Looking for some serious alternatives to eBay in order to buy or sell your goods? You’re not alone. EBay has changed so much over the past few years that longtime buyers and sellers have been finding themselves wondering whether or not they should be closing up shop and turning to other online auction sites and marketplaces.
Luckily, there are a number of alternatives to eBay for sellers and buyers looking to do business on other online selling platforms. Below are 27 of the best and most popular eBay alternatives in 2021 for those who are fed up with the online marketplace and want to take their business elsewhere.
NOTE: This post was originally published way back in 2014. But, every few months I update it to help ensure that any of the sites like eBay mentioned here are actually worth looking into. The most recent update was in May 2022.
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Who is Looking for Alternatives to eBay Anyway?
All criticism and mudslinging aside, eBay continues to dominate the Internet as a premiere online auction and marketplace. But even with hundreds of millions of registered users and almost $11 billion in revenue, many are really not happy with the platform citing high seller fees, intense competition, fraudulent activity, weak markets, and poor customer service. (To see this negativity in action, just take a look at some of the comments below, or head on over to eBay’s own sellers’ forum.)
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Where Can You Sell Your Stuff Online Besides eBay?
That said, here are almost 30 serious (and often cheaper) alternative sites like eBay in 2022 for sellers and buyers online. Keep in mind, each one offers its own unique services and setup that may differ somewhat from eBay and that may be better suited to specific industries and business models. Though you may want to continue to maintain a presence on eBay, you should definitely give some of these other platforms a chance to increase your exposure and sales, and ultimately improve the buying experience:
1. Rakuten
Rakuten is a Japanese electronic commerce and Internet company based in Tokyo. Its e-commerce platform is the largest site in Japan and one of the world’s biggest in terms of sales. Like Amazon and Alibaba below, they offer a wide range of products across all major categories.
This platform is not one of the cheapest eBay selling alternatives, however. Rakuten’s pricing is extremely high, which may make it prohibitive to smaller sellers. In addition to a $33 dollar monthly subscription fee, you’ll also pay hefty commissions. But, if you are looking to sell large at a large volume, then it may be an option to consider.
2. Artfire
Artfire is an online marketplace focused on crafts, craft supplies, vintage goods, and fine art. Unlike eBay, sellers pay no fees unless they choose to open a Pro account. In that case, they pay a monthly subscription fee. There are several helpful features to the site including: SEO tools, a coupon feature, and Google Analytics integration. Artfire also has a solid reputation for good customer service and site management.
3. Ruby Lane
Ruby Lane has a decent following among the buyers and sellers of high-end antiques, collectibles, and vintage items. Though many of the site’s users consider it to be a worthwhile and profitable venue, some users, however, may find their fee structure to be a bit expensive (and even prohibitive in some cases). It really depends on what is being sold and how much the sellers build up their storefronts.
4. Bonanza
Bonanza is a general online marketplace offering fixed price listings on general merchandise, including fashion items and collectibles. Compared to other sites, Bonanza has one of the lowest fees- which is a draw for those who need to keep their overhead costs down. However, there is no auction-style buying and selling, and the site is a virtual no-name when compared to the likes of eBay.
5. Jet.com
For a relative new comer on the block, Jet seems to be taking off (pardon the pun). Since it’s launch in 2014, Jet has quickly built up an active platform with a loyal following and a large selection of products. Regarding the pricing, the marketplace is quite similar to other eBay alternatives on this list. Jet currently charges no signup, monthly or listing fees. Instead sellers are charged a commission on any items sold.
6. Ebid
Ebid offers several merchant programs including, auctions, fixed- price transactions, and storefronts. The platform has a reasonable fee structure and is also a Google Shopping Marketplace Partner. One nice feature on the site is the “Ninja listing tool” that allows for bulk uploading.
7. iOffer
iOffer supports both an auction format as well as fixed price transactions. But, what truly makes iOffer unique is its swaps and trades platform. Sellers can automatically receive a storefront when they upgrade to a seller account. The store and all listings are free, and they will only pay a fee when items are sold.
Amazon Marketplace allows online sellers to sell new, used, collectable, and refurbished items alongside Amazon’s regular offerings. While you may get a good reach for your listings with Amazon, if you are looking for a break from seller fees, you won’t find them here. On Amazon, sellers can create either an individual or business account, each with different features. Both accounts have the option to use the “Fulfillment by Amazon” program, allowing sellers to store and ship their products from Amazon fulfillment centers. Individual accounts will incur fees only when an item sells- a feature that may work well for low sales volume. Professional accounts have a monthly charge but also have lower selling fees than individual accounts. With a professional account sellers can add their own products to Amazon.com, but individual accounts are limited to existing products.
9. Etsy
For those who make handmade items or sell vintage products or crafting supplies, Etsy is a serious alternative to eBay to consider. Etsy has its own unique culture and an exceptionally loyal following. Though setting up a storefront is free, fees are charged for listing items with an initial listing period of four months.
10. Newegg
Newegg got its beginning as an online retailer of computer hardware and software, but it has been expanding into more categories and inviting third party sellers to take part in the marketplace. Their categories now include: Apparel & Accessories, Arts and Crafts, Auto & Hardware, Baby, Beauty, Consumer Electronics, Home and Living, Toys, and Jewelry, among others. People who want to sell retail items should give this site a try. It is a lot like Amazon but with much cheaper fees and simpler fee structure.
