qix_maniac Posted March 16, 2011 Author Share Posted March 16, 2011 From sellers prespective I agree as well. If a package postage says it cost $25.35 that is not accurate. The seller may have bought a box at staples that cost $3 and purchase bubble wrap for $5 bring the shipping cost to $33.35. Did the seller really make $8 on shipping? of course not! ...plus insurance and tracking costs money too. I believe both buyers and sellers need their investment protected... I once bought an atari 800 on ebay with some cartridges and the seller used no bubble wrap or protection of any kind unless you count about 5 sheets of newspaper. The atari 800 arrived cracked and there was some damage to other items. I rather pay extra for shipping then receive junk/damaged items. I would never leave a seller negative or neutral feedback if the items were well packaged? I know shipping supplies cost money...well that's my 2 cents 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion Pax Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 I can understand what a lot of people are talking about here! But like what one poster said, it was done to prevent those sellers that were trying to make a profit on shipping! If you set the auction for bidding and you don't get what you wanted then you should have done buy it now! Inflating shipping just to make a $ is just unfair business practice! List the item for exactly what you want for it, or put a higher minimum for bidding! Your not suppose to be making money off the shipping so for honest sellers this won't affect them! The handful of items I sold on eBay I charged them exactly what it cost to ship! To the penny! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion Pax Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 (edited) Double post! Edited March 16, 2011 by Orion Pax Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariLeaf Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 (edited) This is going to hurt Canadian sellers big time. I'll give a non-ebay example. I have a boxed "Hit and Missile" that I'm sending to a fellow AA'er. I told him just to cover shipping costs. So I boxed it up nice and put it in an appropriate sized boxed, all bubbled wrapped nice and safe and took it to the post office. Since its over 1 kilogram, it can ONLY be sent expedited shipping and as such it'll cost $23.50. Now imagine I sell this on ebay with their new fees. I now have to up my shipping to close to $30 maybe more to COVER ( not make a profit on ) my shipping costs. What are the chances ANYONE bids on such an auction? No one - not only that - I'll be accused to padding my shipping fees. Oh, and this doesn't cover any tape, bubble wrap, gas or time costs that some people add. That would make it maybe $35 Edited March 16, 2011 by AtariLeaf 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 Surely the buyer will realize that there's a commission on shipping costs and make appropriate concessions with regard to the P&P they're paying for. I'd rather pay more P&P charges to cover the seller's eBay costs than to simply line his pockets. Domestic shipping charges in the UK were sometimes already puzzlingly high before this change in policy came up. There are plenty of domestic couriers who can ship a CRT monitor the length of the country for under 10GBP. I once persuaded a "collection only" seller to box up a monitor so I could arrange a remote collection and it cost me six quid. I'm inclined to prefer arranging the shipping myself when it comes to heavy items: then its up to me to decide how much of a risk I want to take on a cheap courier. The fact is, eBay has a complete monopoly - being just about the only remaining auction site - so people who use it - either by choice or through necessity (where else, after all, can you see such a slew of Atari equipment on a daily basis, unless you're lucky enough to work in a recycling plant) - will continue to do so. I must admit it's unfair of eBay to expect private sellers to "compete" with big online vendors who often offer free shipping on goods over a certain value. I must say that as an "occasional" seller, my eBay experiences have been pretty bleak over the years. I pity people whose livelihood depends on it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodByteXL Posted March 16, 2011 Share Posted March 16, 2011 (edited) This is going to hurt Canadian sellers big time. ...Nice examples here. Anyway, ebay is squeezing every cent out along the lines, where business is immoral but not illegal. When it started I was living and working in the US. Since my job sent me around the world my place to send or receive items changed frequently. So mainly credit cards where used for payments, sometimes checks. 