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Post by chrysina on Oct 28, 2012 10:12:41 GMT -8
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Post by thanos on Oct 28, 2012 14:29:15 GMT -8
At least now we don't have the insertion fees that we had before.
But still the situation is very bad for most who offer insects on ebay. Low sales, in some cases also loss of money. I'm thinking seriously about stopping offering anything. In addition to the economical crisis, it seems that people have lost their interest in many species, except for the always wanted ones, like Agrias, Morpho, Papilionidae (Ornithoptera, Papilio, rare/local Parnassius), big Goliathus, Dynastes and Prioninae, etc, for which many collectors (especially wealthy ones) still spend big amounts of money (in many cases bidding on them quite higher amounts than their average value on the market out of ebay). Or that they look only on what certain sellers offer and nothing else. I have seen certain species that when offered by certain sellers are being bid to the death for ridiculously high prices, and when I offer the same species in the same quality and at much lower price than the amounts they bid on the specimens of other sellers, not only it remains unsold, but also I don't have a single watcher (and think that am a 'top rated seller'). In other cases, when I offer a very wanted species at good quality up for auction at very low starting price, the bidding is low (although the watchers many) and the sale price much lower than its average one on the market and the prices that other sellers get from people's bidding. There are also some people that just play dirty bidding games..,for increasing the prices of certain sellers' specimens (I have spotted a few certain ebayers who do systematically this sad thing..). I'm sure that many of you have experienced these things. So, I don't think that the only responsible for this strangely bad situation is ebay with its 'improved' searching..
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ckswank
Full Member
Posts: 239
Country: USA
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Post by ckswank on Oct 28, 2012 21:59:00 GMT -8
It's not just the insects for sale on Ebay that have tanked. My wife & I have been on Ebay for 9 1/2 years. We sell a variety of items, including a few insects from time to time. Our sales this year will be about 30% of what they were four years ago. We're going to close down our store at the end of the year and save $15.95 per month. I imagine the 50 free monthly auction listings will be going away soon as well. More incentive to list on here!
Charlie
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Post by wollastoni on Oct 29, 2012 1:03:49 GMT -8
Well it always depends what you offer.
My European specimen are hard to sell, but my Asian leps from my collecting trips find many customers.
The real problem with ebay is their 14% fees. Due to this, I offer all my very rare leps outside of ebay.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2012 1:59:41 GMT -8
I have recently put a few items up for sale to raise funds for the upcoming insect fair here in England, wish I had never bothered, I will only sell outside ebay too in the future.
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anaea
New Member
Posts: 11
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Post by anaea on Oct 29, 2012 2:00:53 GMT -8
Getting any satisfaction from selling on ebay seems to be a thing of the past.
Has anyone noticed a massive increase in "bad buyers" in the past year or two? The sort that bid up half your items, then disappear, and after anything up to several months (or never) they resurface, and blame you when you are no longer able to complete the transaction. I have been forced to stop using ebay thanks to this, as it makes it very difficult to deal decently with good buyers, apart from wreaking financial havoc.
I do have an idea in the pipeline though...
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Post by thanos on Oct 29, 2012 2:45:39 GMT -8
I never had till now such serious problems with bad buyers. I write clearly in my description that items have to be paid within 3 days, and that if someone delays payment without letting me know and doesn't respond to my emails, I will open unpaid cases. In the few such problems that I met, I opened the cases in time, and then almost all paid, and the very few ones that didn't pay/answer, I blocked from my auctions, and also within a few days I got my final value credits with the closure of the case.
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Post by colin12303 on Oct 29, 2012 2:46:28 GMT -8
I have always defended e.bay as it enabled me to buy lots of specimens i have never seen before.
The thing i have a problem with is sniper programs.
I used to get up at silly o'clock to bid on a certain item,then to make use of the combined postage buy others the dealer had on offer.
Now with wide spread use of sniper programs people are no longer actually bidding.
I won't bother to bid on a lot of auctions now because of this,as the wealthy buyer only want's the one item,and the other items either remain unsold or go cheap.
To try to get over this dealers are now setting too high a start price,this also puts off buyers as everyone likes the chance of getting a bargain
Why don't i get a sniper program?
I think it goes against the spirit of a auction,and i like to do the bidding process
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Post by Adam Cotton on Oct 29, 2012 6:40:37 GMT -8
I haven't been buying on eBay for a couple of years at least now, partly because I am busy with my little son (1 year 10 months old now) as well as doing a lot of other Papilionidae things at the same time.
It seems to me, though, that it really doesn't matter whether you use a sniper program or not, if you bid the maximum that you are prepared to pay for an item then you will only be outbid if a 'sniper' user is prepared to pay more than you are. All the sniper program is doing is bidding in milliseconds rather than human reaction times. I should say that I've never used one myself either, and can't see the point of using one if you just place a maximum bid with eBay that you are prepared to pay. If you lose, then so what? The final sale price was more than you wanted to pay for the item, so just wait for the next one and bid again.
Adam.
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Post by pittendrighinsects on Nov 25, 2012 19:17:46 GMT -8
I recently started a business on ebay, and I barely make any money off it. Though up till now I didn't have any problems with buyers, some of them combine many butterflies for shipping, so now I had to make a new policy. Also, one of my customers hasn't answered to my emails and hasn't paid after 6 days, so I'm thinking of reporting them. I barely make enough to pay for this hobby, and all people want are Papilios/morphos, they almost never buy anything else.
Overall, all the rich buyers concentrate on one listing and the others go for dirt cheap, I rarely sell stuff for more than a dollar. Frankly, even though I don't have to pay for listing items anymore, ebay sales have gone down considerably and I still don't make much off it.
Quintin
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2012 16:34:10 GMT -8
I agree with adam. If you want to pay a certain amount for a specimen or whatever it is you are buying, then what does it matter if you get outbid? I find that by waiting and adding an item to your watch list, half the time you forget about the listing and miss it anyway.
I feel that ebay has been good to me, but i must admit the fees are ridiculous. If half of the collectors don't visit ebay anymore as they are saying on here, that will just leave the door open for great bargains. I also find some of the private web sites on the net are very expensive.
pete
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Post by wingedwishes on Dec 3, 2012 8:10:24 GMT -8
My issues with ebay are this: I bid up to an amount for items. If I win multiple items then I would bid more because shipping would be lower and so I would be willing to bid higher. Sniper programs do not give me enough time to evaluate my max bid when the items all end with in a few minutes of each other. So, I will usually only buy "buy it now" when it is reasonable and available. After winning a few auctions and getting to know the seller, I have made several purchases then outside of ebay. This has eliminated ebay fees for the dealer and eliminated wait times for autions for me.
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Post by prillbug4 on Dec 3, 2012 14:18:22 GMT -8
It doesn't bother me. I don't use Ebay.
Jeff Prill
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ians
New Member
Posts: 6
Country: United Kingdom
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Post by ians on Jan 3, 2013 6:02:09 GMT -8
I've asked before if people would consider an alternative to Ebay - just for insects, or at least only collectibles - with low fees, and then only on sales, not for listings. Before I go to the trouble of building such a site, I want to be sure there would be some interest.
People were so enthusiastic, I got as many as 3 replies....
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 3, 2013 7:02:00 GMT -8
For sure such a website would be greatly appreciated, but you have to consider the whole promotion needed for it to become "something" in which people would relay.
Also, you have to take into account that many "rarities" are selling out of ebay, to a more "closed" circuit of people. You would probably end up with the same common species being offered all the time...
Look at how many people are using Insectnet auctions nowadays, and look at what is being offered...
Thadeos
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