11. TIAS
TIAS is one of the oldest marketplaces in the lot, offering fixed price transactions in antiques, collectibles, arts and crafts, and jewelry. The platform also provides sellers with various store formats as several levels of customer support. TIAS does have a minimum fee requirement, but if a seller’s TIAS commissions are higher than the minimum fee, then only the commission is paid. Other notable services include the submission of auctions automatically to eBay and sending selling listings to over 2000 classified ad networks.
12. Delcampe
Delcampe is an online auction specializing in antiques and collectibles. Major categories include stamps, coins, and postcards, though other items can also be found there. Like Ealtbay above, the fees at Delcampe are pretty reasonable, and there are a variety of payment options to choose from.
13. eCRATER
eCRATER offers a free web store builder and an online marketplace. There are currently millions of products listed there, and in addition to the free, easy-to-use store builder, sellers can use Google Wallet at checkout. Other notable features include that listed items are also submitted to Google Product Search, and sellers can import their products from eBay.
14. Storenvy
Storenvy is an online platform that hosts about 20,000 creative entrepreneurs and small businesses, offering a total of over 350,000 different products. The best part of using Storenvy is that the service is totally free for both buyers and sellers.
15. Webstore
Webstore is a totally free online marketplace for buyers and sellers. They make their money via banner ads, so there are no fees. The platform offers both auction-style transactions as well as fixed price purchases. Another plus mentioned by one of our readers below, is that you can create a shorten, custom URL for advertising purposes.
16. Swap
Swap.com is a niche online marketplace like eBay that specializes in baby, kids, and maternity products, including a wide range of clothes, toys, books, decor, and movies. According to Swap.com, there are more than 10,000 unique products listed on the site at any time. Users can buy, sell, and even directly swap items through their website.
Selling Apps… the New Wave of Sites Like Ebay
With mobile devices transforming virtually every corner of our lives, it’s effect on ecommerce is not surprising in the least. We are now witnessing the rise of so-called selling apps which allow mobile users to easily make purchases from their mobile devices.
17. Letgo
After sellers upload a photo of the item they want to sell, they have access to several useful features, such as a messaging platform and automated responses. Letgo will also automatically categorize products it in the right section, and there is a decent search tool of items for sale. Finally, Letgo’s UI is easy to understand and work with.
Powered by the ubiquitous social media platform, Facebook Marketplace allows buyers to tap into a an audience of over 2.6 billion monthly active users. Like the other selling apps listed here, the local selling feature makes it easy to upload a photo with a description. With the Facebook Marketplace app, buyers can also list products and engage directly with customers.
19. Depop
Depop is a forward-thinking selling app that blends social with ecommerce. Sellers can upload an image of their product Instagram-style and post the product for sale. Buyers can follow their friends as well as their favorite sellers and be notified when they have a new item on the market.
Which eBay Alternatives are the Best for New and Pre-Owned Fashion?
20. Tradesy
Tradesy is a pretty active online market place for new and pre-owned clothing. They take a 9% commission, and you can transfer your earnings directly to Paypal. It’s a breeze to list new items; they even have a dedicated mobile app for the task. Their customer service is also pretty quick and responsive which is a big plus if you run into issues along the way. Another benefit that can come in handy is that they provide sellers with a shipping kit that includes instructions, tissue paper, a Tradesy sticker, and a prepaid mailing bag.
21. Asos Marketplace
At Asos Marketplace, fashion minded people from around the world can buy and sell new, pre-owned, and vintage fashion from a wide range of popular and independent designers. The site is easy to navigate, and all of the photos on the site feature regular people in regular conditions, so you get a better idea of what the clothes will look like out on the street. People on the site can set their own prices, so the savings can be really great, and the platform has a good reputation for its customer service and return policies.
Sites Like eBay for Buyers Only
22.Quibids
Quibids is a serious option for online buyers or business owners looking to update their equipment, furnishings, or other inventory. This is a fast moving penny auction site. You have to pay a small fee to place a bid (currently it’s less than a dollar), but the savings (as much as 95% off the retail price on a brand new item) can be shocking. But, it will take a little time getting used to the site and learning how it works. Once you get the hang of it, though, you can get some amazing deals. Just beware, it can get addictive!
23. Liquidation.com
The last of the alternatives to eBay, Liquidation.com is a marketplace where professional buyers can source commercial surplus inventory and government surplus assets in an online environment. Bulk products are sold by the truckload, pallet, or small package, and conditions range from new in a box to customer returns and used. Product categories include: apparel, computers, electronics, housewares, industrial equipment, and even vehicles.
24. Overstock
As the name suggest, Overstock got its start in 1999 selling surplus stock at less than wholesale prices. Lately, however, they added their own merchandise. Though users can’t currently sell their own products on the platform, it’s a great place for buyers to secure items at bargain prices.
GovernmentAuctions.org provides a wide range of items from government and police auctions including federal, state, and even local goods that are surplus, seized, or abandoned. If you are located in US or Canada, and you are looking for bargains on a wide range of valuable items either for personal use or for resale, then this is definitely a site to check out.
26. Aliexpress
AliExpress is part of Alibaba.com. It offers a wide range of products at wholesale prices complete with buyer protection and express delivery with full tracking. According to AliExpress, there are currently more than 5,900 different types of products from over 44 different industries listed on the site.
27. DHGate.com
DHgate.com is one of the top online wholesale marketplaces for goods made in China, connecting international business and consumer buyers with Chinese wholesale factories and sellers. DHgate currently lists over 30 million products in a wide range of categories. DHGate also promises to protect the quality of products you receive by carefully reviewing sellers and withholding your payments to them until you’re happy with your product.
So, there you have it, 27 good alternatives to eBay in 2021 for online sellers and buyers. Have you had any experiences using these platforms? Know of any others that I may have missed? Please let us know in the comments below.
