eBay scrapping selling fees for private sellers

[bentontool]

For the last decade or so, most private sellers who are serious would only list via the 80% off selling fees offer, which works out at around 2.9-%3.1% of the sale price. I used it almost exclusively over the last 3 or 4 years.

Please tell me more about this. I have not seen it.

 

[Dabop]

Personally I use Aliexpress or Alibaba first (if I'm going to buy Chinese stuff, I'd rather buy it direct rather than through an Ebay seller thats selling factory seconds for twice the price you can get from the manufacturer for good ones)- the biggest issue is the time it takes to get here- usually a week to three weeks is normal to Australia from China... I wil use Ebay in 'an emergency' if its time critical, but like I said- the Ebay sellers tend to be reselling factory seconds (often lower quality or with defects) and usually at quite a high markup!!!

I do use FB marketplace- (but only for 'local to me' stuff- thats one advantage, is that you can set a 'distance ring' around you so it ignores anything coming from outside that distance)

The last Ebay buy was ages ago (I needed some replacement clearance lights for a trailer I rent out, so needed them quickly) and although they were from the same manufacturer that I normally buy from direct- these were obviously factory seconds- about half of them (box of 10) were wired 'back to front' ie the positive and negative leads were reversed (something I had never seen from the actual manufacturers ones ever- before or after) so I had to test each one on a battery before hooking it up permanently...
They wanted evidence of it, so I actually made a short video of the issue...
Someone stuffed up...
(only 55 seconds long)

To add insult to injury, I paid more for those lights by over double, than buying a box of ten direct...

 

[Etaf]

well, i had an item on sale at ebay , and because of the zero fees , i lowered its price and sold it
as a result, i had to link my bank - which i thought had already been linked and agree a direct debit
then having linked it - i then get an email telling me its a different account and will take a few days to verify
had the account since 1979 and not changed - so no idea what that was about
i suspect they will deposit a few pence and i have to tell them what pence was deposited when

but at least i sold and got what i was after money wise after all the fees , i have a spreadsheet that calculates that for me
so i enter the money i want at the end of the day , and it gives me the price to list (with postage few and paypal fee )

 

[Robbo3]

Facebook and gumtree: I put this as a disclaimer up front on all my listings (whether it costs £10 or £1000) "If the listing is live, it is available. Asking "is it available" will be ignored! NO Paypal, NO DHL, UPS postage, NO Scam. Cash on collection or can post (Royalmail insured delivery only) AFTER successful bank transfer. "
Even then for every 10 enquiries, I can factually say that 7 of them are scammers.

So if i want to buy something from you or any other seller, what should my first contact be?
"Is it available" may not be to your liking but it starts the conversation & is not really a reason to ignore a potential buyer. Cutting off your nose to spite your face, comes to mind.
Saying that, I'm pretty sure Gumtree use a bot to occasionally ask if an item is still available.