99.9% went well until 2005. At that time living in Benelux an US seller charged my cc 3x times with small amounts where just one item had been baught. The contents of the shipment did not meet neither the description nor the photo placed with the offer on ebay. Ebay was asked to take action and the result was nil, since it was (and still is) a so-called power seller. At least the cc insurance gave me refund and the seller got negatve feedback via the cc provider. Then rules changed vitally, since international transactions where bound to paypal and the rules were defined special for every country/region. Hey, why do I have to use a service I do not need? Advantages? Nope, people cheated and paypal did not refund. Fortunately, that had been small sums. But I did not trust paypal anymore and stopped international trading via ebay. Then the new rules about shipment were introduced and from Germany, where we had moved to then, ebay dictated what kind of shipping one has to take and for many categories the s&h had to be covered by the selling price, no matter what it was. This was the deadline for me. Making money, especially in the American part of the world, is the big goal, which is fine with me. But why does ebay have to be that greedy ... Edited March 16, 2011 by GoodByteXL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toptenmaterial Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 (edited) ^^because they can at the risk of being political, the only way way to change this situation is congressional hearings and an antitrust lawsuit, or an executive order to the justice department to grille eBay. that would require a powerful consumer lobby group of retro gamers (haha) so this won't happen. Edited March 17, 2011 by toptenmaterial Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fibrewire Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Politics don't work - history speaks for itself. More recently in the news, Net Neutrality. But then again, who cares? Truth is, we are all responsible for finding our own solutions. Any time someone "waits" for a solution, whether personal, corporate, or political - it's all a wash in the end. I'm not saying be a vigilante, just do what's right. For AtariAge users: * Please disassemble item and photograph if you are competent * Take lots of high resolution pictures and make available on request. * Pack at most convenient location * Weigh package and get dimensions - Find out shipping cost * Roll shipping charges into auction price Mention on ebay site that you conform to AtariAge ebay policies and include AtariAge logo! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Fortunately, there's buying and selling on AtariAge, which has been quite nice to me. I wish more of the stuff I have to buy on Ebay were posted here. How about an AtariBay feature in the next forum revision. Heh heh. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldAtarian Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 All you Ebayer's out there probably just receive an ebay email regarding listing fees and final value fees. Atari Dealer's/Re-sellers will feel the pinch. I can't believe Ebay is now going to include shipping fees into the final value fees. That's a ripoff and in my opinion illegal. How can Ebay include shipping into the final value fees? The seller is not making any money on shipping...shame on ebay! Now we are going to pay more for Atari items because sellers have to build that into the starting price or shipping overhead. Or perhaps we will find bargains as this will discourage resellers Have you seen the number of people who list small expensive items for .99 BIN plus hundreds of dollars in shipping for stuff that shouldn't cost more than 3 or 4 bucks to ship? I flag at least 5 listings a day like that for ebay to check out. I saw one just yesterday someone had a GTX480 video card, $25 BIN, $220 shipping just to avoid paying ebay fees on the $220. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldAtarian Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 From sellers prespective I agree as well. If a package postage says it cost $25.35 that is not accurate. The seller may have bought a box at staples that cost $3 and purchase bubble wrap for $5 bring the shipping cost to $33.35. Did the seller really make $8 on shipping? of course not! ...plus insurance and tracking costs money too. I believe both buyers and sellers need their investment protected... I once bought an atari 800 on ebay with some cartridges and the seller used no bubble wrap or protection of any kind unless you count about 5 sheets of newspaper. The atari 800 arrived cracked and there was some damage to other items. I rather pay extra for shipping then receive junk/damaged items. I would never leave a seller negative or neutral feedback if the items were well packaged? I know shipping supplies cost money...well that's my 2 cents I got a Powermac 6100 shipped to me in a box that was modified to be perfectly form fitting to the computer with no leeway allowed for being drop or bump damage. Another seller sent me a Quadra 840AV in a similar state and I ended up losing a cover plate off the front of that one that got shattered somehow. A third seller once sent me a Performa 6200 and Powermac 6500 each wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OldAtarian Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 Ebay needs to spin off a separate microsite that is back to traditional auctions for the people who sell occasionally. Ebay has made it quite clear over the years unless you are moving 10,000 items per month or more they don't want you selling on their site. