On and off I’ve been selling stuff on eBay for decades. They were the market leader and I was there as they slowly deconstructed their own appeal. People use the phrase “slow car crash” too much but we all knew where it was going, the sellers. Advantage the buyer, absolutely. I know I can buy on eBay with confidence. But the sellers?
The rot set in properly when they introduced “Variable selling fees” aka incomprehensible fees for sellers based on maths that, if you tried to ask about them (and I did) you got patronising replies basically telling you you aren’t good enough at maths and it’s all very easy. So that persisted for years while everyone was shedding to Etsy and then Vinted and still the one time market leader couldn’t understand who they were alienating. “Buy Gold for the Price of Silver,” they put on a fucking billboard, and as someone with gold to sell I knew not to go there. “Buy good things without the business markup” sure…. But the point of eBay was transference. We put our things there, they go for what people want to pay. Nothing is worth more than what someone will pay. They connected the item with the someone.
It needs to work hard to get back. Finally now they have shifted their “You need to be a math genius to understand our fees” stance and they let us list for free, which is what I would do anyway just by waiting for the free listing weekends. This is likely because they’ve spent so long servicing their buyers that they lost their sellers, not just with ridiculous fees and policies but also just with obviously giving no shits.
So I listed a bunch of magic cards and some other stuff. And people still check it. But it’s not what it was. Well watched items were sniped for tits all. One guy made an early bid and then cancelled it at the end of the sale saying “Found it cheaper elsewhere”. It was a £4.99 card worth £12. I accepted the cancel but honestly he can go fuck himself.
Tomorrow I’ll have to do all the nice packaging, and so many of the people who buy this stuff are neurotic – it’s like selling clothes – I realised I can tell them “Stop taking the piss, I said it was LP and that takes in edge damage,” but when I tried to sell clothes and patterns I got so much crap and so much stuff returned and I couldn’t speak the language and the fucking buyer wins on eBay, every argument, every time.
I’ve eaten shit for dozens of neurotic arseholes. I bought something from a trader recently and he apologised in advance that it wasn’t in quite the condition he described and sent me a load of free shit. I didn’t give a fuck. But he knows how it works on eBay and there are always arsehole buyers exploiting the advantage to the buyer thing.
But yeah, I’m back listing things when I have a moment. I hated the variable selling fee bullshit so much I stopped for years. It seems they’ve finally realised the extent to which they alienated us. You can’t provide a buying service if nobody wants to sell. Incomprehensible fees and a mission statement where people could get things cheaper than they should be. Your things that you care about. Gold for the price of silver? Ptoooie
AlBarclay 