Depending on where you are in the world there’s also kijiji and craigslist (though craigslist has a bad rap).
I’ve had a lot of success with kijiji.
Hi Jason,
Thanks for the tips.
I specifically left off Craigslist as a serious alternative to eBay because of the “bad rap.” I do, however, know several people who have successfully bought and sold items there. You just have to exercise your full due diligence. Here are some good tips over at Lifehacker.com:
http://lifehacker.com/5915608/how-can-i-avoid-getting-screwed-when-selling-on-craigslist/all
I was wondering if there is an online site for buy it now or best offer, that pulls your listing right over to their site. Ebay is out of control.
E bid above mentions it in their perks for aelling. That you can download from ebay. Haven’t used it just read it
I didn’t like ebid’s policies, especially having my home town location plastered all over every one of my sales pages, then after I signed up and spent half the night importing and adjusting some 55 pages and 800 positive feedbacks from ebay I got locked out! their stupid system demanded I fax or send a copy of my freaking driver’s license or similar! Like I’m going to send something like that to some web site!
This was AFTER I paid the $49 for the “lifetime” account, my account lifetime lasted about 4 hours, I filed a dispute with my credit card and got a full refund.
This site is brand new started by a husband and wife that feels the same as you “ebay is out of control”. Don’t know about if they can move stuff from ebay to their’s or not.
hello what selling page is this ?
brand new page greated by husband and wife what is this ???
can oyu show me link??
Our new Auction Center is http://www.777warehouse.com No listing fee’s, list up to 777 products, FREE store. We help our members by sharing all their “new listings” on our other social network pages. Come by check us out.
We have “Buy It Now”, “Best Offer”, “Auction” and “Item Swap” but we can’t pull from other sites. We offer 777 item listings (at no charge) a free store w/Featured Store (no charge) and a 1.25% final sales fee. Other fee’s range from .25 cents to $1.00.
Sorry we couldn’t help you on the pulling items over from other sites.
I am so glad that I have found this site & could not agree with you more about eBay, Not only are they out of control their Customer Services & RC could not give a dame, I am fed up with inconsiderate sellers who will not fulfil a contract because the bidding did not attract the price they wanted!
Hi there,
Though I am making my own website, for Selling and buyer of real bargain, try Selz.com, Ebid.net, and also you can try Ioffer.com (needs paypal account ).
Also you can try selling Vinted (https://www.vinted.co.uk/) and wallapop.
hope this helps, this are the sites that works on me. The most that gives you sells, is Ioffer, however, they are selling mostly brand new, second hand items are bit slow there,for second hand items, try wallapop or Vinted. Good Luck!
The best site hands down is the 100% free market place, UniSquare.com. It’s a clean, comprehensive auction site with very little unnessesary restrictions and or greed driven frustrations. It’s fully funded by advertising. Problem is it needs more members. It’s like eBay but no crony capitalism. No monopolizing via state/corp. collusion.
No fees at all.
Welcome to freeBid an alternative to selling online ebay type style you can sell online with your paypal or skrill account today. Easy styles user listings, add a product buy it now price or even add it as an auction. You can list onsite or in your store, or even both!
Everything you sell is commission free, meaning you keep all the money from the sale of your items! Not like other sites which charge listing and commission fees to sell online. Other sites charge between 10% to 15% commission per listing, With a freeBid selling account you can sell worldwide completely free!
Open Your Selling Account Today http://www.theluxbay.com
http://www.theluxbay.com is a new website to include comprehensive support for both online auctions and E-Commerce. Whether you require a solution for online auctions a-la eBay or general E-Commerce – theluxbay.com is your all in one solution, better still its free!
TrueGether has emerged as the most preferred and the cheapest alternative to eBay and Amazon where the seller has more control over the listings in terms of price, payment and the import & export of items across various other marketplaces. With TrueGether, whatever changes you do, the same are reflected on eBay, Amazon or Google shopping without any delay
See Here: https://www.truegether.com/eBayAlternative.html
Yes, I am on truegether and this website is allowing me to sell an infinite number of items for free. I did make a few sales there, too. So, there’s potential…
Looking for the best eBay alternative? Then you should definitely give Happeno a try! Happeno’s transaction fee is just 3%. No monthly fees. Automatic deposits. Secure transactions. Free and unlimited listings. Open your free store on https://www.happeno.com/
Wow! Thanks for taking the time to put these together.
eBay has just become way too big and way too expensive. The interface is ridiculously complicated too. The only good thing is has is that there is so much exposure. But with so much competition even that is no longer so helpful. I am off to try out uBid and Bonanza as well and to see if I can make enough off of there to quit eBay.
Hi Ivana,
Yeah, I think eBay’s size, scope, and “name” has made it feel a bit too comfortable to make to some necessary changes to the way it does business. Good luck with those other platforms. Let us know how it goes for you.
I have been a seller on Ebay for the past 11 years. A couple of weeks ago, I had a buyer scam me out of a $300.00 watch with Ebay’s blessing. Dishonest buyers have found a method of buying an item(s) and then requesting their money back by opening a case with Ebay. Ebay generated through Pay Pal an e-check to give the buyer the money back before the buyer sent me the watch back. By the way, the buyer never intended to send the watch back as the whole incident was designed to steal the watch from me.
