Do you buy or sell on ebay? If so, how's your recent experience?

Just wondering how others experience, whether buying or selling, is going at ebay these days.

I can’t speak for others, but I seem to be having an increasing number of issues there. Years ago it was simply great.

Now I seem to get so many fake items (don’t even think about batteries and flashlights from ebay), or sellers doing dubious and downright deceitful things like advertising certain shipping methods then using a cheaper one after the sale to save money for himself/herself.

I am absolutely sure that many sellers also get the bad end of the stick with bad buyers.

It’s as if the quality of people selling (and buying also) is going downhill.

Dunno. Maybe just me? :question:

My main complaint and reason I stopped selling on eBay is the fees. Now that they own PayPal, they combine to take like 30% off the top of anything I sell. I have only sold one thing on eBay in the last couple years, and the fees are still going up.

And I don’t buy from eBay because of the lack of item reviews. There are reviews for SELLERS, but not products. And most people who bought “3000 Lumen XM-L T6” don’t know or care what they bought, just that they bought it cheap and it shipped fast. AliExpress or any of the normal Chinese places at least have a review system for the PRODUCT where I can have some idea for whether the thing is authentic or not.

Craigslist has it’s own frustrations, but at least the price is the price there, and you can put your hands on the item before you pay your money. Though I understand CL is not a great option for certain areas and items.

So far I’ve had nothing but good experiences on Ebay. Just sold my first item today though, and the buyer is international so we’ll see if the trend holds or not.

I think EBay charges a 10% fee for selling and PayPal charges another 3%
You do also pay the 10% on the shipping cost

A lot of the Craigslist people around here tend to offer you 1/2 of the price you are asking, not all but a good number.

I have had at least 10 people call about a chain vice I have and say they will be right there to look/buy it and never show.

But you can get ride of things you no longer want/need.

You just have to understand most people are a bit off……………not all but some.

I suspect the % fee on shipping was the only practical way to stop the people cheating the system by selling items with a low price and high shipping. I remember seeing one seller who had cameras for $0.99 and $274.99 shipping. There’s still a lot of those listings but they’re not profiting from the attempt to circumvent fees like they used to.

Good point !!

1: As a buyer when i search for some larger items like a second hand computer monitor (i use the advanced search to set my preferences) ,But i cannot exclude the collect only items which are of no use to me as i don't have a car and there are a lot of them.

2: Also when you search by lowers price+delivery, lots of sells are using multiple option on what you what to buy instead of just one item, and they set an 99p item just to get to the top of the list, but when you are looking for a flashlight and think you have found a bargain at 99p but it turns out to be a cheap wrist strap or something, it`s a total waste of time.

3: I don't have a lot of money, but i cannot be bothered with auctions, people fighting over an item and driving the price up to stupid levels, when if you just searched a bit you can most of the time, find it quite a bit cheaper.

4: Ohh and you you get emails for a item that the time is about to run out on, But you delete the item from your watched list days ago.

5: And the old, your shopping basket is showing as having some items in it, Even though it is empty.

6: I just went over 600 buy`s from eBay and 99% of items were delivered without a problem and a lot were from China/Hong-Kong when i t took 2 weeks to get an item from a town 3 miles away.

7: And i am sure eBay seller mark an item as having been dispatched, even though it has not, And some have a tracking number and when checked it says the item has not yet been collected and it`s now a day later.

John.

THIS

I started noticing this a few months ago and it’s annoying. Just another step towards the bottom of the barrel.
This is the kind of stuff I’m talking about.
Thanks for bringing this up.

I just received an item today where the item listing was for 2….guess what….they sent one. It’s this kind of annoying nonsense.

I pretty much liquidated my Spyderco collection on ebay/paypal, garnering over $5K for my daughter’s wedding, plus a couple gold coins from my new wife’s generosity. Ebay/Paypal made a bunch from it. My rating never dipped below 99%.

check out ebay user 1chinook1

A few month’s later, I ordered a pair of Clarks Muckers boots and was sent a mousepad w/a slant eyed rat flipping me the finger. I tried to get relief from ebay and Paypal, butt was told to return the “wrong” item to Hong Kong/Shanghai/Shenzhen (don’t remember, don’t give a shit) at my expense, which I will NEVER do again.

I was lied to, denied my claim and treated as if it was my first transaction with them.

Well, it sure as hell was my LAST.

Well luckily I quit eBay before I ever got a mousepad instead of boots. it should be renamed eBay.edu for all the education you get on scams.

I made an user name that gives the impression that i am a policeman it keeps people honest the same way a life-size photo of a cop in a store has been proven to reduce shoplifting.

John.

I just check the seller feedback for last two or three months, and if there’s people saying they didn’t get their stuff, low quality , fake…. I would avoid that seller.

Yeah, I noticed the sellers with the lowest feedback usually have the cheapest prices, though not exactly cheap when you don't get what you paid for.

John.

I started using ebay right when they launched a long time ago, bought tons of stuff because back in the day this was one of the few platforms where you could get a deal (these purchases were auctions and the ended a lot cheaper than retail and there weren’t too many webshops for all hobbies around). eBay is also a great platform (still is) for collectors’ items - from double edge razors to coins or anything you can not buy in any store - the nations biggest yard sale.

Now, after a few years I needed to offload hundreds of items and this is where it got tricky:
Seller fees. Disputes (for no reason but mostly because buyer can’t read). Lost shipments. Returns. Buyers not paying. All the work of tracking, packing, shipping. So many questions for items/answering them.
And the items that couldn’t be shipped - some of the buyers who showed up… let’s say without ebay I would never let them into my house in the first place.
I ended up being a powerseller silver, my bank kicked me out (due to excess transactions against my private checking plan).

I am sure that 99% of sellers and buyers are great folks, but the remaining are what makes the platform sometimes not worth the effort.

Recent activities:
Good platform to purchase items not listed on AE or available at GB/GB/FT. Especially flashlight goods can be had, many brands have their eBay store, like Solarforce.

I find that Amazon can be cheaper than eBay a lot of the time when you compare prices, But a lot of eBay items have free delivery, while you have to pay £20 or over in the UK to get free delivery on any Amazon stocked items, Then Amazon slow walk free shipping items as they want everybody to pay for Amazon prime.

John.