eBay : The danger of just reading headlines

Well, they are both correct. It is all spin no matter which way you work it. Ebay has less listing but each listing is yielding more fees. Once the lister realizes how much he spent on the listing, He says, wow, this wasn't worth it and doesn't do it again. I think Ebay will realize this more later on.

For an economy supposedly in recession, this ain't bad.

We are listing and selling more than we have in a while and do not have a problem with our profit margin compared to having a physical store.

Guess we are just fortunate.

I think it depends entirely on what you sell. The higher end merchandise that is very desirable still has an excellent market. The odd stuff that people try to make a few dollars on from their garage is what I think is declining. I am pretty sure that was an objective. People never cease to amaze me though. I see listings where I know someone is only making a few cents to ship out an item. I know if they do it enough times, it adds up. I just do not see all that work for such a small profit. I guess I am just too lazy.

Our original intention was to clear out the house. Instead we have added more!

There are times we just want to get rid of it without throwing it away, so we take a shot at eBay. Usually we are pleasantly surprised, but sometimes it is just a wash.

Steve,

I'd like to see some of your listings. What is you user ID? The way you talk of your listings, it sounds like you may have some good stuff but you never mention "what" you sell. I too have sold on Ebay but have never made the money you always talk about making. Maybe you have something I'm interested in bidding on. Even though I don't sell anymore, I do still buy from Ebay. I don't sell on Ebay anymore because they eat up a lot of your profit. If you accept Paypal, then they take another bite of the profit when the transaction goes through.

You are right about watching the expenses. When we first started we listed everything we could get our hands on but quickly learned that we had to list with a purpose. Most of our items are in the store and we use auctions and fixed price listings to drive traffic to us.

It is the "surprise" auctions that give us the most excitement. When we don't know what the value is, we list it for .99 and see what happens. Most sit there or sell for .99, then we get surprises that go for hundreds.

I don't put any direct info in this blog to avoid commercializing it, which is not what T-G had in mind. I appreciate your interest. E-mail me at Steve@bedfordtradingpost.com or go to that website and you can link over to us at eBay.