Anyway after Pay Pal send the buyer an e-check, I contacted Ebay and asked them if the could send the buyer an email as ask the buyer to return the watch to me. This is the email that Ebay sent the buyer (I did edit out my username and the specific manufacture and model number of the watch, but everything else in E bay’s email is their words) which sealed any chance of getting my watch back:
“This is a courtesy email on behalf of the seller of the Watch. The seller has refunded the money through PayPal successfully as well as sent $10 for return shipping in hopes of getting the item returned. You are not required to return the item according to the eBay case, this is simply a request that you continue to work with your seller in coming to an agreeable resolution. The seller is eager to receive the item back and we appreciate your efforts in doing so.
Thanks,
eBay”
How can Ebay tell a buyer that they are not required to return the watch once they have received a full refund? In my opinion, Ebay is giving their blessing to a buyer to steal from the seller. By the way, the watch that was sold was brand new and in excellent condition. The buyer sent me an email accusing me of selling a used watch with scratches and dirt accumulated in the wrist band. I was confused when I first read the email. However, this was all part of the grand scheme in defrauding me out of my watch. After that incident, I no longer sell on Ebay. By the way, I have heard of other sellers losing their items to dishonest buyers on Ebay too.
Horrible.
One-sided and unjust.
How does E-Bay get away with this?
Ebays has calculated that it cost less to appease the buyer than to face legal issues from them
I would contact ebay and fight this, just keep hammering away at them, call them every day, three times a day, tell them there is nothing wrong with the watch, the buyer was lying, keep on bugging them, they may turn around and refund you. You have a right to a refund. I’d also keep going up the food chain getting supervisors and more supervisors until you get some satisfaction This is not legal and it’s wrong. If I were you, I’d spend as much time as necessary to get the situation fixed. If you get someone offshore who says you are right you were treated wrong, get their name. Then call back and talk to a supervisor and site the phone discussion that you were told by a ebay employee that you were not treated correctly and have them make the situation right. Hope this works.
I had the same thing happen to me!!!!!! I ddnt lose but about $30 dollars but still was DEEPLY disappointed in EBAY. This was about 3 years ago and I have told many people about what happened to me. I tried to resolve the issue with them and they pretty much told me TOO BAD TOO SAD. You OWE US MONEY!!! for selling fees. I sold some children’s clothing (very nice children’s clothing) waited until I was paid and got the go ahead to ship. After about three weeks my money was taken out of my account and given back to the buyer!! THEY GOT MY CLOTHES AND MY MONEY. The buyer opened a case with EBAY stating that the card used during the transaction was used fraudulently. The buyer did not give permission for the whoever bought the clothes to use it!!! When I talked to an EBAY rep. I told them “So your telling me, if I were a dishonest person, I could buy items on EBAY and then wait till I get my item and then open a case and say I DID NOT GIVE PERMISSION FOR MY CARD TO BE USED AND I WOULD GET THE ITEM PLUS MY MONEY BACK?!!!?” AND IF LIGHTENING STRIKES ME RIGHT HERE AND HE SAID “WELL, YES I GUESS YOU CAN IF YOUR THAT KIND OF PERSON”!!!! I told EBAY TO STICK IT!!!! AND IT WOULD BE A COLD DAY BEFORE I EVER USED THEM AGAIN!!!!!!
ebay is nothing more than a place for buyers to rip off sellers
Hi every body…I am a stamps seller on Ebay since 4 years now….Not much problems with buyers but recently i sold 2 U.S.A. stamps for near $450.00…The buyer asked me to return both stamps cause the gum on back is not original (his own opinion…)…I do accepted…I received the Registered sigh for cover…When I openned the cover, no stamps inside…I refused to refund this liar-buyer…But Ebay forced me to do by using my Paypal acc….Is Bidstart is better for stamps seller ?
As a seller i have had many problems with ebay….over the years ebay has systematically removed all rights from the seller and imposed all charges onto the seller …and removing any protection. A supervisor at ebay informed me they have done this to entice purchasers onto there site…i replied that without sellers there will be no buyers…needless to say i no longer sell on ebay
They sure are out of hand and pulling some pretty sketchy stuff if you ask me. I just started selling again after a long break. We moved around so much in the military it just wouldn’t have worked. Did you know that now you have to pay your final value fee on top of shipping price as well ? That just seems illegal to charge basically a tax on shipping. I wonder what the US Postmaster would say to that.
I too have had scam artist buyers/thiefs. E-bay is not seller friendly at all.
Also I have had a disgruntled person who made a ridiculous offer ( on an item that was listed as ” make an offer” ) because they got mad at me for not selling my 100+ dollar item for 5 bucks, they report me as selling fake designer purses and E-bay just took their word and punished me by taking down my listing, and not allowing me to list anything for 7 days even though I pay for a monthly store. I have an Authentication co that I use for items like that but they don’t care.
Basically E-bay thinks they are the almighty creator. Oh also around the holidays I had 2 orders I couldn’t complete and quickly refunded so now almost 3 months later they have decided to hold all my paypal money hostage for 2 weeks after the payment is received. I spent an hour on the phone getting passed from this person to the next trying to get them to release part of it because…(wait for it) . I need to pay my ridiculously over priced E-bay invoice
! I am going to get involved with some of these other sites and gradually move over. Then it will be good by and good riddance to the ” too big for their britches E ” Enough ranting for now, I am so over them. Been a member since 2002 with 100 % feedback.
my experience was just as dreadful, im housebound on the 1st floor in a small block off flats. i ordered a small suitcase for all my girls makeup and it never arrived. I started an inquiry with ebay and all of a sudden the case was closed no refund. it seems the royal mail left my parcels in the communal entrance. as i am not the sender i cant claim either ive asked ROYAL MAIL if they would allow me to jobswap with jack the lad who decided the communal area is good enough for my stuff so i could repay him. is it EBAY, ROYAL MAIL or me coz ebay and royal mail BELIEVE ITS ALL MY FAULT XX i wish i could pin my letter from royal mail to this
Dear Ms Hoskins
Thank you for contacting Royal Mail.
