My girlfriend didn’t think selling on eBay was worth it anymore, which is why she closed down her little eBay business right around 2011.
She used to sell clothes and shoes on eBay a few years back.
She would buy stuff from wholesalers, then sell them individually.
After taxes, shipping costs, eBay fees, and of course, the cost of the product itself, she was making a few dollars on each item which was making it worthwhile for her, especially since she was doing it in her free time.
Little by little fees started becoming higher and higher, to the point where she was making less than a dollar on each sale and that really was not worth it.
At the same I noticed a lot of other small time sellers packing their bags as well, partly due to so many other better auction sites like eBay.
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It seemed like only the big guys were making a decent profit.
Table of Contents
Reduced eBay Fees in 2013
Although its been a few years, my girlfriend still doesn’t have an eBay store.
However, it seems like the capitalist market is once again working its magic!
In an effort to keep sellers from switching over to Amazon, eBay announced that it would reduce and simplify its fee structure in the spring of 2013, which it did to some degree.
But fees are not the only concerns.
There are different things that can make or break an eBay business.
As with most pursuits, there are positives and negatives associated with selling on eBay. Whether or not the negatives outweigh the positives, however, will depend on the specific circumstances of your situation.
Pros of selling on eBay
There are many advantages to using eBay as a platform to sell stuff. I think most vendors are drawn to this online auction site because of the following benefits.
- No special skills needed
The first major perk you’ll encounter is how easy it is to get started selling on eBay.
There’s no need to mess with HTML code trying to make your own site or to front the cash for the rent on a physical store.
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All that’s needed is a quick sign-up process to get your account and something you’d like to sell.
- Easy to list items
The way eBay is structured it provides a detailed list of instructions that takes you through the process of posting your items for sale one step at a time.
This process is so simple in fact that a number of cell phone applications have been created for it that allow you to create listings even when you don’t have an internet connection and then simply submit them once you find a Wi-Fi hotspot.
- You can sell anything
To be competitive on eBay will not require you to have flashy products available for sale. In fact, there are many individuals that make a decent living using eBay to sell things from around their own homes that they no longer need.
This is a great advantage as it means you won’t have to operate in the same manner (or for as much) as a big business.
- There is not much risk involved
It’s one of those businesses you can start with less than $100, or in some cases with just a few dollars (to pay fees and shipping costs). If there is anyone that is interested in becoming a seller on eBay they can always try it out without too great a level of risk.
You just sign up for an account and try selling some things from around the house that you don’t want or need any more. If it turns out that the life of an eBay vendor isn’t for you, it’s not something you have to stick with, but if it is, you’ll have already earned some money for purchasing more items stock.
Cons of selling on eBay
As with any endeavor there will be ups, and of course, there will be some downsides as well.
- Competition is stiff
Among the most daunting disadvantages of selling on eBay is the level of competition you’ll encounter on the site.
As was noted before, many people will sign up as sellers on eBay in order to create and extra revenue stream or completely replace their full-time income. This tends to end in a great deal of listings being posted for similar products and thus a higher level of competition.
- Less profit on popular items
While this is great news for those buying on eBay as it means more options and lower prices, as a seller this will likely mean that you’re not going to profit as much as you may have initially anticipated you would.
However, there is a way around this unfortunate fact.
You must find a relatively untapped market and fill the gap.
Of course, finding this untapped market will be challenging and require many hours browsing through the website. However, slower sales on your other products should afford you the opportunity to do this.
- A lot of fees
As a seller, you’ll also have the disadvantage of needing to pay fees both to use the site and as commission on your sales.
As time has progressed eBay has raised its fees a few times as it has restructured and streamlined the system.
Though the fees charged to sell items on eBay are typically very minor, they can still rain on the parade of those barely squeaking by on their profit margins.
These fees, of course, can be avoided by setting up your own website, however, a clever eBay vendor can find ways to avoid, minimize, or even use these fees to their own advantage.
For instance, you could post items with a starting bid that’s well below what you paid, minimizing the amount you’ll pay.
However each time you do this you take a risk of not reaping as great a profit or possibly even losing money on the deal.
Selling on eBay: Takeaway
Whether the pros outweigh the cons will depend entirely on what you decide.
Only you are familiar enough with your own situation, income needs, intended market, and available time and level of effort to make the decision to begin selling on eBay or to not.
Before you make your decision, be sure to look at all the relevant information so you can make an informed choice on whether or not selling on eBay is worth it for you.
Lol. Article totally wrong. Flawed. Out dated and missing the point of its title. Answer is a big red No. Fees. Competition especially from overseas even when saying they are local. Delays. Ever more endless hastling risky to the seller policies. Dodgy buyers and fraud. Anti seller policies. Little to no profit. Full of big supermarket sellers taking over…often at a loss below costs. Anti normal seller practises like reduced visibility. Etc etc. Only good for clearing old unwantet stock n accepting a loss.
