FormCritic wrote:
And then come the lawsuits.

No doubt, the federal government will find a way to tax internet sales sooner or later.  They've been itching to get at that revenue source since the early days when Bill Clinton began running it past his focus groups.

States might find it harder to do.  Logically, a seller is always located in one state or another.  Therefore, a sale has to take place somewhere even if it means shipping iron ore from Kansas to New Mexico.

Internet sales would move...overseas or to dead airspace or Communist China or just about anywhere.

Federal government?  They don't tax the sale of products anyway . . . why would they be involved in internet sales?  That is State Tax.  

NY State began taxing internet sales years ago . . . State Laws were passed . . . all of your large sellers (Amazon, Wal-mart, Target, Best Buy, etc. etc.) already charge state sales tax to buyers in NY.

Further, when you do your State Tax return, you need to claim all of your online/out-of-state purchases for which you didn't pay sales tax and then pay it to NY when you file your taxes . . .

. . .  of course, the state knows that people have no idea what they spent throughout the year and don't have receipts, nor can the state prove anything.  However, the state makes a nice little chart that corresponds the amount you owe based on your income level.   So, you just look at the chart, determine that you can get yourself fair-and-square with the State of New York if you pay the required amount (usually somewhere between $20- $50) and then you can live guilt free knowing that you have done your part, the State won't audit your for internet purchases (not that they would have anyway) and the State gets all this "voluntarily" donated tax revenue simply by adding one line to the return and having the residents send in their cash (or deduct it from their return).

Of course, I always did it myself, so I shouldn't criticize, but to be honest,I bought so much on ebay that the real amount would have been a hundred times what I had to give them.

FormCritic wrote:
Sooner or later, the feds will find a way to make you pay.  The revenue stream is too good not to find a way to takel some of it...as Sauromation has pointed out.

That's kind of pessimistic don't you think?  Before bothering with online sales, why not just add a federal sales tax to all items sold in each and every state?   That's a much better revenue stream!!!

I guess I don't have a problem with the NY thing (even though I don't live in the state anymore).  As I said, I technically owed a hell of a lot more sales tax than I paid, so I can hardly complain.  No one likes paying taxes and NY is about the worst state out there for it, but it is the law . . .

On the other hand, people like my father who still don't have a computer and don't spend one single penny on out of state or online purchases are still free to write $0 in the amount owed, which he does.  

I could have wrote, $0 too, but that's a lie and I try to be honest, after all.  

I wanted to try and continue an old thread instead of completely restarting a theme which has been discussed often; eBay bone-head changes.  First, it seems like eBay fees are higher than ever, but eBay has been making some smart moves.  For one, they've been offering more free listings to sellers, at least they have for me.  I haven't paid a fee to list anything in a year or two.  One thing I learned from Badmike is that sellers are buyers, and the more sellers there are, the more buyers eBay will have.

The issue that leads me to write today is their change to make all their promotional free listings auction-only.  On the plus side, they are also offering the 10-day auction option also for free, and they have a new feature where, if a listing doesn't sell, it will automatically re-list for free three more times.  Therefore, once you list an item for free, it'll stay up on their site for 40 days or until it sells.  When they started this automatically re-listing feature, it worked on fixed-price listings too meaning an item could stay up for 120 days.     Not bad.

It is my belief that eBay made this promoting-auctions change to reduce fixed-price listings.  In the second quarter of this year, eBay had a decelerating growth rate for sold items, to 9 percent from 11 percent.  It is obvious that more and more sellers were moving to fixed-price listings, but the current auction listing structure allows sellers to simply make "auction" listings work just like a fixed-price listing since sellers can simply make the starting price their de-facto fixed price.  However, since the Buy-It-Now price for auctions has to be at least 30% higher than the starting price, many buyers either aren't going to pay the Buy-It-Now price or wait until the auction is over.  Most customers today want an item now.  Sure, buyers can put in the minimum bid and wait until eBay alerts them that they have won the item, but most buyers aren't that patient, savvy or both.  At a minimum, eBay should change their policy to make it so Buy-It-Now prices have to only be 20 percent higher than the starting price, or maybe less.

The bottom line is that, eBay is shooting itself again by failing to think dynamically.  By only promoting these "auction" listings, that are effectively not auction-like at all, they have now cut the number of days an item will stay up on eBay by a third, and made items that are up on eBay less attractive for many buyers.  Way to go eBay.  

I miss the free fixed price listings too - even though I never got the 3-month relist for free (maybe US only?).  It was nice to deal with list once a month, then forget about it until next month.

I think this was a policy mainly instituted to complete with Amazon.  I hope Ebay has done some tests such as looking at the percentage of auctions that sell compared with fixed-price listings that sell and that those numbers would suggest this is good move.  The trouble with places like Ebay is that they always have to keep innovating or trying things to see if it will be better - sometimes that works out, other times not.