I was very sorry to hear of the problem you’ve experienced with a Royal Mail Tracked item, reference number JJ899115895GB.
Of the huge volumes of letters and packets we handle, very few encounter a problem along their way – but we take every reported failure seriously.
I understand that you are disputing delivery of this item therefore, to investigate your concerns, I have taken the following action:
• Checked our electronic records, which confirm that we delivered your item on 21/03/2017
• Obtained confirmation from the Delivery Office manager that records indicate the item was delivered as addressed. Item was left propped against your mail box. Please accept our sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused if your item cannot be located.
I fully appreciate the risk to the security of your mail if our postmen and women do not follow our procedures and instead leave items exposed on doorsteps or in porches. It’s important that our customers have confidence in us to always deliver their mail securely and to a high standard, so I apologise again that we have let you down.
With this in mind, if you have not received the item may I kindly ask that you contact the sender and ask that they submit a claim to Royal Mail Business Customer Services. If necessary, they may then be able to repost the item to you or provide an alternative. I appreciate the delay and inconvenience this causes and apologise sincerely for that.
instead ive cut n paste it. still recieved no case and no refund and i have a niggling distrust in my neighbours
Unbelievable!
Surely by now some sellers have challenged E-bay in Court over this type of issue and won. The trick then is to give maximum publicity and exposure. Thereafter sellers who have been fraudulently deprived of their goods after making a refund can contact E-bay legal dep’t quoting full details of that or those previous Court Judgements and promising their own legal actionwith publicity to follow in consumer magazines etc.
I suspect there will be many instances of this but, of course, we never hear about them.
Yes but it can cost a lot of money to take ebay to court, is anyone seriously going to hire a lawyer or take off work, get on a plane and travel to another state to appear in small claims court or something over a $50 item?
Just started selling again on eBay after several years. The new policy is horrible. Out of the few items I have sold..
.two global buyers succeeded with fradulent returns in which I proved without a doubt as fraudulent. They got my item and I am out the money plus shipping cost. They have opened the floodgates for abuse and fraud. It is simply sided (regardless of truth) to the buyer
I have also experienced this exact same scenario with ebay twice in the last two months! You are absolutely correct – this is going to open the floodgates for dishonest buyers to just steal what they want with no recourse for the sellers. Then if you leave bad feedback for these people they will of course retaliate and leave you bad feedback which destroys your reputation as a seller. I definitely plan to try out some of these other alternatives to ebay. Thank you for the great information!!
It’s a case of corporate bloat and greed. They’ve completely perverted the original concept of peer-to-peer transactions, on a level playing field. I.e., shared the risk between seller and buyer. I’ve been selling personal items–often high-dollar ones–since the ’90s. Total value over the years: $65k.
Feedback used to be a way of telling whether you wanted to take the risk of buying or selling. They’ve it made completely irrelevant now. Sellers are provide with anemic tools to prevent unwanted bidders or buyers. Buyer’s don’t care about it because there’s no risk on their side of the transaction, given eBay’s new Buyer’s-Protection policy.
I have nothing against eBay providing value-add services, on their dime, to grow the business. But they’ve covertly slipped this policy in, and built it on the backs of the sellers. Buyers can now purchase an item, try it out (as if they were shopping at Zappos), and send back, with no consequence.
Seller’s, while being provided a checkbox indicating no returns, when setting up their auction, are ultimately forced to accept returns, regardless, and also pay for the return shipping. All based on the buyer’s say so.
Further, the seller is guilty until proven innocent. As soon as a buyer files a claim (by either “item not as described” or “item defective”), the funds are swept out of the seller’s PayPal account, or the bank account attached to PayPal. Of course PayPal takes its cut immediately, and the final-value fee is billed to the seller’s monthly eBay invoice. The latter is even done if the buyer has yet to pay for the item! Buyer’s can, and do, purchase items just to stop their availability to others, in case they might want it. And eBay gives them a big block of time to pay, while the seller’s item lays fallow. The only thing the seller can do to expedite the process is plead with the buyer to cancel their purchase.
I could go on…
In any case, this is a slap in face all of us who helped build the business that flowed through eBay for over a decade. Sickening.
My guess is that eBay is banking on the large throughput of “big box,” or large on-line retailers, which are posting their goods on eBay more and more of late. Which works for buyers, I suppose, by providing them a “portal” where they can search one place for whatever they want to buy. However, what buyer’s don’t realize, is that eBay is effectively driving out sellers who are offering real bargains. The prices that the large retailers are setting on eBay are the same as what’s available within their own store. You might as well use Google’s shopping facility. So, in the long-term, eBay’s maneuver could very well bite them, and consequently effect their stock price.
I can’t say I wish them well… I can say, I’m done.
yes i had same problem with ebay !!
add tracking number for buyer and buyer opened case afetr he sayed did not received!!!
ebay gave him money back and after 1 month the buyer got the bag and he must not give me my back or money back !!!
ebay is criminal selling buying webside gives right for buyer not for seller !!!
