Has ebay uk market place changed ?

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Cortina
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by Cortina »

Maybe someday I'll enroll with facebook ............... maybe .............................
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sisu
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by sisu »

hot66 wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 12:30 pm i've never used facebook marletplace as always assumed it was a hotbed of fakes and charletons
Yes know your demographic too. Over 35 year olds use facebook and facebook marketplace is aimed at a region, its local. Like Craigslist, Gumtree etc so you are selling or buying to people who could drive to pick it up. This sidesteps the postal issues and is a great way to get stuff at a low price as a buyer, but also it is quick and painless from a sellers perspective if you want it gone.

Ebay is not an auction site anymore, 90% are a set price rather than a bidding one. "I know what I have got!" type of seller. It is also an international site, which gave it reach if you were selling very odd stuff. But with sellers fees, weight and postage being another cost so it has walled itself in with Amazon.
Also from July you have the tax that needs to be paid on items outside of the EU via post. Its 24% here in Finland so Britain is now as expensive as anywhere else in the world and has the same delays as buying something from Japan.
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camperco
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by camperco »

Very interesting thread - keep it going..
Angus Watt http://www.greatworthclassics.co.uk

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Its a feature - not a fault sir..
misteralz
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by misteralz »

I wouldn't bother selling anything on eBay anymore. Low value stuff goes to the charity shop, or it sits on the street with a note on it saying 'take it away'. Occasionally use Marktplaats if whatever it is I want rid of falls in between too good to give away but not valuable enough to pursue proper avenues of getting rid, if that makes sense?
Lately I've been spending a decent bit of time (but not money, yet) on Catawiki, which feels a lot like eBay did twenty or so years ago - lots of interesting stuff, the odd bargain, and much fewer scammers.
simon james
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by simon james »

Interesting thread. And one which echoes my findings.

I’ve sold a good few bits on eBay and made some good money, including selling cars.
More recently though, I’ve had greater success through forums (as a previous post mentioned).

The last time I sold a car on eBay, I was inundated with the most stupid questions.

The last two cars went on forums, a 356 project on here and a very early Mini Moke sold within a day on a mini forum, no time wasters, no haggling no snooping, (be it online or in person) and no fees.
I’d say that eBay has got greedy, a friend sold a racing mini engine on eBay for just over £2000, the buyer used PayPal and the fees were £280.

There are some dodgy folk out there and you have to wonder if the high fees are to pay for their shenanigans.
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gridgway
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by gridgway »

christaylorsound wrote: Tue Nov 22, 2022 9:05 am I agree with all the above but would add not to be too worried about low 'watches' or bids, there are several tools for auto-bidding at the very last second so as not to reveal your hand as it were. Fees have gone up hugely too. Having said all that I recently put some old HiFi on marketplace and after 3 months not a peep. Same item on Ebay and it went at the end of the auction for what I'd perviously asked (less fees). Final tip; always time your items to end in the evening when people are likely to have time to bid..... Happy Bidding!
Put your old hifi on here first, I love buying hifi kit!
sisu
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by sisu »

The Bring a Tailor, Collecting Conartists, Silverspoon and other Classic car online auction have moved into the Ebay business zone of the worldwide platform.
Ebay has missed the boat with this as it is up to the seller, rather than a company wanting to filter out shenanigans for its own reputation. So the Ebay sellers realised that by taking every photo possible and covering every answer of makes and models it fits you filter out the questions and by doing this they can say to Ebay, look I told them down the bottom that it fits this type of car not that one. So this way when it goes south and Ebay have no idea if those are real or fake Fuch alloys. Which is why Ebay has the fee for their own costs sorting this out.
I use Ebay for modern used car parts cross referencing say a friends seat motor for a his Ferrari 550, I search Ebay and find out that its a Fiat Ducato motor and frame and then search for that. Then find one either from the Fiat dealer or facebook marketplace etc.
Bring a Tailor got burnt by people selling dodgy items and they are now big enough that they blocked the seller and refunded the sale. But not every car is perfect so the pool of good cars is getting smaller with competition as every car Classifieds use this as a way to broaden their market. They make their money shipping the cars and the insurance, not the transaction. This is a very volatile market and I am waiting for there to be another Jerry Seinfeld fake '58 Speedster moment where people see an opportunity to make money with the Rolex Submariner of cars, the aircooled Porsche and there are dozens of Classic Car auction sites looking for the juicy items.
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rhd racer
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by rhd racer »

Really interesting thread.

