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When something says reserve not met what exactly does that mean? I know it means that the person selling has a set limit that he wants, but why bother with a low bid? Can they sell it to you fo ryour high bid even if you didn’t meet the reserve?
The bummer about the reserve is that you don’t know how much it is! I’d rather have a set starting bid. I guess it might discourage some buyer, but with the reserve, you’re forced to bid sometimes maybe more than you want.
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http://www.sarahjestin.com/feedbacklists.htmI THINK Ebay charges you depending on how high you set your reserve, plus they charge you a final value fee(a percentage of what your item sells for) they charge an insertion fee of $1 or $2, and I think they charge you on how high you start your bid, even with a reserve. I know $0.99 and under is free or maybe $0.01, and over $50, its something like $10 or $20. I dont know why anybody sells on ebay. Then paypal charges you to receive money….the whole thing is a scam, if you ask me.
WolfenMachine wrote:I THINK Ebay charges you depending on how high you set your reserve, plus they charge you a final value fee(a percentage of what your item sells for) they charge an insertion fee of $1 or $2, and I think they charge you on how high you start your bid, even with a reserve. I know $0.99 and under is free or maybe $0.01, and over $50, its something like $10 or $20. I dont know why anybody sells on ebay. Then paypal charges you to receive money….the whole thing is a scam, if you ask me.
That’s just how they make their money. They’re up-front about it, so why would it be a scam? You’re paying for the service of having a customer pay you INSTANTLY instead of waiting weeks for a check or money order. It’s cheaper than setting up a merchant account with a major credit card company and they offer nearly the same thing. 🙂
People sell on eBay because there is no place out there like it. There are other auction sites, but very few are free, and eBay gets the biggest audience by far. When you create a listing on eBay you are basically setting up a temporary web site, which uses space and bandwith on their servers. While I grumble about the fees being too high, I realize that they have to charge something to pay for all their equipment, staff, and bandwith.Volunteer mod- I'm here to help! Email me for the best response: nambroth at gmail.com
My art: featherdust.comWell maybe ‘scam’ wasn’t the appropriate word, but I remember when you could list anything on eBay for $2.00 and that was it, back in the day. I mean, even with that, that’s somewhere way above and beyond $200,000 per DAY, probably. I think that would be plenty money for them to get their cut, but charging you on how high you want to start your bid? That’s ridiculous. And charging again if your $0.99 item goes up to $999-greedy. If I’m wrong on anything, let me know, but that’s how I understand it works.
Ebay has a LOT of employees. The full-time salaries of a couple hundred people takes a chunk out. Then there’s all the computer stuff, and on top of that of course they want to make a profit.
Honestly, if you don’t like ebay you’re perfectly free to go sell somewhere else. I find their prices completely reasonable for what you get.
You also have to add in building rent or if they own their buildings they still have maintenance and I’m sure their PG&E bills are HUGE. From what I understnad they also have people all over the world working for them now
WolfenMachine wrote:Well maybe ‘scam’ wasn’t the appropriate word, but I remember when you could list anything on eBay for $2.00 and that was it, back in the day. I mean, even with that, that’s somewhere way above and beyond $200,000 per DAY, probably. I think that would be plenty money for them to get their cut, but charging you on how high you want to start your bid? That’s ridiculous. And charging again if your $0.99 item goes up to $999-greedy. If I’m wrong on anything, let me know, but that’s how I understand it works.
I think Ebay is like any other business — they charge as much as they can, to maximize their profits. In the beginning, Ebay might have had to charge less and even operate at a loss just to build up a customer base (kind of like the way Sony is selling the PS3’s at a loss right now so that they can build up a customer base who will buy their software later, which is where they expect to make their money). But since Ebay is now the premier electronic marketplace, they’re in a really strong position, and they can definitely charge more than they “have” to. But of course that would change if/when they have a really strong competitor…look at the way the microprocessor prices have dropped dramatically over the years due to the competition between AMD and Intel…
I’m also pretty sure that if any of us had come up with the e-bay idea we would not be arguing with anything right now. E-bay all started with a guy looking for one thing and he put out messages trying to find what he was looking for and now it’s a HUGE company run out of the SF Bay Area.
It is a very handy tool. The only thing I dont like is that they charge you for listing an item, and take a percentage of the win, THEN, if the buyer pays through Paypal…they take a cut of that, too. It is worth it, overall, but I think they are a bit greedy.
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