Same thing happens to me all the time to the point I don’t sell on ebay anymore. I have lost thousands of dollars in merchandise to unscrupulous buyers.
yes happen to me almnost same and after ebay kicked me out because i sayed i go to lawyer because i dont gte my
PS 3 game console back 🙂
ebay is rude and care only about money
eBay is the most byrokratic the worst selling site on earth with Taliban punishing rules. I was punished from eBay by restricting my account and eBay sided with the criminal buyer. Even though I would like to thank eBay for restricting me from selling as I found much more better site with lower fees and with much more traffic. I sell now on delcampe http://www.delcampe.net/stores/donaukeltenulgf3kt 100 times more then I sold on eBay and I am paying much more lower fees then on eBay did. You can advertise on delcampe other auctions which is forbidden on eBay. eBay blocks any good comment made on discussion board for delcampe. My comment was blocked and all the others who mentioned delcampe for good. My comment was: WHY I AM SELLING ON DELCAMPE WITH 1 MILLION MEMBERS MORE THEN ON EBAY WITH 150 MILLION MEMBERS? Here is the comment of other eBay member with more then 2000 positive feedback who abandoned eBay too:
In my opinion, D is the BEST marketplace for those sellers who do not accept various stupid
and really idiotic restrictions as well as any pressure that we constantly get from eBay.
There are no ANY restrictions on D ( except porno, drugs etc. ).
– There is no any discrimination for non-US users like on eBay ( for instance, on eBay
foreign sellers can not get “Top rated seller” status if they use non-US postal carriers !
I can not get this status as I use usual Russian Post. Obviously idiots from eBay stuff
think that US postal carriers can operate from Russia and other countries ! ).
– D never opens unpaid item cases ITSELF without seller’s request ( like eBay does ).
– D never forbids some buyers to bid without seller’s restrictions ( like eBay does ).
– You can contact with ANY user DIRECTLY ( email addresses are not hidden ).
– You can charge buyer any payment fees ( PayPal, Skrill etc. fees ).
– Any methods of payment are allowed ( incl. forbidden on eBay Western Union etc. ).
– You can leave negative and neutral feedback ( rated from 0% to 75% ) to bad buyers.
– You can sell stamps and any other collectible materials originated from any country
including those that are restricted on eBay due to US embargo etc.
– Both auction and BiN listings are free.
– D seller’s comission is twice less than on eBay.
– To list a lot is at least twice faster than on eBay as there are no intermediate pages.
– There are no debility S&H system using on eBay – you can state shipping cost
in the separate S&H block and have no necessity to do this for every lot while listing.
– D is very conservative, they do not change the interface, options etc. during many years
( eBay makes stupid changes constantly ). Just recently D announced and warned all users
by email that they are planning to do some changes soon.
– Very simple and quick direct email contact with Support. They always reply very quicly and very friendly.
– Very easy, simple and quick form for lots redaction and altering.
– Lots can be listed from 3 to 28 days 99 times with automatic relisting ( w/out email notification ).
There are some downsides:
– You can not list your lot in more than one category ( but you easily can list it several times in diff. categories
if necessary ).
– Generally items on D sell worse than on eBay because D is a marketplace almost exclusively for collectors.
It’s not a flea market and not a market for Chinese etc. goods, therefore much less people visit it.
I think most sellers of collectible materials ( incl. sellers from US ) will go to D one day as it’s much
more
I know many sellers from US and Canada who had done this already.
His comment was blocked too!!
eBay always takes the side of the buyer no matter what. My husband sells on eBay and that is what brought me to this site. Looking for somewhere else to sell. Seems he gets an email on a daily basis from EBay warning him he is on watch. Rediculous!!! They have caused him to loose a lot of money instead of make money. He sells new items straight from the warehouse and people order the wrong parts for their repair and never pay attention to what the listing states. They get the item then complain it does not fit. eBay seems to think he should pay the return shipping even though it is the buyers mistake and he sends it to them free shipping. I think EBay is full of scammers as employees and they protect the scammers.
The thing to remember is that eBay owns PayPal. Prior to eBay’s ownership, PayPal worked like it should for both buyers and sellers. The other thing to remember is PayPal IS NOT A BANK! Therefore they can refund monies to buyers as they please, unlike a real bank with a real merchant account where the seller can choose to refund the buyer or not. I had started selling on eBay in 1997 but was permanently banned by eBay in 2012 due to a similar situation as yourself.
Now that Ebay sold off PayPal, you might have a case with PayPal. Something similar happened to me, Ebay said I couldn’t dispute the transaction so I called PayPal and they resolved it for me, giving me my money back. They give you a longer time to dispute transactions then Ebay does also.
Sounds like you sold a reproduction. In my experience, that is the only time eBay does not require the buyer to return the item. eBay does not give the buyer their money back until the seller has the item except for this one instance.
The way to deal with eBay over these buyer fraud refund issues is for sellers to keep a zero balance if possible in their Paypal accounts. So if a buyer pulls a scam Ebay has to chase you then you respond by referring to consumer and contract law which will override any Ebay agreements so any collection actions isnt enforceable. Ebay is effectively an agent like a auctioneer and there is a specific body of law relating to them that says they would have to seek return of items sent otherwise their fee would be not payable as no true sale has taken place. As an agent that have a special duty of care to exercise.
The case about the $300 watch above and their response would normally make eBay an accessory to theft under criminal law and the matter should have been referred to police or the district attorney.
eBay and various other monopolistic corporations like Microsoft and Facebook need to be broken as they are all run by pretty much the same people and are interrelated trying to rip people off one way or another. MS recently tried to force people to use Windows 10 by having it automatically install on their WIN 7 PCs because I believe it has more power to access your data unlawfully and thwart security software.
Paypal of course invests funds they hold from seller and gets interest on it but doent forward it to the account holder. On $billions.