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orion Pax Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 (edited) I wasn't referring to a couple $ added to shipping cost! I mean ridiculous amounts! I am referring to what oldatarian is referring to! .99 bin with $200+ shipping for a small but expensive item! I have bought items with BIN dirt cheap that had undisclosed shipping and afterwards had to pay $50+ for items that shouldn't have cost more than $8-12! Like I said, unscrupulous sellers trying to make money off of shipping and trying to avoid eBay fees! Now I know eBay is trying ripoff sellers with all these fee's and crap, but if you don't want to pay all those fee's then don't sell on eBay! Edited March 17, 2011 by Orion Pax Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+FujiSkunk Posted March 17, 2011 Share Posted March 17, 2011 I can't really fault eBay for this since, as others have pointed out, sellers have gotten really bad about using overinflated shipping costs to get around the fees. However, this is just one more step in eBay's evolution away from the "world's biggest garage sale" that it used to be, and one more reason why I haven't seriously considered using eBay in years. It used to be fun to browse, and fun to throw a few games up for sale to make some gas money, and see what gems someone had rescued from their basement or attic. Now it's wading through posts so full of stock photos and flashy attention-grabs, or trying to decipher all of the options (and fees) just to sell one single game. It's not worth it. eBay's treatment of craigslist doesn't motivate me into using eBay again, either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorsten Günther Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 (edited) I hear all the comments... but the only positive side I can see it is to promote "free shipping" that way is great for the customers and no fees for ebay.... one can estimate the shipping already in the price of the item. eBay Germany tried to force this onto their users for items like games, CDs and DVDs in 2010 and failed miserably: on any item not listed at a minimum starting bid (EUR 1.00 items on eBay.de have a EUR 0.00 listing fee) eBay will calculate a higher listing fee (EUR 0.25 for items listed at up to EUR 1.99, EUR 0.45 on items listed at up to EUR 9.99, and so on). And they also will calculate their final value fee of 8% based on item value and shipping if you include shipping in the starting price - for there ain't no such thing as a free shipping in the real world. PayPal (thankfully only mandatory here if you have less than 50 feedback points, but AFAIK already mandatory for anyone in the US, UK and Australia) gets another EUR 0.35 plus their transaction fee of 3.5%. If a German eBay user offers e.g. a DVD for EUR 1.00 from someone from anywhere in the world, accepts PayPal and ships as registered mail nationally and internationally (costing him EUR 1.45+1.60 and EUR 3.45+2.05 respectively), he will pay EUR 0.08 to eBay and EUR 0.35+0.23 to PayPal if he actually sells for the starting bid and gets paid by PayPal by someone outside Germany, leaving him EUR 0.34. If he includes national registered shipping into the starting bid, reduces international shipping by the EUR 3.05 and sells to the same person at the starting price, he will instead pay EUR 0.45+0.32 to eBay and the same EUR 0.58 to PayPal, costing him EUR 0.35. Thorsten Edited March 18, 2011 by Thorsten Günther Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodByteXL Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 I can't really fault eBay for this since, as others have pointed out, sellers have gotten really bad about using overinflated shipping costs to get around the fees.... This is not quite true, since ebay forced the sellers to exactly do that by constantly changing the rules. And at his point one has to have the guts to simply quit and not to feed the monster any longer while whining. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorsten Günther Posted March 18, 2011 Share Posted March 18, 2011 (edited) However, this is just one more step in eBay's evolution away from the "world's biggest garage sale" that it used to be, This is a devolution rather than an evolution. IMHO, the main reason why eBay Germany took back their "forced free shipping" policy was their loss of buyer attention and listed items. eBay is mainly known here for the auctions starting at EUR 1.00 - even Europe's (then) largest tabloid "Bild" was involved in advertising this as a "Volksauktion" (don't ask) in 2008 - introducing free listing instead of EUR 0.10 while at the same time raising the sales fee from 5% to 8% (to reduce the flood of worthless junk, eBay has limited the 0 cent auctions to 100 per month last year). From the moment where they forced sellers to offer free shipping, starting prices were rising (see my calculation above for the reasons) while at the same time buyers were confronted with thousands of "pick-up only" items by sellers circumventing this new rule and had to read the descriptions of each to find out whether and at what cost the seller would ship regardless of the settings. Additionally, many sellers reduced their number eBay of listings and switched to other sites like hood.de, booklooker.de or amazon.de. Thorsten Edited March 18, 2011 by Thorsten Günther 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qix_maniac Posted March 18, 2011 Author Share Posted March 18, 2011 However, this is just one more step in eBay's evolution away from the "world's biggest garage sale" that it used to be, This is a devolution rather than an evolution. IMHO, the main reason why eBay Germany took back their "forced free shipping" policy was their loss of buyer attention and listed items. eBay is mainly known here for the auctions starting at EUR 1.00 - even Europe's (then) largest tabloid "Bild" was involved in advertising this as a "Volksauktion" (don't ask) in 2008 - introducing free listing instead of EUR 0.10 while at the same time raising the sales fee from 5% to 8% (to reduce the flood of worthless junk, eBay