MShipley88 wrote:How do the new Ebay charges affect you guys who are sellers?  Particularly, how do they affect your Ebay stores?

It will mean on average $57 more a month for me to sell on Ebay in my store.  However, my solution is that I am going to cut auction listings by $80 a month, negating the loss. Ironic, isn't it, that Ebay says they are increasing the store prices to boost auction listings then? Auction listins have become an extremely inefficient way for me to do business the last year or so anyway, it's basically hoping that the week you put the item up two guys wanting the same item are going to bid against each other and drive the price up.  All of us here selling on Ebay have been doing it for years...we know the price items should sell for by now.  An auction is just a cheap way to hope you hit the lotto! At least in my case it's been, rarely have I seen an item I sold at auction lately go for what I would have priced it in my store anyway.
    When it all boils down it is just another charge.  Ebay has a evil genius way of nickel and dimeing you to death....two percent increase here and there, seems like nothing until you do the math.  If you have a budget like I do, when they increase prices you take it out of somewhere else.  


Mike B.

I'm in the "medium" seller category - about 700ish items stocked, although I'll probably top 1000 if I get the rest of my stuff listed in a timely fashion.

I sell mostly to the gamer, rather than the collector. I set all my prices by doing research at the time of listing - I try to undercut the competition (sorry guys! ), but sometimes i'll keep the price higher if I think there's enough interest that someone will buy the competitors lower-priced item, and then folks will have mine available at the lowest price.

I'm an unusual store in that I only do Store listings - like Badmike said, auctions are always a bit of a lottery, and it's one that costs you quite a bit to run. Once I get all my backstock listed, I plan on auctioning portions of stock to generate traffic, but for the most part, I prefer to set my prices at a reasonable level and let folks find me.

The price change will pretty much come straight out of my bottom line. I can't afford to raise my shipping/handling, which is already high because of being in Canada instead of having access to the heavily-subsidized USPS. So the increases will hurt me, no doubt.

What's your Ebay seller identity?  Is it the same as your Acaeum name?

MShipley88 wrote:Another aspect of selling that puzzles me....

Sellers who do not list their stock.  Wonderworld Books, for instance.  They are located in Burien, Washington.  Their store is, quite literally, a warehouse of arcane goods from all of Seattle's defunct game stores.

They say their main business is on EBay....yet one sees only a fraction of the listings that one might expect from a store literally overstuffed (so many boxes it blocks the path through their store) with items.

Mark  

Wonderworld Books close a few months back. I've e-mail the owner a couple of times about items he had for sale, but he never got back to me. There is another store in the Seattle area that has all their old product in a warehouse. I'm talking stuff dating from the beginning of the RPG industry and they are just letting it rot.

The owner answered my most recent contact with him very quickly.

The store closed in February and he is now totally online.  (His landlord wanted to raise the rent, and now has an empty space to show for it.)  He said, however, that "the handwriting was on the wall" regarding his store.

IF his stuff is sitting in a warehouse, it might take an archeological dig to find anything.  He has a HUGE inventory.

Even when he had a storefront, he had boxes everywhere and one had to go digging and digging to look for things.  It was just overwhelming.

What I don't get now is his top-end pricing.  He has stuff sitting around because it is priced by cover price and not Ebay price.

Puzzling.  

Mark

Beyondthebreach wrote:Just an observation, but this thread seems appropriate to post it to . . . I really believe that sometimes people LIKE paying more money.  I've always done pretty well with my auctions, but after opening an ebay store I'm almost surprised at how easy it is to sell inventory.  

There really seems to be a number of people who want items RIGHT now from a reliable seller with good reputation, etc. etc.  I think that the non-negotiable fixed price cures them of their bidding "indecision".  I also think that sometimes people WANT to pay more.  Then they can say to themselves (or their friends) : " Look, this Twilight 2000 game cost me $35 and it's in perfect shape!"

 If  they won it on the cheap for $11 in an auction, they might feel that the item wasn't really WORTH anything.


Anyway, just some thoughts . . .

I totally agree, I sell stuff exclusivley through my store now and its great!
I am never disapointed at the final price and I have many return buyers.  I mostly sell miniatures (only a 100 items or so) and it is great fun.  The best part is if things get a little to busy, you can suspend operations with a single touch of a button until you catch up.

I will probaly never get as many items up as badmike but he does it full time.  I just do it to get cash to spend on more stuff!

Badmike wrote:There is a name for that and I cannot recall it right now...

Folly?

Beyondthebreach wrote:Just an observation, but this thread seems appropriate to post it to . . . I really believe that sometimes people LIKE paying more money.  I've always done pretty well with my auctions, but after opening an ebay store I'm almost surprised at how easy it is to sell inventory.  

There really seems to be a number of people who want items RIGHT now from a reliable seller with good reputation, etc. etc.  I think that the non-negotiable fixed price cures them of their bidding "indecision".  I also think that sometimes people WANT to pay more.  Then they can say to themselves (or their friends) : " Look, this Twilight 2000 game cost me $35 and it's in perfect shape!"

 If  they won it on the cheap for $11 in an auction, they might feel that the item wasn't really WORTH anything.


Anyway, just some thoughts . . .

Oops.  I have bought a few items from ebay stores.  I feel a bit dumb now.  

red_bus wrote:
Oops.  I have bought a few items from ebay stores.  I feel a bit dumb now.  

Well, no need to feel dumb . . . there are still good deals in stores.  Not everyone and everything is way overpriced!

And sometimes it's the only one on ebay and you just don't want to wait around . . .