If someone could set up s free free online selling website that would do the job.
Buyers on eBay can also have it tough from dishonest sellers.
I bought $180 worth of items via them from a seller who had sold and delivered smaller value items before to me and I paid him by bank transfer not PayPal and he’s refused to send items or reply. I made complaint to eBay and they found against him as he didn’t answer their messages but they wont give me his address citing privacy laws nor tell me what action they have taken against him AND they are still allowing him to sell. What’s even more serious is this guy has a eBay store which is incredible and they still allow him to trade. I have had to contact police on this as a fraud theft matter. In this case e-Bay haven”t taken $180 from his PayPal account and given to me.
I don’t think it matters which side of the transaction you are on – e-Bay is unreliable.
eBay nor PayPal will never give the buyer their money back until the return tracking number confirms the item has been returned. There is also seller protection from both eBay and PayPal. This story is made up.
That people on eBay is really abusive with the sellers believe me.
I’m trying too to find a new marketplace in order to quit eBay
Like many bona fide eBay sellers, I myself was scammed of an expensive GPS device.
The buyer made a lot of complaints about my GPS and then he opened a case.
He demanded a full refund and he would return my GPS and give me a negative feedback.
EBay gave him a full refund, he gave me a negative feedback and guess what? He send me an empty box. He sent to eBay the picture of the empty box, but eBay didn’t care!
I lost $160 and my GPS.
I checked the background of this unscrupulous buyer and found he had 42 criminal cases of shoplifting, larcery, theft and burglary. I gave a copy to eBay of his criminal record, but eBay still didn’t care!
My suggestion is that we get a list of all sellers who were ripped of by dishonest buyers and we find a law firm who will file a class action lawsuit against eBay. EBay advertises Sellers’ Protection Program, but they have failed to give us protection. Therefore sellers can sue eBay for preach of promise of “Sellers’ Protection Program.”
So which lawyers can we approach for that lawsuit?
“Serious alternatives?”
Most of these sites get far, far less traffic than ebay does when ebay illegally hides your paid listings. Most seller’s items will sit unsold forever on most of these sites.
Hi John,
Very true. Most of these sites get far less traffic than eBay. But at the same time, many of them are niche sites. The people who are interested in buying and selling within that niche should be aware that these options exist.
Indeed. Quality vs. quantity. What difference does it make how many people visit a venue if they are not interested in the type of items you are offering?
As much as I DETEST eBay and continually try to find a viable alternative, my efforts have , so far, been unsuccessful. Two such attempts were with eBid.net and iOffer.com — On eBid, everything works very smoothly and ( in my opinion ) has a better look and feel to it than eBay. The problem is, my listings got HUNDREDS of views but not one single sale. It got to be a major “time-suck” to check for messages or purchases and reaping absolutely nothing in return for it. My eBid account is still open but not active — I still have high hopes that this will work itself out …… eventually.
iOffer also looked promising and I signed up — this “venture” didn’t last through it’s first day. Prices for items listed for sale MUST include shipping. The problem here is, how do I know how much it will cost to ship an item if I don’t know WHERE it is shipping to ? Shipping a “widget” weighing 5 lbs. to Florida will not cost as much as shipping it to California. Likewise, shipping to one location in [ any international country ] would not be the same as shipping to another location in the same country. I contacted iOffer ( which only offers email support ) and asked this question. The response I received was, “to promote a fair transaction, all prices must include shipping”, with no explanation of how that is supposed to be accomplished — I immediately cancelled my iOffer account.
I can not agree with you. Delcampe has 10 times more items in stamp category then eBay. 2 or 3 times more items on coins & paper money. In nearly all categories Delcampe has overtaken eBay. Till the end of 2016 Delcampe auctions with have more items listed in all categories then eBay, and many US ebay sellers are joining delcampe.
If enough sellers leave Ebay and go to these sites it could drastically change things. Ebay is hoping they continue to not have any competition but if these sites get more customers or the sellers leave Ebay for these sites, the customers will also leave Ebay. Hopefully these sites or another site pops up that takes away Ebay sellers and even customers but just taking away sellers would result in customers going to these sites because Ebay doesn’t have decent sellers. Many sellers are angry with Ebay and want to leave and are just waiting for a site that could compete with Ebay.
I agree with you. 15 years of selling collectables and now e-bay if forcing people to list in off areas to get only 40 free listings a month or pay 35 censt for every listing. Sometimes I have to list an item 5 to 10 times as an auction. You cant sell anything under $30.00 and even come out even. Then the 10% after the item is sold. Sellers built e-bay and that is the thanks. They have lost track of who works for who. We don’t work for e-bay and that is the direction they have taken. I really dislike e-bay now and wish I could get a comp site. Notice all the small junk items filling e-bay now. You would think they would get it. If e-bay offerd unlimited free auctions like they did at one point I would be listing 200 or even 300 items a month now 40 or less. Thair loss!!
But before we just all throw in the towel because these other sites are not yet as big as ebay, we need to do our part to help them GET as big as ebay. I do plan to try out several of these sites as I try to transition away from ebay and after I get my listings up, I am going to promote them through social media. We need to help put the word out. The more of us that tell our friends through social media and places like Pinterest, the faster ebay will have more serious competition which is what they need.
Totally agree Pam mentioning our chosen selling outlets on every social media we use, with live links included, does the trick in spreading the word.
The common complaint we see when looking at the Forum pages of non Ebay ites is of not enough exposure/publicity/advertising by the proprietors of the sites and, we have seen the same comments here on this thread many times.