has limited the 0 cent auctions to 100 per month last year). From the moment where they forced sellers to offer free shipping, starting prices were rising (see my calculation above for the reasons) while at the same time buyers were confronted with thousands of "pick-up only" items by sellers circumventing this new rule and had to read the descriptions of each to find out whether and at what cost the seller would ship regardless of the settings. Additionally, many sellers reduced their number eBay of listings and switched to other sites like hood.de, booklooker.de or amazon.de. Thorsten I googled "I hate Ebay" and actually the first page that shows up is a forum on ebay discussion page where people vent. Boy is ebay full of themselves! Thorsten, I've bought many cartridges from you about 2 years ago, they still working great Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Defender II Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 eBay is going to continue to rule and raise prices until their tyrannical taxing of the sellers and buyers reaches a breaking point or some competitor with enough money and marketing steps up. It is like Microsoft, they're just too big. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorsten Günther Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 Thorsten, I've bought many cartridges from you about 2 years ago, they still working great Thank you, I always try my best when selling on eBay, but I can't accept the praise for their reliability, as they were all original ones produced by the guys at Atari, Actisivion and so forth. Thorsten Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WizWor Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 I guess ebay should let the seller decide how much they want to donate in exchange for use of the service. Obviously, if everyone was honest, the original arrangement is fair -- ebay takes a portion of the proceeds from the sale. Excluding shipping charges avoids a situation where a low final offer on a big item would actually cost the seller money. Dishonest sellers bury some of the proceeds in the shipping costs to cheat ebay out of part of its commission. Ebay has no practical way to monitor actual shipping costs, so they base the commission on the total sale. Now it is up to the seller to ensure that the commission and actual shipping cost are part of the auction cost. There are two ways to do this... 1) add the cost of the commission on the actual shipping to the advertised shipping cost 2) list the commission on the shipping as a minimum bid on the auction I don't see what the big deal is. I don't bid on shipping or auction cost. When I bid, the 'number' is the most I would be willing to pay for the item including all shipping and handling charges. PS what I really hate is when the seller buries expensive mandatory insurance in the details of the description. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
svenski Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 Thorsten got the point across very well. Ebay isn't a land of opportunity anymore where bargains could be had, it is just a convenient place to buy from a range of millions of product. All ebay is doing with rising fees is putting up the cost of everything that goes for sale on ebay and just driving away people who want to sell off items they no longer want or need. Why sell something you no longer want on ebay and make little or no money on it when you can just box it up and put it in the attic, donate it or just throw it in the trash? As an example of how bad ebay has become, more and more sellers are turning to selling on Amazon - which itself isn't cheap by any means. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oky2000 Posted March 20, 2011 Share Posted March 20, 2011 ^^because they can at the risk of being political, the only way way to change this situation is congressional hearings and an antitrust lawsuit, or an executive order to the justice department to grille eBay. that would require a powerful consumer lobby group of retro gamers (haha) so this won't happen. Here in the UK ebay bought their main competitor (Yahoo Auctions UK) and shut them down weeks later and the incompetent government did nothing! The monopoly in UK is overwhelming. And also why should I be forced to use PayPal AND let them hold my money for 21 days on new accounts? Ebay do what they want, need to be regulated by an independent group linked to the government. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
99'er Forever Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 I guess I don't know why people don't read the auction descriptions. If you think the seller is ripping you off on shipping, don't bid on it. Pretty simple. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madmax2069 Posted March 21, 2011 Share Posted March 21, 2011 (edited) I stopped buying on ebay when people started selling stuff for $0.99 and had shipping around $40+ (example for a stick of ram located in the same country i am in) to bypass the sellers fee. i can understand the high price if it was large and or heavy item. I can see the shipping being steep if the item was in another country. granted ebay is not what it use to be. I see many people fleeing to other online auction/selling sites (blujay comes to mind because its free) because of how ebay has became. Edited March 21, 2011 by madmax2069 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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