Ebay Alternative Sites (Vanity open for discussion and advice)

me | Me

[LowOiL]

I am looking to switch auctions sites away from Ebay since they have made huge monatiary demands upon small sellers like myself. I have only heard of bidville.com and yahoo.com auctions. I was not impressed with yahoo.

I am in need of good freeper advice please. I know that the buyers will not follow as quick as the sellers, but I figure that eventually the buyers will go where the action is. So I don't mind slower sells for a while.

[LowOiL]

Any and all advice appreciated in this vanity thread. I am logged on as far as I know.

Hey JimRob, thinking of going into the auction business anytime soon let me know.

[LowOiL]

Opps, it posted before I got to spell check it... Ouch...that is going to hurt.

[Cagey]

Anything gun related.........gunbroker.com

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

Oh this is a good idea. Ebay is just getting too expensive.

[LowOiL]

I noticed there was a petition going on with about 17,000 names on it already.

[sinkspur]

Have you checked out ubid.com? I know nothing about its costs, however.

[LowOiL]

Never heard of Ubid . Perhaps someone will chime in on it's ups and downs.

[Defendingliberty]

Yahoo has a site.

[LowOiL]

I looked over Yahoo a while back and it has some "iffy" sellers on it. I get the feeling those thrown off Ebay defected to Yahoo. Perhaps things have changed, I hope so.

[beckysueb]

I certainly hope someone comes up with an alternative to ebay. I have tried yahoo auctions as a buyer and I wasn't real impressed either. It took a long time for me to get my items. If you find something, let us know. I, for one will check it out. I buy alot through ebay but I would be more than glad to switch if they could come up with a good alternative.

[LowOiL]

I will leave Ebay with over 300 all positive feedback (and one nuetral from an idiot). I loved Ebay, but there is no need to put more food on their table while mine is bare. Their rates are foolish IMHO...

[EllaMinnow]

Overstock.com is doing auctions now. I registered with them, but I havent auctioned anything there yet.
My inventory is very specific, and my ebay niche works so well for me that I hesitate to switch.

[beckysueb]

I know. My daughter is an ebay seller. She said they are killing the goose that was laying the golden egg.

[beckysueb]

I just checked it out. Doesn't look too promising. I clicked on an item that looked interesting and the shipping was outrageous.

[LowOiL]

I never could understand Sellers that charged very little for their item ,but killed the buyer with shipping/handling fees. I guess they got more views with a lower starting price, but I look at the whole picture when purchasing an item.

Heck, I use priority mail and they provide the boxes and tape, it is not like I can't produce some newspaper to wrap the items in (if they need it). Some sellers take advantage of new buyers IMHO with small details on shipping/handling costs. That is a shame.

[rwfromkansas]

how much are they raising rates? I heard it was ridiculous (and the rates already were high....I thought about listing some stuff, but since they were cheap items, I didn't find the listing cost worth it).

[rwfromkansas]

I wish ebay included the shipping in the total price, so when you are browsing through all the items, you don't click on one that looks low only to be deceived by how expensive it really is with shipping added.

[LowOiL]

Auction giant Ebay announced plans to boost the monthly fee it charges sellers by 60 percent.

For a typical item selling on Ebay for $100.00, Ebay will collect 8 percent of the first $25.00 of the sell price and 5 percent of the remaining $75.00 of the sell price, or a total of $5.75 of the $100.00 purchase price. In addition, Ebay also derives a fee of anywhere from $0.40 to $1.00 per listing depending on the selling features the buyer selects.

Should that $100.00 purchase also be paid for using Ebay's PayPal service, Ebay will the earn another $3.50 on that transaction, bringing Ebay's total commission on the sale to $10.25 of an item selling for $100.00.

Ebay announcement letter

Some eBay sellers lash out over fee increase

eBay shares slip after word of fee increase

eBay "outperform," estimates raised

[js1138]

Have you checked out ubid.com? I know nothing about its costs, however.

I wouldn't buy from UBid if it were the last auction site on earth. They allow bids after the auction closes, giving the seller an opportunity to buy their own stuff if the price is unexpectedly low.

When an auction closes it should stay closed. There is a significant cost in one's time to buy through auction rather than retail. If there is no hope of getting a bargain, there's no point in participating. If you can't tell when the last bid has been placed, there's no point in trying.

[SoDak]

I'm not sure what it costs for your sellers, but I shop ebay regularly, like every week. I have noticed that some sellers are charging huge bills for shipping items these days, presumably to make up for the selling commission. I nearly bid on a set of poker chips the other night and noticed at the very last moment a shipping charge of something like $50 in the fine print at the bottom of the page. That's the first thing I check now.