Thanks for commenting, Lee.
No one is disputing the high fees, bad (for sellers) policies, and competition.
It all comes down to every seller’s unique situation (where they get their products from, how much it costs them, how much profit can they make after all the fees, etc), which is why at the end of the article I mentioned that its best to do your own investigation and base that decision on whether or not you can make a profit on eBay.
For some people it may not be worth it, but for some it will be as it is evident from hundreds of thousands of sellers who are still making money on eBay.
The competition is unreal. I started selling automotive power window motors in 2001 until about 2006. I had a dispute with Ebay over listing fees so I left Ebay. At the time there were approx. 700 listings for window motors..it was a relatively new category and I did very well. Fast forward to 2023. I considered jumping back in however, now there are now 664,000 listings for window motors! How does a little guy compete with this? As I scrolled through several hundred listings, it became obvious that the aftermarket giants have claimed this space.
The only people making money on Ebay are the criminal thieves who don’t pay for the actual item. But then they probably list it and don’t ship it so they make even more money.
ShitBay is Dead right now…has been for months, as of March 2024. Unless you “promote” your listings the time and effort invested in any one is 90 +% wasted. The fact shitbay is flat out null says they are still losing substantial buyers, and their deadness is progressively permanent. There are no viable “alternatives” because selling Online is hugely competitive and .biased against sellers. Shitbay sellers repel and drive off buyers via their exorbitant prices. Moderate and affordable vendors are necessarily ousted. shitBay deals the favoritism card big time. They bank their dying dinosaur on desperate, marginalized and unknown sellers.
Lee is correct. Your glass half full is too kind for eBay. You are missing something in your article rendering it totally inaccurate. One of the main reasons, if not THE main reason people list on eBay is the audience, first and foremost. Other auction or sales sites don’t compare to the garage sale mentality of the eBay shopper.
This is not about complaining, it’s about facts. The buyer fraud is now rampant but a carefully guarded topic by eBay. They’ve raised fees again, hidden in the small print. Even the Chinese aren’t dumping anything on there but real overstock. When they are in it to take a loss any small seller cannot win. There’s nothing you can search for that does not return the majority of the results “from China”.
What made ebay great in the beginning was the fact that it was NOT simply Alibaba or Amazon (who I equally despise). It was a small sellers venue. Often a one off seller of a drum set or mountain bike would list on eBay. Now it’s all about the “stores”. Ebay wants to turn itself into Amazons profitable revenue stream but they don’t know how.
Ebay, like so many other companies took the shareholder plan. Put revenue and profit to investors first, customers and employees second. Congratulations. Now they have a company prepared to give customers the shaft and employees who don’t give a damn. Welcome to shareholder capitalism eBay. When it was a Stakeholder site, putting customers and employees ahead of revenue tricks, it was real. Now it’s there to screw over it’s customers (the sellers) rake money from the shaft and hand it to non-working foreign investors. Follow the path of eBay’s demise and you are almost following the exact path of the American economies demise.
Greed f…ing sucks.
Thanks for taking time to comment, Todd.
I agree with most of what you and Lee say. What I am saying is that while eBay is far from what it once was, there are still some people (although very few) who can and are making money on eBay.
Not at all now, let me give you an examples
a. MSRP of some item is $60 + taxes = $64.95.
b. Compared how much others are asking for same item, it was $55
c. I listed it for $54 including free shipping and the item is sold in less than 10 hours.
d. I paid following
Paypal fee = $1.83
Ebay Fee = $5.40
Shipping = $5.25
———————-
Total cost of selling = $12.48 (23.11 %)
I got $41.52
Do you really get margin of > 23.11% even you buy items in bulk?
You still have to pay taxes on profits, if you are professional seller.
Consider if you buy items in bulk, you have to invest handsome amount and a risk.
Consider when you competitors like Amazon and Walmart are already selling thing pretty much lower than MSRP
I see your point, Priyank.
I guess that explains why nowadays most sellers seem to be from east Asia selling knockoffs of almost every brand. It costs them pennies to produce the product(s) in bulk, and so they have a lot of room to work with when it comes to profit margin.
If you don’t mind me asking, do you still sell on eBay or have you given up on that and moved to other platforms?
Thanks for sharing your experience, Priyank.
Ebay buyers really do have the “garage sale mentality.” For the price I wind up selling anything at all for, when I have to comp the shipping in order to sell it AT ALL, then hope the buyer actually PAYS me for it, EVER, I can almost not afford the packaging and to drive to the post office to post it. It’s like, selling on eBay is almost a loss on each item because of the time I have to keep it in storage while it DOESN’T sell. In order to sell anything I have to reduce my prices so low that it’s less than what I paid for the item – hence the phrase “garage sale mentality.” You can only afford to sell things on eBay that you got for absolutely FREE, the way things are going these days.
