Moderns that are heating up on ebay! 71 71

[davidking623]

On 9/26/2023 at 12:40 PM, captainzombie said:

It has gotten out of hand with eBay. I also sell used auto parts on there and am one of the larger sellers. Their mission to copy Amazon in many ways and mismanagement has caused them their downfall.

They are not organically growing their business and relying on Promoted Listings to show a profit to their shareholders. It is very sad.

Figure between Promoted Listings, Promotions, Free Shipping, Free 30 Day returns, and then also add having to fend off false SNADs left and right it doesn't help at all.

Promoted listings it seems laughable to me to absorb that fee also , actually unreal in the thought process of taking that fee on also , I never have . Your right though they are never growing the business they are chasing sellers away , who (sellers) figure why ? They leave .

[Dio17]

Quick question for you veteran sellers; when you refer to slabs being overdone, ( and yes, comic book stores I’ve visited seem to have acquired multiple boxes of blue label slabs which just seemed to magically appear lately ) are you also referring to signature series slabs? Would you say the signature slabs in the BA & MA are overdone also or do they seem to better hold their value? Appreciate your input. 

[Lightning55]

On 9/26/2023 at 3:22 PM, davidking623 said:

Something I don't yield to , the free shipping . I find it a interesting ploy trying to punish me for charging shipping as they keep my fees high for final valuation fees

Whether you charge for shipping, or build in the same amount for a higher Free Shipping total, the Final Value Fee is the same.

[captainzombie]

On 9/26/2023 at 3:44 PM, Lightning55 said:

Whether you charge for shipping, or build in the same amount for a higher Free Shipping total, the Final Value Fee is the same.

That is correct. It is even worse too now as it feels like such a race to the bottom with prices on anything that it just screws things up. You used to be able to bake in the cost of shipping into the price, that is even getting harder and harder as people want the cheapest lowest price.

I just had someone return a door mirror that they only paid $48 for and our shipping both ways is roughly $15. Their reason is because they got it cheaper. Now how much cheaper can they get this door mirror for is odd to me, since I also checked eBay and there weren't any other lower sales. Other thing is they went locally to a junkyard and pulled the part, but the cost of these mirrors at yards are $25-35 depending on the yard and then his gas and time. It's just the weirdest thing with how people are.

I had another guy want a slab today, so I checked GPA and GoCollect to get an idea of what the last few have sold at. He offers me about $30 less than what I was asking. After thinking it through, I'm like I am going to make a profit and then take his offer. He comes back and tells me he needs to think about it and will let me know. Why the hell haggle with someone and then when they meet your price you back out? People are getting weirder and weirder.

Edited September 26, 2023 by captainzombie

[Lightning55]

On 9/26/2023 at 4:57 PM, captainzombie said:

People are getting weirder and weirder.

Imagine a hundred years from now...

[davidking623]

On 9/26/2023 at 1:44 PM, Lightning55 said:

Whether you charge for shipping, or build in the same amount for a higher Free Shipping total, the Final Value Fee is the same.

That would be correct ! People that are just buyers and not sellers don't really understand that in it's entire nature and that really is a problem , they think they need free shipping , so that is why I don't budge on charging shipping .Also if a person succumbs to that way of thinking as a seller then he gives into the 30 day return policy and I am never doing that . So call me stubborn but I am not giving in to that . 

Edited September 26, 2023 by davidking623

[fastballspecial]

On 9/26/2023 at 10:31 AM, 1Cool said:

Selling common slabs on the boards is a nightmare if you don't want to give a 15 - 20% haircut in value.  People on the boards are frugal and will always want a deal unless it's a really hard to find book.  I agree selling on the boards gets a lot easier when you have a ton of raw books at a fair price (and even that can be hit or miss).

