I have no problem with the fees. Well, it is always nice to pay less, but you are getting a lot for your money.

Also, it is all about perspective. If you sell personally, you have no overhead to run your eBay sales.

You have millions of buyers at your fingertips. A secure platform with a great back-end software that handles all of your selling responsibilities.

Credit Card fees for Pay Pal are ok with me. It saves people the hassle of opening a merchant account and a credit check. Credit card processors charge based on the type of sale, signature or not and a monthly fee to have the account.

American Express takes the most fees from merchants. Then you get extra fees for business credit cards and transaction fees for every transaction... Shall I go on...

You can open a Pay Pal Merchant account for a monthly fee and a lower % if you do not want to pay the current simple Pay Pal account fees.

I look at it like this. I can set my store up in an empty strip mall and pay less rent, less in bills, and even hire fewer employees because I will have less business.

OR

I can set up shop in the downtown area with heavy foot traffic, more rent, more employees, but in the end usually a lot more business and why many businesses (depending on the type) locate in downtown districts.

Sure it will cost more to sell in the downtown area, but you make it up in the overall benefits.... very much like eBay in many ways.

If you want to run your own server, buy the software, install the necessary security and drive the amount of traffic you need to make the business work, then compare the fees, it is not much different.

I have been a business owner for over 13 years with a rent and employees, it is totally different then a home run business or working for someone.

I also currently help/manage 3 eBay stores and I would prefer just doing that at home!

So my eBay perspective it based on running it like a business and it is one of the cheapest ways to set up a business. Trust me.. I have set up many online stores and there are people paying big bucks to have a web site with no traffic or substantial business to pay for it.

For the guys/gals that just sell once in awhile or do not treat it like a business, then I would say the perspective and general consensus is eBay is expensive place to sell things. So no argument there from me on that perspective.

Shoot away, I can handle it!

David

bang! bang! bang!

Truly to each his own, But my main problem with ebay is 2 fold

Yes I do think the fees are too high

and 2, they don't listen at all to their customers.

They charge 9% of the sale and 9% on the shipping plus 3% to paypal.

If you sell a 1000 kit with a ship of a 100.00 you wil pay about 132.00 to ebay including paypal, roughly a little over 13% of the sale goes out the window.

When they announced this fee change, they opened up a chat board for 2 days, thousands chimed in, I read about 200 of them. ALL the replies I read hated the fee change, and ripped them for charging 9% on the shipping.

They all complained that they don't make any money on shipping, and sometimes lose money on shipping to keep the cost down.

Many said that was the straw that broke the back for them and they were done with ebay.

I used to sell a fair amount of cars on ebay, then they changed the fee system last yr, again it hurt the seller, I told my ebay account rep, that ebay is now last on the list of venues that I use...because of the fees....too high.

I also asked him, why don't you contact the sellers BEFORE you make a fee change, just to get their input. He didn't have an answer.

True millions use ebay, but how many are drummers, not alot by comparison.

So if put a drum kit up on ebay, milllions are not seeing it.

I truly believe there is a need and room for another venue. Just like what Audiogon did for hi end audio, I have been a member there for 8 yrs.

Everybody on that site doesn't even consider ebay,myself included.

So to each his own for sure, just my thoughts, thanks.

Well said.....thanks

PS.....know anyone looking for a pair of Thiel CS 3.5's and a early Sota Sapphire with ET-2 arm/Sumiko Blue Point Special? :-)

Blair

I for one are happy someone else is giving them some competition. ebay is completely ridiculous. most of my sale items are over $200.00 and higher and this company ebay is Insane on the fee's, and now the ship charge is included, as you already mentioned, I charge actual ship charge, and generally loose money on that end of it, I myself have excellent feedback big freaking deal, looks like If I sale on prey-bay anymore, I'll just tack on a higher dollar amount on the ship charge, this company does as they please. I used to be a silver level power seller never again.

Well there is some mighty fine gear

drawtheline55 - High end audio gear. Hmmm.. That sounds like a niche specific market. Not a daily purchase for most people, not in my circle any way. With any high-end niche market, there will be communities that support buying and selling.

As I mentioned in my post, credit card fees can not be avoided no matter where you buy, all merchants pay them. No different then eBay, everyone selling on eBay is technically a merchant. If they are weekend or regular sellers, PayPal gives them a simple way not to have even more fees. Credit card processors make money on every sale and that comes out of the merchants pocket...

You mention cars, but eBay is only one place to sell cars as you stated, there are other ways and web sites to sell cars, which you are already versed in. I have sold cars, but eBay was not my preferred choice. Here again, not many of the same people are buying cars everyday.

What I'm trying to say is the guy that buys a high end stereo or a new car is not coming back tomorrow to do the same thing. He is not my customer.

The guy that collects, vintage drum catalogs, or vintage toys or games, is usually coming back every day to look and possibly buy. That is the person I want.

I'm also selling to the retail customer that wants a daily use item that they are looking for. Many of those items are being purchased by a lot of people every day. That is the person I want.

Talking about drum gear specifically, sure someone can open a niche drum selling site, which I know you are working on, but the traffic will be niche based and the buyers and sellers will probably stay focused for a very long time.