You are so right. Retired with paralyzed hubby so cleaning out household items we don’t need or use. Always bought top if the line. Buyers complain about every little thing and want partial refunds. Not worth my trouble anymore. Better to donate and be done.
Totally agree. You have to have free stuff that you’ve acquired in order to actually make any money.
sold a piece of electronic equipment for $75, after shipping and ebay fees… I get $41. Luckily that was something someone gave to me…
I completely agree with all who have posted. Ebay/paypal rip people off with their fees and buyers bias. I’ve recently sold items that were perfectly fine when tested only to be broken by couriers or destroyed and then returned by the buyer. I’m selling off the last few bits I have and then dropping ebay/paypal entirely.
Ebay used to be a great platform but now days its more of rag-tag warehouse
Same here. No more free money from me. Government shortly to scrutinise accounts receiving eBay money where they will question you about what little profit you are making whilst searching your home, confiscating your items and putting an end to it all anyway courtesy of government regulations meant to make benefit recipients and pensioners suffer on account of suspected and presumed criminality. The trouble with eBay is the amount that comes back to bank is an amount where your bank doesn’t see the ebay fees which are now horrific, the postage, the postage extra costs, the article itself, which are unseen to the excited arrest officer for your sin of not notifying. It really isn’t worth it and you are not allowed to have that much money coming into your account. They start to cut things off getting you into an even deeper mess as they “investigate”. People have already ended up homeless due to this simplistic approach
I have used Ebay to sell unwanted items that I had and somehow seemed to gravitate toward sewing machine and vacuum cleaner parts and some actual machines. Just this week I experienced the worst.. A woman who purchased a Kirby vacuum cleaner 25 days ago stated ” she could not use the machine because a part was missing “. I was so insulted because I had included several extra pieces at no cost as a “token of appreciation”. My reward- an idiot who decided to place an ebay return claim against me and most likely ( according to what I have been hearing ) will win. No specific issue with the vacuum cleaner, jut a random “missing part”, which is a lie..She simply does not want the machine and wants to return it.. I think I will drive to my car dealer and tell them I want to return my car “because it has a missing part”.. Part of my angst is the fact that eBay support is located in some area around India and they are not helpful in the least. this is more apparent since the split of Pay pal and eBay.. I thought I would make some extra money this winter with eBay, but I believe I need to rethink that idea..
Richard, that’s one thing I don’t like about eBay. They always take the side of the buyer no matter what the situation is.
Not so! I made a purchase on ebay but the box arrived with no contents. After two frustrating hours, I finally reached a real human who said I could have ebay step in if the seller did not reimburse. When ebay step in day arrived, I spent 5 hours trying to get their help but could never reach a real human and finally took a total loss on the purchase.
That’s sad to hear. Yeah, maybe I should have said, “most of the time” instead of “always”. I am sorry you had to deal with that nonsense of eBay and the seller.
The EBAY ship is sinking and all the people in India that work for customer support will be losing their jobs. government has foot in door. jumping ship is the only option. Thanks, EBAY .
“eBay support is located in some area around India”
I’ve spoken with eBay customer support MANY times. In every case, the eBay rep. had a Filipino accent and mannerisms.
Only a general reply to the article, not to this poster per se. hey, what are girlfriend’s for lol. maybe the boyfriend has an idea but it doesn’t sound like he was an actual seller. and if that was back in 2011 I think this seller interface has gotten a lot worse. just call it shitBay. things really started to ‘change’ on that site circa 2020 and a lot of sellers of a certain stature or all maybe for that matter, stopped selling anything at all thereafter. as far as feedback goes you’ll either get negative or none at all that would be worthy of your time, elbow grease, dedication and whatnot else, investments you put into even trying to sell a penny item. possibly with inflation and other political issues and economic problems not much cells anywhere. not online. I’d person selling might be much more effective and happier. unfortunately I can’t recommend any other Online “alternatives.” don’t invest too much indon’t invest too much in a pricey independent Store. honestly giving to charities gives more satisfaction. and you feel much more appreciated donating your things to a needy population. sad but true. online buyers just don’t want what you got. they don’t even want anything for Free anymore. that’s why we can’t call it freeBay lol. shitZon (Ama) is not an alternative at all but it depends on your commercial status and how big you are. they don’t treat one very good either. people just aren’t satisfied anymore and on a lot of these Sites such as the namesake of this article it’s evident when trying to sell. speaking from experience it doesn’t seem that opening an eBay store is a sane, productive idea. like being subjected to TV commercials every hour one day a week, no thanks.