Yes and it also illustrates the point that slabbed comics are just a smaller portion of the comic book market. They just think they are bigger. I say this as an overall market. I realize some slab sales are massive.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by fastballspecial

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

On 9/26/2023 at 5:51 PM, davidking623 said:

That would be correct ! People that are just buyers and not sellers don't really understand that in it's entire nature and that really is a problem , they think they need free shipping , so that is why I don't budge on charging shipping .Also if a person succumbs to that way of thinking as a seller then he gives into the 30 day return policy and I am never doing that . So call me stubborn but I am not giving in to that . 

I generally think it's a good idea on eBay to take returns, with the cost of return shipping being the responsibility of the buyer. Offering returns I think gets you a slight decrease in fees (or some other benefit that I'm not remembering at the moment). Any buyer can claim the item isn't as described and return it anyway, and that's counted as a defect on the seller. It's not is it's an accepted return.

I wouldn't offer *free* returns though. I think there are too many consumers (not talking about comics, but merch in general) that will absolutely buy more than what they plan on keeping, and return what they decide not to keep, because it's no hassle to *them*, but seriously cuts into the profit of who they're buying from, if the seller isn't selling expensive items.

[PeterPark]

On 9/26/2023 at 3:40 PM, captainzombie said:

It has gotten out of hand with eBay. I also sell used auto parts on there and am one of the larger sellers. Their mission to copy Amazon in many ways and mismanagement has caused them their downfall.

They are not organically growing their business and relying on Promoted Listings to show a profit to their shareholders. It is very sad.

Figure between Promoted Listings, Promotions, Free Shipping, Free 30 Day returns, and then also add having to fend off false SNADs left and right it doesn't help at all.

SNADs?

[Lightning55]

On 9/27/2023 at 12:54 AM, PeterPark said:

SNADs?

Significantly Not As Described. 

Ebay's qualitative measure for the eligibility to return an item to a Seller whose return policy is "Does Not Accept Returns".  Basically got something that varies substantially from the description.

[davidking623]

On 9/26/2023 at 8:24 PM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

I generally think it's a good idea on eBay to take returns, with the cost of return shipping being the responsibility of the buyer. Offering returns I think gets you a slight decrease in fees (or some other benefit that I'm not remembering at the moment). Any buyer can claim the item isn't as described and return it anyway, and that's counted as a defect on the seller. It's not is it's an accepted return.

I wouldn't offer *free* returns though. I think there are too many consumers (not talking about comics, but merch in general) that will absolutely buy more than what they plan on keeping, and return what they decide not to keep, because it's no hassle to *them*, but seriously cuts into the profit of who they're buying from, if the seller isn't selling expensive items.

I like the way I do things its worked out for me , I do get what your saying though but getting less fees would involve 30 day return policy and I am not interested in doing that . Your talking about items not as described and return it anyway has not ever been my problem , so the way I have been doing things has worked for me quite well if I may add .

[Lightning55]

A lot depends on what you sell, and your volume level. My best years selling comics on eBay were about $200k per year. I offered 30 day Free Returns and 1 day shipping to become Top Rated+, to get the extra 10% off the fee total. So my $25k in fees per year became $22.5k, saving $2500. 

I had about 5 returns per year, costing me about $150 out of pocket. A couple were legit returns anyway, something wrong with the comic, so you can't even count those in the offset calculation. A few other returns also involved defects....the Buyers! But paying $150 to save $2500, yeah, no-brainer.

Different products like clothing, probably a heavy return rate. You would have to test, or look at your sales and return histories to make that decision. 

Now that I only sell casually, I pushed my handling time out to 3 days, which took me out of eligibility for the discount. I usually still ship in 1 day, but if I can't, I don't have to sweat it.

Since I was already in a non-discount situation, I changed to Buyer pays for the return. But I have been lucky enough not to have any returns (knocking on wood).

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

On 9/27/2023 at 3:23 AM, Lightning55 said:

A lot depends on what you sell, and your volume level. My best years selling comics on eBay were about $200k per year. I offered 30 day Free Returns and 1 day shipping to become Top Rated+, to get the extra 10% off the fee total. So my $25k in fees per year became $22.5k, saving $2500. 

