EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

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JamesB
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EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by JamesB »

Er... to put it in few words and politely, I am fed off with Ebay.
Sure I´ve recently had a good amount of positive transactions, but a few of them have just showed me how uncovered the seller is.
Case 1. A guy asks his item to be sent to an address he has just moved from (!!!!) yes, that´s it. he says he´s got it sorted to forward the mail to his new address. Surprise, the item takes so long it might be reasonable to consider it lost. He starts a complain, we talk, and he himself goes like OK, the forwarding could take longer. I ask him to remove meanwhile the complaint. He doesn´t, Ebay rips my money off and back to him. Don´t get me wrong, the guy is super polite, acknowledges my good disposition, etc. And he says he did not know that not withdrawing the complaint would have these consequences. Very low (inexperienced) feedback, could be an explanation. But the problem is not him, we´ve sorted out the thing between ourselves, but Ebay. Someone buys an item with unregistered mail, makes it sent to an obsolete address, and Ebay duly gives the money back on the grounds that "I have not given proof of shipping"

Case 2. A guy buys a set of wheels. He first says they don´t match the measures (!!!!), there are no measures in the auction. Then sends a pic like letting know there´s a rim missing. Finally theya er all there. He complains wheels are NOT like the Protar´s Oh, well, I thought the idea was to replace the unaccurate original wheels with, logically, DIFFERENT wheels! Finally and despite all that reasoning, the guy just says childishly "well, I don´t like".
As a side note, I´ve had dozens of feedbacks with adjectives like "awesome" and "perfect" for same item, I can tell you!!!
And Ebay duly accepts to start a case that will consist on him sending wheels back, me paying the cost (I´m in his hands) at expensive italian mail rates and then me refunding all. That´s it. I pay BOTH shipping costs. Ah... the guy has a FEEDBACK OF JUST 6!!!!!!

Meanwhile, Ebay Spain says they no longer let the money arrive to Paypal, nor let you deal with buyer. They directly send to Bank account.

So... is there a reasonable international alternative to Ebay????
There are some local APPS taht work fine I´d just want something else to sell internationally. HAve you also had recent bad experiences??
Thanks in advance as usual
J

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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by daniel »

Ooooh James. I fully agree with you. I had some really frustrating auctions lately that made me think the same....and now that paypal has been removed more or less it's even more annoying.
But the answer to your question is simple...NO !
It tried many different forums on facebook to sell models. 30% worked great but the rest is blablabla..pictures please..blablabla...more pictures please. You want 50...I give you 5 because of blablablabla ;)
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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by stubeck »

Sellers are always at a disadvantage on ebay. I've sold items as "parts, not working" and had the user complain it didn't work...and then eBay takes their side.

Can you sell your stuff on Etsy? Its more of a shop than an auction, but it likely has lower fees and easier issue resolution.
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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by BMW »

There is no real alternative to eBay :(
You can put your stuff on Amazon marketplace, but it is even worse than eBay.

However, you can maybe open a website on Shopify?
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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by Jordan2.0 »

Well J,it is a very different world than when we became friends almost 20 years ago ?? A lot has changed also on eBay,it is not fun anymore I have to agree..alternative ? Nope,I think the best days of buying and selling are behind us.Sadly...

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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by 43rdMichael »

Great topic - with no easy answers.

I’ve never sold on ebay, and have given up selling in general. The experience is terrific with 70% of folks, but the balance are bad enough to turn me off. Only 5% (at most) are dishonest, rest just very painful.

Rant over.... 🤣

I’ve reverted to the local hobby show swap and sell every couple of years for a clear out.
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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by Tyrone »

I wonder if it's worth setting up a WooCommerce store or something specifically for modellers with low volume sales that only accepts payments through stripe, that way a bunch of us could be selling our 3D prints, file downloads, detail parts, decals etc. If a few of us all joined together we'd have quite a number of products so search engine ranking could be quite good

You can also set up accounts within WooCommerce so that if somebody buys a product in a specific category, user A would be notified about it. And the other registered sellers wouldn't need to do anything. Only issue would be if someone purchased more than one item from multiple sellers, although things can be dispatched separately I suppose.

The only transaction fees that'd have to be paid would be stripes which is 1.4% within Europe. Much better than eBay's and PayPal, and we can decide our own 'seller protection'.

I just made https://norwestmarine.co.uk/ so could use what I've learned from that to hobble something together.

Thoughts?
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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by indycals »

I'm done selling on eBay but I still buy a lot of kits there. That said, if you have a seller that you buy from and they have a non-ebay way to buy from them, please utilize that - I don't know anyone who sells on ebay that WANTS to sell on eBay. Case in point I've bought several kits from Burbank House of Hobbies - eBay is a great way to see what they have, then you can go to their website and buy it direct. If you guys knew how much sales revenue I walked away from on eBay you'd know just how bad I (expletive) hate selling there. I still maintain an ebay store, but I keep my inventory at zero and hope that people who come across it make the connection to google "indycals".
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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by sky1911 »

Well, I've never sold anything on Ebay, only a select few times on forums - with good experiences there. But sometimes even buying on Ebay is a hassle. I'm on the home stretch of one such "hassle". I wanted to buy a few modelling goods from one store. Added them to the shopping basket and got about 30 bucks of goods and a cummulated 25 bucks of shipping. I'm like nope. So I tried using the "request final prize" thing where you can address things like that. Ebay proceeds to say "you need to buy before you can request that" (ya, right, as if! I'm not that retarded). After contacting the seller via message, he said to do exactly that, but NOT pay. So I did or tried to. At the point where you can request the final amount, the system spat the message of "this seller offers no rebates blabla". So that was a dead end. I tried different ways - all to no avail as I was intending to use Paypal (my only means of online paying outside of cc since I don't do online banking). Anyway... another message to the seller and he then sent me the final amount for my intended goods and his bank details. I wired the money (Sunday last week) and then haven't heard anything from him. So I contacted them again this past Sunday, got a reply yesterday with a tracking # that is so far electronically announced (or whatever).. so we'll see how that goes.
Honestly, Ebay has become a bit of a drag to buy, but it would seem that some things can only be had there...

As for setting up a separate platform, generally a great idea, seriously. However, once it gets to a certain point rules and regulations will have to take over. I.E. as described in some of the cases above. You would need an actual person or maybe a jury of peers ;) to decide who is at fault and who should be compensated or whatnot. Because in the long run, there WILL be issues, because we are dealing with people. Some who, apparently, cannot read or comprehend what they read - or blatantly disregard it in order to throw a tantrum. This, I fear, is something that should be considered when starting out.
I mean Ebay turned to be big news in the olden days, when someone sold (or rather had to sell) an Italian sports car that was offered on the Ebay with a low starting point and almost no one bid on it because they thought it was a fake ad anyway. So the winning bid was way less than what the car was worth at the time and thus the seller didn't want to hand over the car and cancel the auction. I believe this went to the courts and the winning bid had to be accepted and the car had to change hands. It would appear no reserve was set - possibly because that wasn't even an option back then...
My suggestion (but I'm a cynic anyway) expect the worst possible (behaviour). If it turns out your fears were fulfilled, then it's not a surprise, you were prepared for it. If the fears were unfounded and all goes swell, that is a happy surprise for you. I'd call that a win-win ;)
Cheers,
Roman

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Re: EBAY ALTERNATIVES??

Post by SBEST »

indycals wrote: Wed Jul 07, 2021 2:12 am I I don't know anyone who sells on ebay that WANTS to sell on eBay.
Nope, I don't. I prefer to sell from the board here or buy from websites. Just hope Ebay doesn't start hitting people for advertising.
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