So after selling on ebay for over 15 years, with little neg feedback (right now at 100%), ebay notified me that my seller defect rating was 2.42% due to their server errors which relisted items I sold already. When sold again, I merely refunded the money. That is a seller defect. Not shipping what is sold even if it’s not your fault. I got 11 of these in a year due to their server problems. I went through my listings (7600+ items) and found unique items just sold within days were relisted by ebay. Of course I removed them and started to check my listings daily to remove any other listings placed there by ebay’s server problems. When this began to happen in Sept of 2015, like I said I would just refund, never thinking there would be a problem. Then this year ebay limited me to 1400 items due to the “seller defect rate”. Now I received notice that if I don’t improve my defect rating I will be suspended next month (Jan 2017). There is nothing I can do to remove the 11 alleged defects (2 have dropped from last fall). They stay on your account for 12 months. So without any ability to “improve” my account of almost 16 years will end next month. By the way I contacted ebay about this and was transferred endlessly from one department to another until I hung up. I tried to contact them 4 times and always got bounced around departments. I finally gave up. Ebay really really sucks.
I am really sorry to hear that, Al. It’s such a shame how eBay treats its sellers nowadays. When they first had started, they would do anything to keep sellers happy. Now, they got so big that they don’t care anymore. They always take the side of the buyer, which is kind of shitty if you ask me.
Anyway, I hope you find a better platform to keep your business going. Are you considering any other platform?
I also think buyers on Ebay have ‘garage mentality’. I am thinking dropping out Ebay completely. Sad!
I have read all the comments, I was thinking of opening up an Ebay store, now I may have to rethink that. is there any other platform that you guys would suggest?
Sara, I’d say it depends on your product/service. Etsy for example, is a great place (fast growing) for handmade stuff. You can also consider Amazon.
That said, eBay still works for a lot of people. I’d perhaps do a test run. Get your feet wet and see how things go. You don’t want to miss out on an opportunity just because it didn’t work out for other people.
There is a site like ebay. It is ebid. I just left ebay and moved to ebid. It has a long way
to go to match what ebay used to be. I am hoping for the best
We cannot buy the fabric in the UK to make cushions for the price that China is dumping these products on Ebay and that includes the postage cost too that cost they much less to post from China than we can post items from the same town.
Ebay is also faking page views and make out that they cannot detect web-bots when i have no trouble at all using a bit of javascript so it looks like it’s time to dump ebay and it’s fees
eBay is the new Sears & Kodak…complacency is a death knell.
@Penny
That’s basically the problem in a nutshell. If you didn’t find it for free, it’s exceptionally difficult to sell for a profit on eBay.
I’ve been trying to wind a toy store down for the last three years. When I had my distributor account, 20% was the best margin that I could expect. At the start, I’d eke out a small profit on most stuff with the occasional item that skyrocketed in value to make real money. Now that it’s impossible to get retail price for practically anything, and postage has gone up, and fees on postage have gone up, and PayPal stopped refunding fees on cancellations, and forced auto-relist fees are looming behind every increasingly-rarer “free” listing promotion, and Mangled Payments with its per listing fees is closing in, it’s difficult to get even half what I paid for anything so I can get the heck out.
It’s ridiculous but I actually sell more, in both items and dollars, at conventions with 500-1000 attendees than I do online. If I didn’t have that component to my business, I would’ve had to burn everything in the backyard.
Nowadays (3/2020) it is a visibility issue. Of course its been that way for some time I guess. If no customers are seeing your products then how can they be purchased. There are so many new ways ebay has now to make money from sellers and to raise seller merchandise visibility like promoted listings, store subscriptions, seller fees and so on. In other words, I believe those who help ebay the most get the highest rankings in search. But sellers have to remember, this is ebays business first off and you are using their platform to sell your stuff. Some item categories can have tens to hundreds of thousands of individual items in them. If yours is not on the first page or 2 you may be out of luck, at least as far as consistent quick sales go. I’ve come to the conclusion that to make a reliable living on ebay you have to remember that the more money you bring them, the better off you will be. This is done by finding unique items that people want to buy of which there are very few listed on the site. Or, build your inventory to such an astronomical size that the sales will naturally come just through statistical probability. In either case you are making ebay more money, which is what they are going for as a business. Either one involves a lot of work that may not pay off to the seller initially.
