DLMunky said:
Ebay is great when you are buying but when you are selling Ebay is the biggest rip off on the face of the earth. I said that as nicely as I can!
The thing with eBay is it's NOT a seller's market, it's a
buyer's market. It's that way because there are so many sellers, that the law-of-supply-and-demand rarely functions. The ratio of buyers-to-sellers may be the same, but every buyer has such a large selection that the number of buyers effectively becomes unimportant, and for S/D purposes is effectively 1. Which yes, does suck for the sellers in many cases.
The reason it sucks for the seller is they can't make a significant profit on a sale. If they are any significant amount over what they need to get, someone else will be selling AT that price instead of you, and they will get the sale. This tends to make prices extremely flat across ebay, where you can find the same item being sold by 20 different people for almost exactly the same price.
You have a better chance at clearing a better margin if the item you are selling is uncommon. This actually ends up working in the
seller's favor. Lets say you have a vintage item to sell, and they show up on ebay maybe once a week. (for ebay purposes, that's pretty uncommon) If you list the item for a long duration, even at a higher price you are likely to sell it. In this case, there is statistically one seller, and many buyers. The tables are turned. Even at a substantial markup, if there are an average of 20 people a day looking for the item, it won't take long for a sucker, a desperate person, or someone that doesn't care much about cost to turn up and buy it from you. The fact that there are much cheaper listings showing up regularly doesn't matter in the long run. I've seen amazing examples of this effect when hunting for something. There would only be one or two of my item for sale, and at much higher prices than I am willing to pay. (and these are long-term listings, may have been up for several weeks and have several weeks to go, listed as buy-it-now) I search completed listings, and find my expectations agree with most of the prior closed auctions. But among them there's a few that went for significantly more. Often the one that got the higher price sale is the same person that currently has one up for sale. Checking that seller's history, he evidently has a number of them, and keeps one up for sale at that higher price, and sells one every three weeks or so, immediately listing another when he does, at that same high price. (he may even be BUYING them off ebay when others sell them cheaper! to be sold later for a profit)
And there's a whole different method to intelligent buying, but that's off-topic here for now. Suffice it to say though, if you're not doing well on ebay, as a buyer OR a seller, you're probably
doing it wrong. I've been using ebay almost since the day it started, and I've done just fine as both a buyer and a seller.