[LowOiL]

I wish ebay included the shipping in the total price, so when you are browsing through all the items, you don't click on one that looks low only to be deceived by how expensive it really is with shipping added.

Good Idea, but it would be hard to post an amount on multiple items (if you were allowed to buy numerous items in the same auction) and since shipping is often determined by zip code to zip code distance, very hard to do I bet.

Often on my auctions I will set a price on shipping that covers most of the US (some will cheaper for me to mail to, some will cost a little more). Buyers like to know before they click "yes". Priority mail has a great one rate package of $7.70 anywhere in the US mainland and for any weight in the box. I wish they offered that in more sizes so I could put more exact shipping costs on my auctions.

[LowOiL]

Sending you FReepmail. Please take the time to mention on this thread what you think about my shipping rates. Shop around is all I can say.. there is great prices out there, but my great prices are going elsewhere.

[SoDak]

Your shipping rates are more than reasonable. If one is shopping for smaller items on ebay, watch the shipping, you should easily be able to tell if you're being gouged on it.

[beckysueb]

I'm not sure but my daughtewr was upset because they don't get alot for their stuff either and ebay listing fees, ebays cut of the sale,photo fees and Paypal fees eats up most of their profits. The listing fees alone are up to around 3.00 or more now.

[beckysueb]

I know and I have come across items for a penny with a very high shipping fee. It was plain the seller was circumventing the fees.

[dalebert]

Maybe a site where the buyers and sellers pay a membership fee instead of listing and selling fees might work.

[LowOiL]

BTTT, hopefully this tread will catch on with a few more inputs by tommorrow.

[beckysueb]

That would be the best thing. Last week, I won 2 auctions for new Home Interior stuff for 99 cents each and these items had cost 15.00 to 30.00 new. By the time the seller paid all the fees, she lost a lot of money. I feel guilty for taking her stuff at that price.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

ebays cut of the sale,photo fees and Paypal fees eats up most of their profits.

I can help with the photo hosting fees!

Go to this website:
Tiny Pic Photo hosting

You can upload digital photos of your product from your own PC and they will then instantly provide the URL and the HTML tag that you can copy and paste right into your listing. With very little HTML know-how, you can size your listing photos to whatever size you need when creating your listing.

And it's all FREE!!! No registration, no cost, no hassle. It is very cool. Try it out by posting a pic from your PC on FR. Here's one that is on mine that I just posted on Tiny Pic. It takes only seconds to do it.

[beckysueb]

I think ebay has a block or something where it won't let you post from other sites. I know they give my daughter 2 free pics then its so much for each one after that.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

I think ebay has a block or something where it won't let you post from other sites.

Not true. I do it all the time. Though I have yet to use TinyPic.com to host my product pics, I use a couple of other free hosting sites as well as my own Comcast server space that my ISP gives me. All you need to do is put the HTML tag in the section where your description goes when building the listing on eBay.

So, at the end of your description, to get 3 photos in your ad, you would place a string that looks like this:

<img src="http://www.tinypic.com/your-photo1.jpg">
<img src="http://www.tinypic.com/your-photo2.jpg">
<img src="http://www.tinypic.com/your-photo3.jpg">

That's it. Ebay doesn't block that type of HTML code in a listing. And with TinyPic.com, you don't have to worry about clearing off the pics from the server when the auction ends. Just upload it and forget it.

[jhah]

Here is the BEST alternative to eBay I have found and they are gaining popularity quickly. FREE auction listings and final value fees. Free featured auctions too. they are TraderSoup Go to http://www.tradersoup.com and check them out....like you said it will take some time to gather the buyers and even the dedicated eBayers but when they realize how bad they are getting ripped off, they will convert and I hope TraderSoup blows eBay out of the water! JMO

[LowOiL]

Thanks for the hint on tinypic.com... I am using it now too. It is just so simple, even simplier than using my own URL FTP program...

[bikinipatrol58]

ya he is right thiss one of the best ebay alternatives and they have a new feature "Trade Auctions" or you can just choose from the other choices. they also respond to your questions quickly unlike most other online auction sites.

[LonGJohnson]

I'm waiting to see if the Buzz pays off for the owners of www.gorage.com from what I see it is going to make a dent in the online world It's not an Auction site and its not launched yet but what I've seen (from poking around) it is going to be a nice change.

[ToddRex]

I checked out that http://www.gorage.com site. It looks well designed and like a site that is truly trying to make a run at it. It is also free to sell on with the promotion code they have on their homepage. I'm going to try it out. Can't hurt...it's free.

[bubba1955]

For a good general purpose auction site, many my friends are go to:Quty.com

They have many varied categorys like ebay and no list fees but just 3% end fees.

Hope this helps! =]

[bannie]

You have to go where the buyers are...unfortunately, that is eBay.