To really get into what I was saying, you have to look at what you are selling and how you are selling it. That will help in determining where the best place to sell is.

eBay is a great place to sell a ton of different and varied items, from drum gear, to a blender.

I would love no fees on eBay or a 1% transaction for every sale, but I live with what it is and I structure things accordingly.

[COLOR=black]vintagemoore2000[/COLOR]- I can understand the frustration, it has affected a lot of sellers on eBay. Basically eBay wants to be more like Amazon, much of Amazon is offering Free Super Saving Shipping, they also have customer reviews and other shopping benefits to the buyer, like warranty and return services. Ebay really started pushing that when they removed insurance as an option charged to the customer. They put it on the buyer to make it part of their service like on Amazon.

If you have noticed, eBay is making these types of moves, but Amazon costs even more to sell on then eBay. (The last time I checked anyway), Plus Amazon limits certain items you can sell and you must back up your item with a live functioning web site to be able to sell on Amazon in certain categories.

So the new % on shipping is stopping the guy from charging $1 for the item and $30 for shipping and yes, forcing sellers to basically put all or part of the shipping cost into the product. (Just like Amazon) This is one move I do not like, but shipping is a deal breaker for a lot of people and mentally seeing "free shipping" works on a lot of buyers.

This is a huge topic and can be discussed in so many ways and I'm not saying a niche drum site will not work, but it will only be so big and without investing money and time will stay at a certain level.

People are lazy, or do not want to bother having to sign up to another service or web site, so that is why they keep using eBay and it will be hard to break them from what they know.

We can sell 20 different items in 10 different categories on eBay in one day, that is why eBay works for me. I would never consider selling in 10 different niche web sites to do that.

Drum gear is another story, but we have a full service online store and sales pale in comparison to eBay, even though we tried selling products for less in the online store, people still go to eBay to buy the item. Probably because they can see our selling habits and they do not want to register to another web site when they can just go to eBay and buy it in about two clicks. Think about it.. Click "Buy Now", ... Then "Pay Now". it is pretty

simple.

I understand you guys are talking specifics, items over $200 and expensive drum kits. Then again what is my cost for the $200 item and my investment in the $1000 drum set? Do I have an inventory? Other expenses to cover? rent? insurance? advertising fees? hosting fees? gas bills? electric bills? etc...

Are your $200 and $1000 item brand new and being purchased from a wholesaler? Then that is a different story all together and it would make selling on eBay harder because you have more invested in the product. So without specifics I can only assume

I sell new and used items, and we by far have a much better profit margin on used items. We can buy a board game at a rummage sale for .50c and turn around and sell it on eBay in a few days for $9. We are not concerned about the fees at that point. Sure we all want less fees, but the investment is very small.

I can take a new drum key that costs us $2.95 and have to sell it at $4.00 to compete and end up with .50c after all of the fees. That is why eBay does not work now for a lot of people.

Lastly, if you have had a set you bought originally for $400 and sell it 10 years later and it is worth $1000. The $132 fees are par for the course if you want to sell it quickly on eBay. Even locally you will have to deal face to face with the cash and end up settling for less.

Now, if that $1,000 (MSRP) set cost you $500 and it is new and you have to sell it for $800 to compete on eBay then yes, the fees are not going to work to make a decent profit.

The tighter your margin then less likely eBay will work for you.

David

To me, buying online on any site is the easy part.....selling is the work part.

And with drums it can be quite an event, boxes, tape, packing material, and the time it takes to ship a kit right. Then you give what I feel is a big chunk to ebay....really takes the wind out of my sails.

Just like there are specialty retail stores, why not specailty online sites.

I would think the drummming community would want a specialty site, to buy, sell vintage,new,used or anything to do with drumming...and at way less fees.

Most of the 200 threads that I read that hated the fee structure were from people selling inexpensive items. They sold on ebay quite often and complained that by the time they were done with all the packing, supplies, tape, and time it takes to go to ups ect....it just wasn't worth it anymore.

And at Audiogon, people buy and sell all the time and you don't have to take paypal, my last ten transactions were done all by money order,some sellers even charge the paypal fee to the buyer.

Hey Ebay has done some impressive things no doubt. But they are not the only game in town, just like there are other stores besides wal mart.

And as for the car thing, ebay WAS my number one choice, but with their new fee structure, it is my last choice.

So time will tell if fellow drummers want an alternative, to buy and sell their drums....I know I do.

There are alternatives. There is Steve's site and Mlvibes site ... both are outstanding. Then, there's Vinnys, the Drum Farm, Repurcussions, and on and on and on.

Heck, even this very forum has almost 5000 threads in the For Sale/Trade sections.

It's not a matter of having an alternative. We already do ... in abundance.

If you wish to buy or sell, it's covered.

What you have tried to do has already been done. There are vintage drum online AUCTION sites. They don't seem to do well. But, the vintage SELL sites flourish. Ebay has a BuyItNow selling option that brings it into the same realm. It's the uneducated sellers that seem to have tainted those waters.

I am steering away from auctioning off my gear these days. I would sleep better at night knowing I sold my equipment for a fair price to an ethical mug who is also happy with the transaction. Auctions do not spawn that. The motivations are to max out profit and max out savings. Someone loses in those deals.

oops, I meant in an auction ebay style way.