I know you posted this awhile ago but you nailed it. There is no such thing as a free lunch. Hard work is how you make money. And yes with the amount of exposure and sales eBay generates you have to constantly hustle your ass off to be part of it. And if the Chinese are shipping from that far away and beating your prices and delivery times them you just got out hustled suckered! And don’t tell me BS about Chinese made crap because your ignorance proves that you should not be in the sales market. Do some research on your compilation. They work hard and take great pride in the results like Americans used to way back in the forgotten days. We got so used to exploiting them that we don’t know what it’s like to earn everything you got. EVERY AMERICAN knew how little pay we expected workers to produce are goods for from other countries. Looks like are slave labor scam is up. Better buck up bitches cuz our time has come to earn are own way again. And yes eBay HAS TO MATCH THE RETURN POLICY ITS COMPETITORS HAVE, OR THEY TOO WILL BE OUT HUSTLED BY AMAZON AND WAL-MART!
Ebay used to be a Easy way of getting good exposure as well as high volume of sales.
It works out too expensive nowadays. And it has too much competition without the visibility.
It doesnt worth to sell on Ebay anymore. It becomes a stealer yes .it charges 24.02% from the paid price ( selling price plus shipping) . I don”t recommande Ebay to anyone me too I m leaving Ebay. I sold a bag for 45$ plus 11.99$ shipping cost .ebay charged taxes on me and the buyer and took 13.69 just fees
like I m selling the bag for 30$ like the third .
sorry no more Ebay …money stealler
Ebay seller here. Takes time, research, error and trial to find a good product to sell that you can make a decent amount on. I did, and Im making 20% profit. I sell high value items, I don’t mess around with items that cost $100 or less. Anyways, just my 2 cents. eBay is your gateway to 120 million ppl, just need to list what people are looking for.
eBay has changed for the worse and ran me off. The last year I saw major changes and had to leave:
If you want to get views you have to pay extra and they recommend an additional 4.6 to 7.1%. I used to sell a lot of vintage toys, blue-rays, etc. When they began pushing this my views went down to the point where the only way to sell anything was to give it away.
So if my basic fees are 12% plus I offer free shipping to avoid eBays fees on shipping which hit my pocket again. Then don’t forget if you don’t meet your eBay goals which you will not unless you pay the extra 4.6-7.1% they add an additional 5% fee because you did not meet your goal. So lets look at some numbers again:
12 + 4.7 (to 7.1) + 5 you’re looking closer to 20+% and being forced to sell for less at the same time.
The sad part is I spent thousands of dollars on eBay buying huge lots of old toys. I would spend hours cleaning them and getting them with the right equipment to resell them and eBay pushed me out. They lost me as a seller and a buyer so they lost their fees on me twice and for what an extra 4.7-7.1%.
I am infuriated after recently selling another item on eBay and then discussing fees with their customer service. EBay’s fees have grown yet again and they are hiding the truth from the public. If you inquire about fees, you will be directed to a page which claims 10% final value fees for most of the items, and a few things have special treatment, but what this doesn’t say is that this doesn’t apply if you are a “managed payment member”… WHICH IS REQUIRED! They charge 12.3% for managed payment members and you have no choice but to be a managed payment member to sell on eBay. How is this legally allowed that they only advertise the fees for members who are not allowed to exist on their site. In addition to this, that 12.3% is charged on the total value of the sale, which includes the sales tax. So depending on the sales tax of the state you are sending your item to, you pay additional fees that have nothing to do with your item or the money that you would be receiving. In the end I actually paid 13.7% on my most recent sale. EBay is scamming business that tries to dupe people into selling on their platform by hiding the facts. I hope a class action suit is slapped on them soon.
Go to Amazon and pay 15%
I recently sold auction style a Find-R-Scope 350.00 buyer said do not send invoice nor put inside or outside the box, then he didn’t have money then came up with my shipping didn’t go to Delaware WTF. Relisted item and he bid again with a different account. I took listing off and put it on buy it now and let the next bidder down make an affer and I accepted for $55.00 less as I just wanted it gone by then. Fuckbay feed me 23?? for auction style early removal then took 18% + plus every other fee. I just started selling again on this platform and last item ended yesterday and am severing the relationship nor will I buy again on ebay. They can piss off!!!!!!!!!!!! Ebay said they would refund the 23.?? but did not. Sure hope that stock dives and they stay in India.
