeping the card. I then thanked him for the card and left him positive feedback.

Sellers can't even let other sellers know who the scammers are. In the past I used to look at buyers fb ratings to see if they were someone I wanted to sell to. Now all buyers have 100% feedback.... seriously what were they thinking. At this point I cant wait until a new site gets enough traction to take over. Ebay deserves everything that is coming to them.

[cbjhockey61]

I have yet to be screwed by ebay...but I dont sell as much as I used to...maybe 10 things a year depending on if I need loot or not.

Selling on here or other sites is the way to go....First and foremost you are helping out a fellow collector that has the same passion for cards as you do...and secondly, We dont get screwed over by all the ridiculous fees that ebay shoves down our throats...although, I still hate paying paypal fees on transactions. But what are you going to do.

[leximo]

centrehice, starting on April 19th, the 100 free listings drops to 50 free any price listings. Instead of 100 free $0.99 listings, it's 50 free any price (with optional free BIN) listings. So while they added the benefit of free listings for more expensive items, they cut in half the amount of free listings overall. I wish they had done the 50 in addition to the 100, or at least 50 free below $1, and an add'l 50 any price, for a total of 100 free, but they didn't. It's only 50 total free listings.