eBay services and fees

[MaineT]

As some of you may have noticed eBay has recently made it so you cannot see very far back or as many items used to with the completed auctions. They have finally realized there's a huge amount of paid websites including worth point that track trends in auctions including eBay and they are paid site.

EBay now has a parallel site that you have to pay for the tune of $30 per month or $240 per year to see the ended auctions. I used eBay completed auctions a lot to look stuff up and now I can hardly find anything. I considered it a perk of my sellers fees being able to search this. I'm going to be forced to actually spend the money on one of these services.

I understand that everybody complains about "feePay" or "feebay" but the reality is there's a lot of things that's the best outlet and only outlet to get rid of something for even close to a fair market value. The total fees of 10% between eBay and PayPal may seem extreme, but the cost of any place selling a place else is much higher Percentage wise with mediocre results.

I'm attaching an example of something that I sold that I would have zero ability to sell outside of eBay and I'll tell you what it's well worth the fees. You won't believe me when I tell you what I got, but let's just say there's no way without a specialty auction or a specialty store, which would charge well more than 10% and cost well more than the fee, would I ever get even half of what I got on eBay.

I'm not against selling on the message boards and the people you know and it shows and swap meets. Shows cost money to set up at. You have a lot more time invested going to a show, and waiting for that show to get here to hope to sell it. And I would hate to see what you would get for a set of Vendo 81 shelves if you actually put it in the local auction, or a coin door without a bezel off an 81D at a local auction. And that's if the if they would even take it!

Also, remember that it makes finding those really hard-to-find parts collectibles, that last one the set that you've never seen before, possible to get without spending thousands of hours driving all over the country to find. A regular auction charges you 10% for the privilege of winning an item, eBay doesn't do that.

I hate paying eBay and PayPal fees just as much as the next guy. I am guilty of it myself. Now that they've realized that the completed auctions is a resource it's now going to cost at least $240 a year on top of my seller fees to continue looking for items while I'm out and about.

[mygoose101]

I agree with you Tim and you and I have had this conversation before. EBay fees have grown over the years but everything has gone up over the years. I see it as the cost of doing business. If my ebay fees are my only cost as far as overhead, I can deal with that. I know I have set some records for prices that I've sold on ebay, Moondawg can attest to that. so with all that being said, I don't have a problem with it.

[sc1101]

I recently noticed that I couldn't search the completed listing that far back also. I thought that I was just searching under the wrong description and couldn't find the item because of that. I wasn't aware of that change. It was a really helpful tool in helping me to determine a trend in values over a period of time. Thanks for the heads up on the change.

[collecture]

That pic should say Rev. Billy G
OK - I'll bite - how much did it bring in? $250?? - just a guess.