I started out on Ebay doing some beta testing, this was around 1999, did not really start selling until a year later, 2000, but over the years I has been a dependable and successful platform. Sadly that has changed, with what is going on now, I can no longer sell on the platform, mostly because of the third party payment management financial product that is located in Amsterdam. Now, this is a big problem one that Ebay is still denying but the truth is available for anyone to see. Just search for SEC filings, Ebay, 2020 2021, you will see some real data away from the smoke and mirrors of the ebay trolls that post at the community marketplace. On top of that Amsterdam is the acknowledged headquarters of hackers all over the world. In fact a recent report indicates that a covid 19 company was hacked, (located in Amsterdam, allegedly by hackers also located in Amsterdam) regardless of how safe that Ebay may say that it is, the fact is that criminal statistics for Amsterdam are way up from what they were 20 years ago. So it is not really about IF your bank account, your credit cards, your identity might get stolen it is about When it will happen. Currently Ebay has publicly published that credit card information along with banking information must be saved on their servers, (allegedly in Amsterdam) Now, this is a huge security problem one that We cannot risk and so after 21 years on Ebay we will no longer be buying or selling on Ebay and Yes, we are mad, not that ebay has the right to do this but that Ebay would decide to do this given the way that the internet economy actually works. This will be a colossal failure. Not due to the inept implementation but because buyers will move away from Ebay. Already market analysis are predicting slowing trends which is normal for this time of year but the normal flow of traffic and buyers is going to go way down. This is directly due to the Nash Equilibrium, a famous theory postulated and proved by the mathematician John Nash Jr. When examining the way that Ebay did this it violates the basic tenants that Ebay has succeeded upon for many years. Certainly it is unintended consequences but it is still very valid. What is happening is going to be brutal I am shorting this stock… LOL. .
I have been on ebay since 2000 also. Your statements are right on. Sad.
I have moved to ebid. Not as good as what ebay used to be but I am hoping
for the best.
Another problem is the amount of time that it takes to actually get paid on eBay, since the loss of PayPal every time I tell eBay customer service that buyers don’t always pay, they just reply ‘list it again’ I don’t feel supported anymore….I would rather pay the fees of PayPal…stock then piles up and we lost the bidders…..can we no longer choose pay Pal at all ? And you are so right about fraud…it’s a headache we don’t need…anyone got ideas apart from craft that takes different items ?
Hello! I am reading these replies with interest. Wondering if anyone has any comparative ways to sell on another site? I have been using eBay since 2015 successfully but have noticed a slow decline with changes – I’ve been trying gumtree, shpock and Facebook marketplace but these are all harder to sell on. Any ideas?
Reuben, try have you tried the other eBay alternatives?
Thank you for this list. Used to be so easy to sell on EBAY and make a couple of bucks. No more !
You are welcome, Susan. From personal experience, I can say I totally agree with you in that it was much easier to sell on eBay a few years back. They made it harder and harder for sellers to turn a profit.
New police you have to give them access to your checking account and your birthdate…
They ate lying the irs does not require a birthdate
No more part time small sellers
All of the small sellers cleaning out the house are gone now, all the good deals went with them. No one is going to give ebay your birthdate and bank info just to sell parttime. Face it it’s over and people will stop using it once all the good deals from the small sellers are gone. Someone else will create a PayPal replacement.
After 40+ years of owning a wholesale golf distributor business, and understanding margins required to succeed, my conclusion is eBay is doing quite well at the expense of sellers.
We retired and closed the golf side of our business. We are selling the remaining inventory on eBay. It is better to have cash than merchandise getting old in a warehouse. I would never sell on eBay if I had to buy product and sell at such tiny margins. I wonder how many people actually make a profit worth the effort they put into sales.
The real story here is in the comments, LOL. I came here to decide if selling on eBay is right for me. The answer is a definitive NO. I don’t have high value in demand items, just random crap I want to get rid of. I don’t think I could deal with the Time Suck of posting and listing items, waiting for customers then packaging and mailing the items that sell and possibly dealing with crap customers.
But I love eBay as a customer, I always leave very positive feedback to good sellers and if there is an issue contact them directly.
Dear God, same here — absolutely avoiding ebay selling now. I sold a few things about 20 years ago when it was FREE to list and no taxes were figured in, if you can believe that. Thought I might try again (June 2022) now that I have accumulated some stuff that I’ve no need for but maybe someone out there is searching for. I researched their fees (12%+ for most) and was floored to the point I thought I was misinterpreting. Did a search for if ebay is worth it, stumbled across this article and thread, and glad I did. What a joke!
ebay was a pioneer and really was a prime example of the good the Internet could do and link us together — it was fun, easy, and amicable for both a seller and buyer. Greed and profits, etc., just seem to always ruin it for the average person. Thanks for writing this and for everyone’s comments and insight.
just sold my graphics card outta my pc, had it listed for 450 and took a offer for 430, ended up shelling out right @ $60 in fees unreal, I won’t be a seller on ebay any longer
Where are the regional Flea Markets and Garage Sales?
It depends on where you live. You can simply search on Google by using terms like “flea markets near me”.
And for garage sales, you can check local classified, Craigslist and just keep an eye out when driving around since most people put up signs a few days before their garage sale.