For reasons only I know, I have bought another Boxster and have been making it go again. It had blown head gaskets and I have a spare good engine so have done the swap and about ready to fire. However, the car is tired and lots of bits and bobs broke or were found to be broken along the way. I have bought countless items on eBay and honestly had no issues at all, and the breadth of ‘crap to most people but gold to me’ has been great. I also agree with the point about the Ferrari/Fiat seats - it has been a hugely useful reference library too.

On selling, we cleared some stuff from the garage before putting the extra car in; old motorhome sinks with glass tops and all sorts that take up space and are tricky to post, but all sold and had no issues with buyers who I checked out as genuine. I didn’t make huge money, but a few hundred after costs of sensible postage via parcels2go. I did not really notice the fees as the items were not high value.

Fast-forward to the Boxster project and it had clear lights which are pretty valuable to upgrade 986.1 to 986.2. I had them up at a fixed price of £700 (half what I bought the whole car for!) and just below the market rate. I had a few silly offers but sold on Friday for £651. I had priced in £50 carriage in my head so they were insured in carriage as somewhat high risk. I lucked out when the buyer turned out to be working in Leicester so I delivered them to his work on Friday evening costing me a fiver in fuel. Thinking I had done a solid deal and saved that cost I got paid on Saturday by eBay less the fee of £90!!! I nearly choked on my cornflakes….so I understand how the guy with the mini engine felt sore. That said, in the round they sold, it turned out well with no risk to me or the buyer, so I suppose that warrants a fee for the reach eBay provides. So overall a good experience from me, but then I have no FB profile so only ads in the local weekly paper / notice board in the local shop to compare against.

On Sylvanian families, my wife spent hours putting them into families and put them on the village Facebook in little packages. We made a few hundred quid. Sorry, they are all gone….


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sisu
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by sisu »

Apparently Craigslist introduced a 5 dollar fee to list a running car this Summer and the site is crickets too.
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Cortina
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by Cortina »

"the site is crickets" ?? what on earth does this mean ?
Royal Enfield .. still in India
GL 1800 Tour DCT, for pleasure / Fantic 240 Professional - play
Rally 911 (1966) build parked for a while
Rally 928 (work started again - inc serious weight loss programe !)
.... and now another VW Up GTI owner.
sisu
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by sisu »

Cortina wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:46 pm "the site is crickets" ?? what on earth does this mean ?
All you can hear are crickets. .... no one is using it.
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Cortina
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Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by Cortina »

sisu wrote: Mon Nov 28, 2022 11:24 am
Cortina wrote: Sun Nov 27, 2022 9:46 pm "the site is crickets" ?? what on earth does this mean ?
All you can hear are crickets. .... no one is using it.
Ah - ok , not many of them about here ! Sounds like ebay then ..... result (of my recent effort) : 6 items listed for 10 days , one item sold for it's whopping starting price of £4.99 , not a squeak on others - 1 view on most , none on one . Ebay took nearly 17% of proceeds . Conclusion - a complete waste of time (probably over an hour to list 6 items) - don't intend to try again .... merde (Portuguese - maybe spelt wrong .... I only speak it ) !
Royal Enfield .. still in India
GL 1800 Tour DCT, for pleasure / Fantic 240 Professional - play
Rally 911 (1966) build parked for a while
Rally 928 (work started again - inc serious weight loss programe !)
.... and now another VW Up GTI owner.
sisu
DDK forever
Posts: 662
Joined: Mon Nov 07, 2011 5:46 pm

Re: Has ebay uk market place changed ?

Post by sisu »

It is good to see Bootsy grouping the advertisers of the forum in one place. This was always a failure of magazines. You read an article about a car or a see an advert about a service, such as Classic Retrofit 964/993 hvac suitcase rebuilding.
But then you can't find it unless you physically thumb through magazines or use Google. Facebook is not linked very well with Google. Great for social occasions with Insta/Facebook but no good for finding the guy who has fitted it and what he did.
Joining Whatsapp groups can be a gamble as normally there is at least one person who wants to leave that group.

Tiktok is now the number one search engine over the past couple of years. So without traffic Google/Youtube , Meta(facebook, Insta, Whatsapp) are all losing ground to Tiktok. Its worth mentioning Twitter, Elon wants to move into the video space that Youtube and Tiktok have as this is a great medium for advertisers, if he doesn't get them to all leave. He also wants to amalgamate payment using his currency.
Where the likes of EBay fit in with this is that they want to be your Amazon type of retailer. So you buy your Classic Retrofit HVAC part though them and they take a cut as they are high up the Google search engine results and use this as a way to step in.
Take aways and Restaurants are facing the same challenge with Uber Eats, Deliveroo etc as they all take a cut rather than dealing with you directly as this swamping of a city with freelance workers is very volatile.
Separating yourself from the storm is important.
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