Are You Losing Faith In Ebay?

I don't buy much on ebay anymore, much preferring a few mail auctions that I have dealt with for years, but still go through spasms of listing. Almost all the material I list catalogues in the $10 to $50 dollar range in Scott and, in BIN, I usually list at 10% of Scott. In CAD$ which would translate to about 7.5% USD$.

I have noticed that I am only selling about 1 in 12 of my lots at this price, where about 3 years ago, it was about 1 in 5. Postage has always been pretty close to my actual cost which lately has meant selling only small lots due to massive increases in Parcel Costs. Trying a dozen items of various kinds as auctions currently, just to guage response and 4 days into a week long listing has only one bid on one item with a $1.00 opening. (It is on a used Norway #3 in Good, maybe very Good, condition). Is it worse? Yes. Is it ebay? Maybe but I doubt it.

My description of their fee structure, especially combined with Paypal, is like being nibbled to death by ducks.

What Jim said above is true.

I've expanded my collection so much through ebay but have still used traditional avenues to acquire material. including shops, bourses and auctions.

A few items I'm chasing are so cheap in the catalogue but very elusive in the market, no matter where I look.

As I've said, patience is key. There's also the thrill of the chase!

Since my post of 14th July, I have actually sold 35 lots (collectables NOT stamps) on ebay. I have been de-cluttering. As a rule, I dont like ebay because at times the interaction between sellers and buyers CAN produce Greed.
To some Greed is part of Life. ...a throwback to the 1980s when somebody allegedly said that "Greed is Good".
Some sellers can be greedy. Some buyers can be greedy. Some are even proud of it. Some people have difficulty recognising greed.
So I keep a check on myself that my natural instinct to become a millionaire is not undermined by me taking shortcuts.
As a general rule I charge a (low) fixed amount for postage and then pay £1 more for Tracking. And while I am happy enough to take a hit of £1 per lot sold (and more than happy to combine postage), I get the peace of mind that an item can be tracked and that I have not ripped off the buyer.
But an odd thing happened at the beginning of this week.
During the course of the evening, a buyer bought three lots. Hooray.
I went to the post office, had his items weighed, combined postage meant that all three of the lots could be posted for the same as one lot.
Great news. Everyone is a winner?
After all postage would only cost him £3.10 and cost me £4.10.
To my surprise the Buyer was not entirely happy.
He is interested in more items that I have for sale. Could I refrain from posting until he had possibly bought more items. I should point out as I did to him that this meant re-packaging in a bigger envelope.
He has not contacted me since.
Much as I am enjoying this unusual foray into the world of capitalism, I think he is being just a tad greedy. My response I ended the listings of all items that I had in the "Buy it Now" sales...theres nothing here now. And I ended the listing for all items in auction with the exception for those that have had bids...four in all. The four auction sales will be sold in three days time. Its quite possible that the Buyer will have bid on one or more items. He might even "win" and I will do my best to facilitate him in terms of postage.
I am also happy to cancel his order if he doesnt follow thru on items he has agreed to buy.
As always I look for minimal hassle. When the four items are sold, then the items I de-listed will go back on ebay. The one crucial difference is that the greedy buyer wont see the new listing. He will be discretely blocked.
And as the original question asked "Am I Losing Faith in ebay?", the answer is that in this matter, I actually have faith in a system which allows me to minimise "hassle".

When Covid first hit the headlines, them mails became unreliable for a while and this held back international sales, but thos has long since recovered and I have one stamp category where I am getting prices beyond my wildest dreams (not Canada).

FitzjamesHorse:

I don't think the buyer is being greedy at all! They are just trying not to waste their money on duplicate shipping costs.

They ARE late to the game if they didn't ask before you had time to package the item(s) after the sale, and should not expect you to agree to it after you've already packaged their items unless you state it in your terms and/or agree via messaging each other.

I encourage ALL buyers and sellers to make every effort to combine shipping from multiple item invoices into a single payment and shipping parcel. Why waste anybody's money or your time packaging multiple single items in several packages? I hate the shipping costs part of ebay more than anything. They really need to offer the tracked standard first class letter as and option (it exists, but only if you go to the post office). Costs about 1/2 First Class package rate.

I wish ebay would automatically bundle all unpaid items and have an option to "combine" shipping and calculate it automatically. If a buyer purchases 3 items with 3 different shipping options such as First Class Package, Flat Rate Envelope, and Medium Flat Rate Box, then make the assumption that all 3 will fit in the Medium Flat Rate box and charge the fee only for that item (allowing seller and/or buyer intervention of course). Also, it'd be great to have a base fee plus automatic incremental fee per additional item (I think I've seen it done but don't know how).