After selling for 25 years on EBAY, i am done with them, cancelled my acct. and here is the reason and MOST EBAY sellers have no clue as to what is going on with EBAY, the IRS, EBAY control of your bank acct. AND, the NEW rule that EBAY will now require sellers of more than 600 a month, (up until this January, before the IRS and EBAY conspired, sellers were able to sell up to 20,000, with 200 sales before EBAY sent a 1099, NOW, this huge tax grab makes the seller provide their MOST personal info, your soc. sec. #! this is ion addition to them having COMPLETE control over the bank acct. info required, (read the fine print, they can deduct, deposit or FREEZE YOUR bank acct. without notice), AND think about this, EBAY, a international company, with thousands of employees now has your SS# as well, is this a good idea, ever hear of identity theft, or hacking, EBAY had plenty, BEFORE sellers now have to give their SS#. Also, maybe you sell something that the gov’t does not like, EBAY is required to give the IRS and any gov’t agency ALL your data on sales, types of products, money amounts, your bank acct. and SS#, etc. Folks, privacy is gone on EBAY. If you are retired, on SS, small Mom and Pop, or just someone trying to make ends meet by selling your own stuff, if its over 50 bucks a month, it counts as earned income, not the 20,000 like big companies, or huge sellers. Better check REAL carefully with your acct. before selling anymore, it can screw with your SS, taxes, etc. Another 22% in tax, huge increase in fees, shipping, sellers costs once reasonable are now more than 35% on sold items, (tax, ebay fees, hassles, going to PO, travel, packing expenses, etc.), so the blender you sold for 100 bucks now gives you less than 65 bucks back after taxes and fees.
I will no longer sell on this site, and beware, when you submit to giving EBASY control of this data, you open yourself up to all types of fraud, hacks, sharing of your info, to the entire internet, and EBAY won’t do anything to protect you.
Right on Bob.
They wanted my ss# and the reason I stopped selling. No way.
I also buy on ebay but even that sucks.
I searched for “turquoise nugget ” and in the first few pages I found more than 10 Chinese sellers that are using the exact same stock photo of a turquoise nugget. The descriptions are very similar if not exact. What?
I sought some help/advice from the ebay community so I posted the issue with the name of every Chinese seller using this stock photo.
If nothing else, I figured my post would be a warning to other buyers.
What happened?
Ebay cut that snake off at head and my post isn’t even there.
Thinking about it now, I’m sure the Chinese are a huge part of ebays profits so there’s no way they’ll let anyone bash them.
Dry up and blow away ebay. You suck.
To the author;
You must have done a great job writing this as it still gets attention! 👍
Fees are only part of the problem for smaller sellers. Shipping costs along with trying to be competitive with pricing is a problem. Buyers factor in cost of shipping into overall costs. So, they are less likely to pay more for product when looking at the higher shipping costs. Given that many other online retailers offer free shipping with memberships. It’s hard to sell same products even at same price on eBay with added shipping charge. If you bake in shipping it takes away from your profits. On top of that, many offer free return shipping as well. Or a convenient way to drop off returns.
This is 2/6/23 and things are much worse. People constantly saying they don’t want item and it’s not worth paying to have it returned lot of buyers are frauds and thieves. You pay to promote an item but when you go look its not there but the fee certainly is. Move maybe 4 times a month out of 100 listed, about ready to close shop.
Ebay is a complete waste of time these days, its become a scammers paradise – like most of the internet – buyers want items for such low amounts – the offers are absurd, to state the least. I’d rather give my stuff to charity than waste anymore of my time on the platform. Furthermore, requesting photo ID from individuals who sell a handful of their own items is unnecessary, hence I refused to supply it, as they have sufficient data i.e. bank details etc, plus it’s not a legal requirement…
Its sheer folly, as I usually buy more than I sell, hence closed my account and will not buy from ebay ever again –
Its only really profitable if you are a Chinese seller. ebay does not exaxt the same fees and fines to Chinese sellers. and ebay does not require Chinese sellers to have a bank account.
I started selling on ebay since 2008, back then the sales was good but not any more now. My sales has decreased every year till almost 90% at this date (I have 100% customer positive rating), Ebay is very greedy and they keep increasing the fees but the sales are decreased every year, I will closed my ebay account for good this year. One more thing Ebay use Payoneer for paid out bad for seller too as Payoneer charge annual fees of $30, there are just so many money grab to take away seller’s little profit.
