Is ebay destined to fall and why?.....I have some strong thoughts on it- but, initially I'd like to hear what the forum thinks. Thanks--please respond. Best limbo.
I just paid ebay/paypal $250 to sell a $3,700 item. ($100 to ebay, $100 for paypal and $50 because I was paid in AUD) They litterally have millions of people paying that to ebay every month. And the fact is, ebay makes it so easy for people to sell, and so hard to figure out what you are going to get charged. They advertise these cheap 10 cent listings and such, but after the item sells, they currently get 12% to the first $50. 6% to the next $1,000 and then I believe 2% or so after that. People that know nothing about business want to start a business selling on ebay and they go out and buy $5,000 worth of products. Sell it for $6000 and think they made a $1,000 profit. Then later when they check their account balance,they cant figure out why they only have $4,500 in their account. (And thats the people that even keep books since most dont.) Ebay taxes you worse than the government on every sale. Thats why they wont go out of business....no short supply of bad business people willing to give them money and not know it.
Ebay is on the way down -- that's for sure. There are a lot of reasons for this. But, people went to ebay to get deals or to sell stuff. As ebay grew in popularity, they started to favor large commercial retailers. Today I'm more likely to shop at Amazon. Many factors hurt ebay 1. Over charging the sellers 2. Not protecting the buyers sufficiently 3. Over catering to mass retailer types and not hobbyist or smaller dealers. So, I think they are for sure on the way down. I've sold quite a bit of stuff on ebay and got some remarkable deals. What they have going for them is the centralized nature of the market. If Facebook became popular enough then there may be an inlet there too. I think Ebay has a constrained growth model and Facebook, craigslist, Amazon, etc present many challenges for it in the future.
Thanks Peilthetraveler--May your travels be bright. I believe ebay is capping sellers monthly sales at 38k. Am i right? And what does this mean? Thank U. limbo
In not so distant future internet outage will occur,all over the world.Not only ebay but all related to internet companies will fall :eek:
Ehh, I think your making a lot of assumptions and really do not understand what is going on. Ebay has lost a lot of volume and is constantly losing more and more. Their fees are pushing away a lot of sellers and people make a deal outside Ebay as much as possible. I sell a lot of stuff here and there and I will tell you that Craigslist is by far more productive than Ebay nowdays. Additionally, people find you on Ebay and then message you to do an outside deal and then split the cost savings of not paying Ebay fees. That's why Ebay is in a f**ked up situation where they keep changing their fee schedule for the worst. It's a vicious cycle. They need to make the tough corporate decision of dropping the fees significantly and wait for volume to build back up. But I'm guessing the execs want their bonuses and the temporary hit to earnings would be too much.
are there any cheaper or even near free alternatives to ebay. i heard the same lement from one guy who mentioned 11% fees by ebay leaving just peanuts for him at 20% margin on products. he eventually stopped the ebay selling.
i have been an ebay powerseller for over a decade, and i can tell you it's the most evil and vile company on the planet. I hate them on a cellular level so does almost every other seller. The whole company is run by a giant computer engine that randomly bans/restrict/remove your listings/account for weeks to months at a time without reason nor explanation. Noone at ebay knows exactly how this engine works and it's their company policy to never doubt the computer's decision, the customer service is there merely to answer the phone and read the script that they cannot do anything. I personally know many mom&pop sellers who were completely ruined by ebay because their 99%+ feedback account were randomly banned for no apparently reason. Also they charge you insane fees for listing and selling an item, to sell a $500 ipad, they charge you $3 to list, $40 after it's sold, then paypal(part of ebay) charges you another $10+ when the buyer sends you the money. With that said, there is no alternative, ebay has a monopoly. There is no other market on the internet with so many potential buyers in 1 place looking to buy in such a streamlined manner, so the sellers are forced to use ebay. I really wish amazon went full force with their marketplace implementation instead of an addon afterthought. Or a big company like google with the marketing power to go in and creates an auction site alternative. I can tell you as soon as another legit market backed by a big company comes into the picture, every seller will be getting the hell off ebay, and buyers will follow the sellers. It will be very similar to the facebook takeover of myspace. But right now there is no alternative.
I don't think so. Ebay is still the best way for buyers and sellers to exchange items that can be shipped. Auction format is great for hard to price items, let the market determine price. Ebay has the sellers and buyers. PayPal is still number one for sending funds. Who is competing with Ebay and PayPal? I don't sell nearly as much items anymore because I have sold all my unwanted items, and Ebay was the best way to get rid of everything. I believe that is the reason for falling sales in the last few years, sellers have run out of items and now the number of auctions will level off. I expect EBAY to trade flat for years, like MSFT.