Not sure exactly what my feelings are about this experience with FeeBay. I have recently sold several N-Scale items on FeeBay. I had advertised them with ioGroups N-Scale Yard Sale--Trainboard --Facebook and several other groups/websites, NO reply from anywhere. And I had given out a [ I thought] good price. Nothing but crickets for replies. So I figured, lets try FeeBay one last time. Had questions about item details immediately and sold for around $300! Shipped out and was received by the Buyer with no problems noted. Now FeeBay took almost $45 in fees. FeeBay takes a portion of the shipping charges too. I don't make $ on shipping at all. Not sure on how to look at this? I'm NOT a full time Seller, on FeeBay, just wanting a bigger audience. FEELINGS about this people/
I have always been a buyer, the few times the site was used. The devil is always (hidden?) in the details. Maybe complain to the site admin?
I quit selling on ebay years ago, the fees were just too excessive. Their business model is one that clearly wants the garage sale seller to be gone - they want to be a storefront for small businesses it seems. I found that unless you are going to get serious money for your item, don't bother with ebay. The ebay fees, paypal fees atc. It all adds up, and fast. I had some sales of small items/minor things that went for an appropriately small sale price. By the time all the fees were taken, I actually lost money. I'm not kidding. I literally would have been better off just throwing it in the trash instead of selling it. And now add in the new $600 IRS reporting requirement - forget it!
Yeah, almost have to go full tilt on shipping, so you don't lose money! I mostly buy, selling anymore kills ya!
@Many Trains sums it up well. I don't know what eBay's management is thinking. Ther revenue has fallen 7% year-over-year. selling volume has fallen 11%, they just announced a reduction of 500 employees and yet they push ahead with their same failed strategy. Instead of its drive to rid itself of garage sale sellers, they should find a way to rid itself of "volume" sellers that post the same unsold overpriced trash month after month, year after year. This type of seller makes eBay a predictable bore, hardly worth a visit anymore because you already know what you'll find.
same here i quit selling on fleabay way to many fees....... now i just stock pile things in boxes .......
Well first of all if it wasn't selling, especially here, and you wanted to sell it and you did, that is a good thing. I just recently last year sold some items for the first time on there. I was smart enough to try an item I probably paid .10 .20 cents for my first item, but stupid to make it a starting bid at $1.00 Guess what the final bid was, you guessed it one dollar With shipping I think I broke even, but I also had 8-10 more of the same item. Haven't sold them yet though. Having learned my lesson or I thought, listed a few other items. Feel in the trap of the, if it's too good to be true, most of the time, something is going on. Learned a few more lessons, of many. Most people that list items at a low bidding price, have friends, or bogus accounts to make sure they don't sell below what that want. But mainly if someone sends you what you know is a bogus OFFER don't accept it. 99.9% of the time they will NOT pay you and they probably have a similar item for sale. As you can see a lot of learning took place. And still does. There is a ton of that kind of stuff happening on eBay! Now adding shipping and even worse tax to the total for their commission seems, not right at all, but it is what it is. Long story short, sorry about rambling. I sold my old gaming PC that I had for 3-5 years for almost 50% of what I had paid for it, after all the fees, which I never thought in a million years I would. Yes, I had the original gaming PC box, and shipping one of those via FedEx was not cheap, but they paid the price and the shipping. I was freaked about shipping such a large item and it getting there in one piece, it did, and in the end I got way more money then I though I ever would, and it worked out. Sold items that I had for years, plastic models, woo woo woo, electronics etc... that were just sitting around collecting dust. But the bottom line for any where you buy or sell items, be as careful as you can, but you could still end up having something go really wrong. Or in my case I figure I just got lucky the items I sold, and will be screwed some where down the road. I hope not, but it's the world we live in. And it's our choice to use whatever platform. YMMV of course!
@porkypine52 , out of curiosity, did you have to supply eBay with your S.S. number as a part of the sale? Just wondering if this was mandatory now with eBay's "managed payments" and IRS involvement on annual selling above $600.
You do have too at a certain amount over $600. And I am NOT a tax person, but me thinks it depends on whether items or New or Used, or something. Even if asked for that info at some point, you might not get a 1099 at the end of the year? I have no clue how it's works?