If you look at their stock prices for the last 5 years, they have risen from $21 to about $53 and for the last year have been up and down in the $50-$57 range so I guess time to try something new.

FoulFoot wrote in Ebay about to shoot itself again:Another example of a company that enjoyed a near-monopoly in their market (Microsoft, IBM, Yahoo, etc), only to whittle it away by A) becoming too greedy, B) making poor strategic decisions, and C) failing to identify what their customers want, and adapt accordingly.

Fortunately for eBay (unfortunately for the world), they still have a monopoly on online auctions.  People want stuff right now, yes, but even more importantly they want to get a good deal -- fixed-price listings don't cater to that.

Foul

At least John Donawhore isn't acting president of Ebay anymore.  His appointment as president in 2008 coincided with the introduction of idiotic policies that sent sellers away in droves and led to reduced sales for anyone but the giant mega-listing companies.   Only since his stepping back in 2011 has the company begun slowly bringing sellers back to the marketplace and turned into a place to make money again for sellers.  Unfortunately all they need to do is appoint another asshole like Donahue at some point to ruin it again.

For reference, Donafuck was the moron who came in as the hand-picked successor of Meg Whitman having never really worked a day in his life, straight from a venture capitalist firm. He immediately began a three year plan to re-make Ebay into Amazon.  He hated auctions as he considered that low class and silly. He detested the "garage sale" look of ebay and envisioned a future where only goods from large companies were sold on ebay at fixed prices (eliminating smaller mom and pop sellers).  He actively courted mega-sellers and retailers to use ebay and instituted numerous fees and charges that mainly impacted smaller sellers.  He said Ebay ran on buyers not sellers and began instituted buyer friendly policies that on the surface looked great but chafed sellers because they were always "wrong" and caused many to leave the marketplace.  Because paypal was part of ebay and paypal continued to gain more money and more customers it looked like a brilliant success.  However after a few years volume on ebay sales had dropped precipitously and basically Paypal was supporting the entire ebay division, a fact not unnoticed by the financial mags and Wall Street Journal.  When they finally split Paypal from Ebay fully, it became apparant Ebay was under-performing tremendously, John Shithead stepped back and a new president was appointed who slowly but surely began rolling back most of the seller unfriendly policies and has slowly increased volume and sales since 2011.  As someone who has sold online since 1994 and on ebay since 1998, I consider Donadumfuks tenure as the "dark days" and I have the sales receipts to prove it, the least money I've made selling online in that three year period than any other.  

Mike B.

Sellers don't like fixed price listings because generally they like to sell items and make money but inveitbaly fixed price listings are way overprived so it seems like a shot in the foot on the part of the seller. Like this for example...when there are several others at lower prices already on the market.  
** expired/removed eBay auction **
I guess if you are willing to let the item rot around for a while then fixed price listings will eventually sell but I've never understood the exorbitant prices of BIN's, although when you see them sell it is hard to argue. I do think they have their place from time to time, although usually at the expense of the seller and not the buyer. Many of us have cringed after seeing a rare item go at an insanely low BIN price. And, sometimes a BIN is the only way a buyer can pick up the item for a little more without the auction gettinging out of hand, not quite a deal persay but the they do get the item.As mainly a buyer, sure auctions are where the deals are at on ebay, personal collections even better; Amazon and deal don't even belong in the same sentance when regarding collectible items. I'm glad to hear from the sellers in this community there is a return to the original idea in the ebay selling philosophy, or at least a start. Too bad when I created my ebay acccount many years ago I never thought to look for d&d items.

cabala wrote in Ebay about to shoot itself again: I've never understood the exorbitant prices of BIN's, although when you see them sell it is hard to argue.

Some of it may exist to lure customers. Customers see an interesting item, so their curiosity is piqued to look at all the other items the seller has. The item that drew them in is overpriced, so they don't buy that, but maybe they buy something else. For this purpose the lure should be overpriced, because if someone buys it then the seller has to find another rare item to serve as a flashy lure.

Versimilitude wrote in Ebay about to shoot itself again:Hi,

I have also noticed social network sites taking over from Ebay.

For example, the last time I saw an ST1 *sold* was thru Facebook.

Cheers,
KAJ

I have seen this too, and Facebook works pretty well to sell some items.  One of the niche's Facebook owns over eBay is in the sale of guns and gun-related items for a lot of states.  There are certain limitations, but none too serious, at least in Georgia.

Craigslist works well with furniture and cars, items that are heavy and/or cumbersome to ship.

Currently, when I buy out a seller of a large rpg lot, I start out promoting everything on this and Dragonsfoot's classifieds for about a month and then put everything else up on eBay.  That way, I reduce my eBay fees and increase the value of these web-sites.  One of eBay strengths is its appeal to collectors.  

I don't want to jack this thread, but I only recently found the buy/sell rpg groups on Facebook.  I've never been a huge Facebook fan anyway.

Can someone point me to some good groups to join?