Interesting Comment On Ebay

Thank you very much jimjamtwo for the change you made.

ebay is an interesting science. I have never bid on an ebay item and we listed our 1st lot with ebay in late January. So my point is I am very new to all of this.

The 1st thing that has stood out to me with ebay is the large difference between the cost of listing an item with .com, .co.uk and .com.au. I do not remember anyone commenting on this.

As for the cost to list .co.uk are the people that are really getting the worst of high listing costs, of the 3 ebay's.
The USA's .com has the cheapest listing cost of the 3 ebay's mentioned by a long way and as I read the comments I wonder how many people know about .com being so cheap.

My bricks and mortar auctions, on an average cost the seller 15% and the buyer 15%, so the lot sale fees cost of 30%+postage makes 9% sound like chicken feed on ebay to me.

How can somebody buy their stock on ebay and sell it on ebay? It sounds like the profit margin would be very small and a small increase in ebay fees would soon start the sellers to crumble.

Happy Stamping! KGV.

Ebay's upcoming purchase of GSI Commerce does reveal the direction they want to take the company - to compete with Amazon and cater to large brick & mortar companies (Toys R Us, Ace Hardware, American Outfitter and Bath and Body Works). They want to push brand name items. What will that mean for us little guys? Will we be able to coexist or eventually get pushed aside as ebay develops their online mall?

The way ebay is pouring its resources into creating a grander scale of e-commerce and its cost of operations and overhead grow it will eventually behoove them to ignore and push out the small sellers or those who sell items of low value. The days of finding $1-$10 stamps and covers might come to an end. Stamp and hobby stores were once found at malls too. I hope this is not things to come, but I don't think it can be ruled out.

Delcampe and Bidstart must be rubbing their hands with glee

someone said auction fees are around 15%... not in any auction I have been involved n. they run 18% and above for a buyers fee.

For collectors of British Commonwealth George VI material particularly, the occasional Murray Payne auctions are a very happy hunting ground. No buyer's commissions at all. A non-UK collector pays only the hammer price.

Thanks for the heads up about Murray Payne, Tony. Had a look at their web page, and the first impression was very good.

Have you used them a lot? Both auctions and ordinary online ordering?

I have, yobo, both for their auctions and straight ordering (I don't like to think how many thousands of pounds they've had from me). I can thoroughly recommend them as completely honest and reliable. I only wish they would extend back to the George V era as well.

With the cost of the company CEO and the rest of the executive positions plus the extra taxes that they attract with high sales plus postage plus the shareholders bit. I wonder if they can really make it on ebay. Why would they want ebay. The smart small businesses on ebay would be hurting the bigger companies no matter if is on ebay or not.

A couple more earthquakes on the Pacific Rim of Fire and the digital world will be gone as we know it. The digital world is too full of ifs, buts and maybes. It is the monster that we feed and do not know what it will truly turn into. We are in a position where we do not know what is truly happening. It is a future full of the unknown. It is all uncharted directions that we are plummeting into. What is left of Japan? Who will be next? Many of the major economies would not get over anymore pressure put on them. People world wide are revolting because of poverty. How much more is there to come. Are you ready for the end of the instant world as we know it. ebay is the trumpet that is calling in the end times. More than my 2c worth. KGV

Thanks, Tony. Its always useful with the opinion of a user of a dealer.

O ebay ! What crimes are committed in your name !!

The brick and mortar stores would be able to make it the same way many of them use Amazon to sell their wares. GSI would provide the web sites, support, shipping solutions, etc.

In the last year or so, ebay has been sending folks emails about how we should fight against the Main Street Fairness Bill that's being pushed through Congress. Basically, the bill is designed to collect state taxes from online businesses. ebay wanted to create a "grassroots" movement against it. Wal-Mart, Tax Cloud and a few other big national box stores was for it. ebay made it sound like it was every ebay seller was going to be affected by the bill if it was to pass, but if you read details of the bill, only big sellers with sales of $500,000 to $2 million would be affected depending on your news source. The vast majority of ebay sellers don't even come close to that volume.

However, that bill would affect the big sellers that would come along with the purchase of GSI. Makes a little more sense now.

True, a retiree like myself would never have to pay taxes on ebay sales..people that I know selling items other than stamps on ebay and making 30 to 40 thousand a year at it seem content to file 1099 forms !!

Not sure about IRS and other countries but Revenue Canada has been red flagging any seller over 30k annually through ebay. Now granted if they want taxes on that small guy making 30k they also have to accept the rite offs which could likely cost them money. I'm sure anyone making 6 digits or more off ebay would have a more serious red flag for taxes but apparently ebay has released all info to governments as requested.
I recently listed some stamps on UK and wa shocked at the fees charged compaitively to .com or .ca. Even with the pound being worth $1.60 I don't think it justifies the charges especially on added features but its nice getting paid in pounds and that in itself may be the reason to keep .com running so everyone doesn't list in UK.
6-8 yrs ago I easily made 50k in ebay sales (fishing tackle) and that was without paypal, but now everyone under the sun is is selling and even manufacturing myself it is hard to compete with what some people are doing. Half the time I can purchase finished products cheaper than I can make them so I can easily see stamp dealers buying and reselling at profits. I just received a lot with 6 large queens plus a bunch of other high cat canadian for about $30 -- Average low end cost per large queen from a dealer is $15-$20 each. A dealer could easily realize 1000% profit just on this lot alone.

In the U.S., I believe ebay will send you a 1099 if you make $20K USD or more. ebay scared all the sellers with the Main Street Fairness bill by saying that sellers would have to collect sales tax for any state jurisdiction that their buyer would come from, but in reality that's only for extremely high sellers - 500K plus. ebay just wanted sellers to sign petitions against the bill as they thought they would be inflicted with a logistical nightmare. ebay was just looking ahead so they could sell items for Radio Shack and other big companies online without collecting sales tax. No wonder Wal-mart and Target was pushing for the bill.

ebay doesn't sell items for anyone so they are not included in the majority of what's being pushed now. The laws that are getting pushed through now in States are nexus laws pushing the limit as to what a nexus actually is. Is it a warehouse? An office? Well now it's an affiliate usually when this law is passed.

If one person owns a piddly website that gets about 10 visits a day and links even one customer to Amazon and gets a piddly commission for it, then Amazon is considered to have a nexus in that state and must charge sales tax to every customer in that state. Amazon's solution? When a state passes the law, within 60 minutes all affiliates in that state get dumped. Even if they've been an Amazon affiliate for 10 years, they're done.

States are starting to realize that they're shooting themselves in the foot by doing this now. Illinois just passed it and companies immediately started moving to Wisconsin. One shafted them out of 13 million in taxes by moving 5 miles.