Ebay put off the $600 level for now. The reason ebay was taking the shipping as part of the sale is because some sellers were listing items for a low amount then making it up with super high shipping cost to avoid fees. I have been selling & buying since 1998 and my cost have gone from about 12% to close to 30% . I only sell items that are non breakable & easy to pack & ship. I own an Antique & Collectibles Shop so we must do some on line sales as our walk in sales dropped because of covid. https://www.facebook.com/RediscoverAntiquesCollectibles
If you take some time, and read through what background you can find on their leadership, you will learn that there is very little real world business retail or sales experience among them all. This explains one aspect for why they are stumbling. They've never experienced being "in the trenches" and gained that necessary feel for what their sellers endure. eBay needs to think of themselves as a giant shopping mall. The sellers within, leasing shop spaces. If this were true, they'd be struggling to survive, as there would be many vacancies due to their constant meddling with their lease holders. Instead, they see themselves as your business,itself. Big mistake. I quit selling fifteen years ago, when they tampered with the feedback system. (I have been aboard since July of 1997.) They had been tweaking this and that for many years, but were becoming ever more invasive of sellers abilities. My items were mainly small dollar amounts, so it was less and less worth my time and efforts. I know so many others from those same years past, who have dropped them, that it is sad to contemplate what they are losing in overall sales numbers. As it now stands, I would not touch their venue for any reason, as a seller. I have perhaps bought about two dozen items, since 2008, as those were unavailable anywhere else and eBay was a last resort. And so it shall remain.
While ebay was still forming many small communities, like Mukwonago, WI had there own little news papers. The rate to advertise sales was very small and most had internet links. I bought and sold a lot through them. Until they all got bought out by a big corporate news service, Gannett, even the bigger papers. That's when ebay, amazon and the others grew. That was the end of decency.
It's been 3 years since I sold anything on eBay, but like @BoxcabE50 , we've bought a thing or two since. As for selling, I figure that if I can't net $25 or more on a sale, it's not worth the hassle of photography, writing the description, responding to quirky questions, packing, standing in line at the PO and resolving occasional problems afterward. I suppose I could lessen the workload with crappy pictures and five word descriptions I commonly see.
THANK YOU to all who have replied. General reaction from everybody is the same as mine. FeeBay is OK, but could be much better. If Feebay would only differentiate between BIG TIME Commercial Seller, and ME, the guy that sell a few items every now and then. Shipping is NO problem at all with me. I will use FeeBay's USPS postage discount whenever I can. If not that I have a CLICK & SHIP account withe USPS, so I can print my own postage [Hint: try it--All it costs you is the postage amount NO fee's for using. VERY reasonable]. I guess the main thing again, that FeeBay has is the WORLD-WIDE audience. I guess it has it's use and place.
Also you don't have to stand in line at the Post Office, just use the self service Kiosk for most items. Now if they won't fit in it, but most items for model railroading will. I get a receipt at the Kiosk and also have one emailed to me. Not sure all of them have one, but bigger cities like I live near do? And I also have a USPS account but use the built in eBay accounts as I don't want something to go wrong, and easier to check everything within their system. But that's just me. Also people can't bid on my items unless they have an approved account, and no one with at least one Feedback. You can set this in settings. But that does not guarantee something can't or won't go wrong. You can only do your best, and hope everything goes alright! As far as buying, only a few items and always NEW. To date, I just don't trust most of the descriptions on USED items. Although many people here have said they got good deals at times. And sometimes, NOT! Once again, YMMV Good luck to Buyers and Sellers here!
Good Morning All! 29F @ 78% Ebay ... been a member since you could eMail Pierre. Was a wonderful find back then. He started 'Auction Web' in 1995 which was the pre-cursor to eBay. Have bought and sold stuff ever since ( more buying than selling in my case ). When he stepped down circa 2015, things started to go sideways. More seller fees, more restrictions, more more more. In my case, most of the time if I am selling it is 'old' to me item and I really don't care that I get top dollar for it. Ya, needs to be reasonable though. I would rather see somebody get my old thing, than just dumping it. So, I hoop jump doing the research and figuring postage. I have always used the eBay postage widget and ship 'actual postage'. Print my own labels and just drop stuff off at the local PO. I have been screwed more buying stuff than selling. And those times are pretty minimal; less than 3 times which is not bad for .. what 27 years of dealing with it. All in all you get out of it what you put into it. Oh, have had a Paypal account since it was x.com. Because it is so easy and secure it is the way to get ( or give ) money without hoop jumping. There are fees for just about anything in this world. As long as you know upfront, no big deal in the grand scheme of things. It has been about a year since I sold something and those transactions went well. I kinda got the feeling that changes were happening for the betterment of the sellers so I will find out in a few days as I have stuff to get gone. Some are kinda spendy as I am dumping the GPS's we have acquired during our OTR trucking stint. Phones are easy for navigation, so those GPS's need to go away before the rest of the world figures it out. Will find out more then. Later