I had about 5 returns per year, costing me about $150 out of pocket. A couple were legit returns anyway, something wrong with the comic, so you can't even count those in the offset calculation. A few other returns also involved defects....the Buyers! But paying $150 to save $2500, yeah, no-brainer.

Different products like clothing, probably a heavy return rate. You would have to test, or look at your sales and return histories to make that decision. 

Now that I only sell casually, I pushed my handling time out to 3 days, which took me out of eligibility for the discount. I usually still ship in 1 day, but if I can't, I don't have to sweat it.

Since I was already in a non-discount situation, I changed to Buyer pays for the return. But I have been lucky enough not to have any returns (knocking on wood).

That makes sense if you're doing that kind of volume, but my sales are significantly less than that.

[Lightning55]

On 9/27/2023 at 9:19 AM, GeeksAreMyPeeps said:

That makes sense if you're doing that kind of volume, but my sales are significantly less than that.

So are mine, now.

But I still offer Returns, just not Free Returns. I know some buyers won't purchase from a Seller who has a No Returns policy. Most of the time, I won't either. Plenty of others to choose from. 

[captainzombie]

On 9/27/2023 at 12:22 AM, Lightning55 said:

Significantly Not As Described. 

Ebay's qualitative measure for the eligibility to return an item to a Seller whose return policy is "Does Not Accept Returns".  Basically got something that varies substantially from the description.

It doesn't matter these days if you accept or do not accept returns, you still get nailed with those false SNAD's. We accept returns (have free returns due to the nature of the items we sell) and they are still there. Even well knowing that we have free returns, people still mark returns as if its our fault. It's wild.

[the blob]

Not that it really explains right now vs. why things were good 5 years ago, but I was at a millenial white collar wedding this weekend and it probably sums things up. Mid/early 30s professionals, deferring kids and home ownership while paying off massive student loans and hoping interest rates calm down. No wonder they don't have fun money for comics unless they were some sort of tech or finance bro. 

 

[the blob]

On 9/27/2023 at 2:11 AM, davidking623 said:

I like the way I do things its worked out for me , I do get what your saying though but getting less fees would involve 30 day return policy and I am not interested in doing that . Your talking about items not as described and return it anyway has not ever been my problem , so the way I have been doing things has worked for me quite well if I may add .

They're just going to say not described and demand a free return anyway, so why bother? 

[the blob]

On 9/25/2023 at 8:20 PM, captainzombie said:

I think that you are right with regards to the market being oversaturated with slabbed books. People were encapsulating all kinds of garbage and pushing it out the door. Instead of people using their head knowing that these low tier books should not be bought, were buying them thinking that they now have gold that will take them to the moon.

My personal opinion, if people have books and slabs that will have no true value I'd be working to dump those as soon as you can. At least try to break even, because I think that things will get very ugly in the coming year alone with just the economy that will also affect these books.

 

I am selling a (small) NYC apartment right now. Multiple offers, cash. over ask. Of course, a card bro isn't buying it. Is the economy about to tank or take off. No idea.

 

[davidking623]

On 9/27/2023 at 1:15 PM, the blob said:

They're just going to say not described and demand a free return anyway, so why bother? 

My system works well so I bother , I had a return once in 3 and half years where it was not my mistake ,probably 3-5 that post office threw the book up to the ceiling and let it land where it may ! If you allow returns so easy then yeah you get returns more often , but I guess that,s just a theory .

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

On 9/27/2023 at 4:59 PM, the blob said:

I am selling a (small) NYC apartment right now. Multiple offers, cash. over ask. Of course, a card bro isn't buying it. Is the economy about to tank or take off. No idea.

 

I'm also in NYC. I know multiple people that regularly get inquiries about the sale of their home, whether they're selling it or not. I think there are just a lot of people with money looking to buy real estate to rent out.