From a seller's perspective ..
Written: Jul 26 '01
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The Bottom Line
If online auctions are your thing - head to ebay and don't look elsewhere.
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I've been with ebay since its inception. I remember the days where there were no categories and no such thing as feed backs and there were probably about 100 to 200 items listed at most. Now it's a monster. I write this epinion from 2 perspectives.
1) Someone looking to sell stuff on an auction site.
2) Someone looking to buy stuff from an auction site.
1) Sellers: From its original goal of being an outlet to hold small garage sales (when things could be found at real garage sale prices), it has now become a commercial internet mall. The ever increasing listing fees (especially in the featured sections) make it practically impossible for a small volume seller to compete on ebay with the big boys. Sure, there are still small sellers selling stuff at flea market prices, but they are getting harder to find. 95% of what's sold on ebay is now from the commercial sellers who are in it for profit rather than to get rid of some unwanted junk. For the seller, it's still cut-throat competition unless you are in a position to have a unique product. Does this mean, you are better off trying to sell on some other auction site. NO! Ebay still is the best bet to sell your wares since that's where the customers hang out. It does not matter how low the listing fees are on amazon or yahoo, customers there are practically non-existent. And why shouldn't they be when ebay fulfills all their requirements for free and offers a better interface. Every once in a while, I still try to sell at other sites and sometimes, I do make a sale, but it is a lot more dissapointing at other sites than on ebay. Selling in low volumes mean you are not going to be listing your items in the featured auctions which means, your listing gets buried under zillions of other auctions within minutes of appearing. If you are just looking for any price to sell, you have a good chance. But if you expect to compete with the one's selling in the featured auctions .. good luck! But selling in volume on ebay is no cake either. Ebay advertises a low 2.5% commission, but that's very deceptive since the listing fees (especially in the featured category) for non-selling items can easily take away more than half the profit margins leaving very little profit. From personal experience, I can tell that its cost for me was once about the same as if I had opened shop in a regular mall. One nice thing about ebay is that its customer support is pretty decent. They do answer you emails within a few days even if it is not the answer you are looking for. I hate the fact that you are only allowed 80 characters for a feedback. That's not even enough to begin an explanation for negative feedbacks.
Buyers: Ebay is truly the best for buyers since that is where the sellers hang out. Sellers hang out there because that is where the buyers hang out. One day, hopefully, someone will throw in a monkey wrench and break this monopolistic wheel. It has the best interface and search facilities compared to other auction sites and payment options as well.
Both seller and buyers of course needs to be careful of the bad apples (not too many in my experience but every once in a while one will come along and make you rage for a week). 90% of the problems are caused by people who do not understand how to use ebay very well (like sending in payment without mentioning what auction the payment is for or which ebay userid is sending it). The rest 5% problems are by people not committed to buying/selling on ebay (Oh! Did I really bid on your item? Sorry, but I'm not interested any more). The remaining 5% problems are by true criminal minded psychopaths (some can get very creative). In all, I had about 50-100 problem customers out of every 1000. And out of those, only 3 or 4 turned out to be genuine crooks. That is not a bad ratio at all. Better than the real world retail business experience. As a buyer, I found most sellers to be honest and some not very ethical but overall still honest.
Bottomline - if online auctions is your thing, you need to be on ebay and nowhere else at the moment (I dearly hope this will change to give us more choice).
Recommended:
Yes
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About the Author
Location: New Jersey, USA
Reviews written: 10
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me: I'm a computer geek in the telecom industry. Hope to be a pilot.
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