I can make money on Ebay but not like I used to. Luckily, I get a lot of stuff free or bought so much at auction over the years that I no longer have any cost for items I sell. One thing people are not understanding is that Ebay charges the same fee for the shipping as they pay for the item! So, if the fee for a $10 item is 12% and it costs $10 to ship, there is a $.30 transaction fee which is 3% and another 24% for the selling fees for the item and the shipping. You can’t buy an item for $5 and expect to sell it for $10 and make any money, especially since there are other costs like tape, boxes, and TIME to package. The one good thing that Ebay has done over the years (I’ve been selling for about 24 years) is to not show the shipping cost on the package if you don’t want to. That way, we sellers can at list charge a $1 or $2 extra fee for shipping. Before, they used to complain if actual shipping was $8 and I charged $9. That $1 extra charge for the shipping doesn’t even cover the $.30 transaction fee and the 12 or 15% Ebay also charges for shipping. And it’s insulting that Ebay actually gets a much bigger shipping discount than what we pay and they already make money on shipping from the shipping provider. It works for me, though, with all my items now “free” Bottom line, it all depends on how much you pay for the items you’re selling.
It is not. I had several luxury travel bags I wanted to sell. Brand names, worth a lots of money. RRL, Rimowa, LV. I put some on Ebay to see how it will go first. and immediately began receiving bids- all fake. People bidding had phony accounts I assume. Pretty soon I was owed 20K+ and not a single payment. Ebay will not do squash about it. You cant even contact these people. Save your time an money too. Plus the aggravation, when you receive e-mail from Ebay congratulating you made a sale. No, you didn’t.
Holy Sh*t! I am very glad that I took the time to read every word on this page and checked any math. I have been “on eBay” since the ’90’s (pretty sure, I think I was still using Win95 and forced to go to Win98). Back then, very “Ma & Pa” sort of feel, and it apparently took some time before criminals learned how to steal from a cyber entity that -should- have nearly all of any pertinent information on any party using the service. I was glad for it at first, I had just suffered a family threatening disaster and had to sell off much of my property, down to clothing and whatever. It took a while to recover, and I have been mostly buying odd parts (for business) on eBay for a long time, lately, less and less due to better prices and more dependability elsewhere. Over time I have collected a lot of stuff that I no longer need or use and thought I might sell it on eBay. My research led me here, and I thank those that have posted. I do not need any more hassle from a faceless, soulless entity with ZERO accountability and tons of BS to hide behind, I’m an American, we have a Government that already does that. Taking what I read here, I researched further. You folks may not know how right you are. I have examined documents from Bloomberg (yes they are compromised, but the math doesn’t lie), Fool, etc. Every financial reporting service says essentially the same thing; eBay is dead! There is no report that doesn’t confirm that eBay’s Buyers are WAY down, for every reason stated here and falling. I am not sure what I am going to do, but I have seen what I should avoid.
Ebay’s decline has also reflected and been driven by, in part, changes in our society.
I’ve been selling there for 20+ years with some buying too. The period up to about 2009 were the halcyon days but then the various recessions struck. The decline since then has been continuous – certainly for sellers.
The reasons are partly Ebay’s fault but also those changes I mentioned above. To be specific:
1. Ebay’s corporate incompetence, a failure to evolve their strategy to reflect evolving market trends and of course, greed/short-termism. Yes, they’ve since tried to make some course corrections but the indications are they’re too little and very possibly too late.
2. Government intervention. Here in Europe, governments have become ever-more desperate to see even minor online trading as a cash-cow to be milked accordingly. Taxes, charges, levies, raised shipping charges – they’ve all played their part in destroying seller margins in many segments and driving up prices. This, for buyers, has made the platform increasingly uneconomic.
3. Too many players. In the late 20thC and first decade of the 21st, Ebay sellers and buyers were roughly in balance. Since then, the pop-culture of “buy and sell, it’s easy money” has infected millions and now everyone in the world is an Ebay seller. This is pushing up the prices at source, as people fight each other to acquire items they can sell and that in turn is forcing fewer and fewer auctions and more and more absurdly priced “buy it now” offers. Many Ebay sellers haven’t a clue, paying whatever it takes to get items then adding their required percentage profit and putting the item on Ebay at a price that you can be 100% sure means it will never, EVER sell. As Ebay fills up with laughably priced stuff, buyers go elsewhere looking for their deals – and they have ever more options to do so.
4. The growth of the “Ebay owes us…” mindset with many sellers. This falls out of ‘3’ above when instead of applying standard business analysis to try and identify why their objects arent selling (often to do with having no market or over-pricing or both) they turn on Ebay and demand explanations or start blaming the buyers.
5. Desertion of buyers. Touched on above. Virtually none of my clients now check Ebay for deals, regarding it as being full of ludicrously overpriced items. Ten years ago, perhaps 75% of them would have checked it regularly. The buyers have simply fled in droves to other forums.
I’d like to end cheerfully but I suspect this decline is irreversible. I now only sell odd items on Ebay simply for convenience if they’re of low value. Wish it were otherwise.
That is a really great summary of why eBay is indeed declining. Thank you so much for sharing it Jim.