I am returning to online selling after some years. Now retired I have time to devote to it which was a problem previously. Originally on Ebay I now find that a very different place and, after reading sellers comments on their Forum pages, not a place i wish to be.
So I went through Susans list and looked at every one, excluding the specialist ones. Reading Reviews via Google, some on the list have dreadful scores out of 10, especially for communication, or lack of. It may well be that Ebay & Paypal giants have these facilities but have you ever tried using them? Last week I attempted to open a new Paypal business a/c separately from my personal one. They attempted to merge them even though I used different usernames, mail addresses, passwords and a different bank, everything different. Mailing them brought an immediate automated response with answers to dozens of FAQ’s which of course did not answer my questions. Nothing at all from them since, now 7 days, except a ‘Feedback’ request today – ‘How well did we do?’ in answering your query – hopeless!
I digress. Many of the sites I looked at were ‘Tacky’, especially Ubid, or poor website construction, poor photo quality. Choosing is not all about low fees but attractive looking, user friendly .site. i have selected two -eBid and Webstore. The latter not on Susans list but well worth a look.
I will try to get back in a couple of months and report how it’s gone.
I did say that I would report back on my experiences with eBid & Webstore.
The two sites are pretty similar, although eBid would appear to have more sellers, maybe they have been established for a longer time. Both seem to be a good place for niche sellers of collectibles, stamps, coins, vintage stuff and the like. Being a more mainline seller I have yet to learn how well my items will fare but it is expected that we must generate our own traffic on these smaller sites, just like your own website.
Both sites request address verification for both sellers and buyers, initially for sellers before they can list, and after a stipulated number of purchases or larger value items for buyers.- an excellent initiative to build mutual confidence .Both of these auction sites subscribe to Google Shopping, albeit, Google Shopping is available to US Sellers only.
Similarly to most eBay competitors they do struggle for traffic and sellers do require to get the word out via Facebook, Twitter etc, Rome was not built within one day and, like all other business’, need time to grow.
eBid allows 10 free listings which is fine for casual sellers. Beyond that a ‘one off’ Upgrade fee is required. They will allow you to import your eBay Feedback which is a great benefit, Support response time is excellent although it can be brief and not cover all of the points you raise.
As for selling features, user friendliness and listing tools I could not discover those aspects as I never got past first base when registering. It appears that eBid divide themselves up into sites for US/ UK/EU/AU and maybe Canada and others too.and they have different rules for some of those sites. First off they did not recognise my country (Cyprus) as part of the EU Community. and refused registration. On appeal I was able to register, however that was as buyer only. Attempting to sell, there was no option for any free listings to get the feel and some working knowledge of the selling tools. I was invited to upgrade at a fee of $99,, considering that there was a $49 dollar special offer when I first applied I decided to shelve the idea for the time being.
For US sellers the site should be good to use.although, if by accident, rather than design, you do not offer to ship internationally your listings will not appear on UK or EU sites, a big market you can’t really afford to miss and, Northern EU countries especially, do not have a reputation.for ‘non arrivals’ returning or switching goods or any of the nefarious practices we have seen reported by many of the posters in this thread about some of the eBay buyers.
Webstore policy, rightly or wrongly, will not import eBay Feedback. they believe sellers should build up their unique reputation on that auction site. I had no problem registering after verification of location via Paypal confirmation which cost $10 or so. The tools for listing are good and mainly intuitive. The listings look good, all info is easy for shoppers to find. Store pages are quick to load. There is the ability to bulk load listings from the likes of eBay/Amazon etc. Support is great with fast response time.
Let me say right now that I am not PC literate. When I was selling on eBay I used Auctiva for listings which had
a reasonable presentation. I’m not sure if Auctiva are owned or part owned by eBay but the listings could only be used on eBay and furthermore when advertising a product elsewhere and providing a link only the live listings could be seen. I have attempted several times to build my own website but never managed to get one completed which in any way looked professional in an environment where presentation is so important to be successful. I intended to use the Auctiva monthly subscription but there were so many negative comments on review sites, and even their own forum, about poor support, a service so vitally important
If you are like me and failed miserably to create your own website then auction sites such as Webstore nicely fit the bill. A great asset is that Webstore create your own unique URL in short form for use in your advertising, blogs, facebook etc which brings lookers right into your store.
eBay so sorely needs some effective competition, It is not just the dissatisfaction of fee raising inventiveness, the instance of mandatory Paypal, the almost impossible task of buyers to pay by any other method than Paypal but the unfair practices and total contempt treatment of sellers. I can think of no other commercial organisation who can continually bite the hands that feed them and continue to prosper. I did hope that Jack Main (ex Alibaba chief) might offer some competition to eBay, maybe he will but if you look at his website you will note that it is targeting large business sellers and not exactly holding out the hand of welcome to small sellers, besides, the site name of 11 Main is about unimaginative as it possibly could be,
Kudos to Susan and other journalists who are not afraid to speak out publicly, bring us together and make us aware of alternatives, It will be a long haul but we must persevere with these alternative auction sites, and, even if your living requires a continuing presence on eBay,, take the time to list on other sites. If we do not unite we shall fail while eBay continues to prosper.
..
Hi John,
Thanks for taking the time to get back to us. Your feedback is great, and I’m adding Webstore to the list above.
John wrote.
If we do not unite we shall fail while eBay continues to prosper.
eBay is going to face debacle. Thousends leaving every day.
I totally agree Pam. Ebay is an industry giant that wants to run your business, and is difficult for many smaller sites to compete with. Much of that is name recognition and the lack of exposure of these smaller sites. Dbuzz.biz is a newer site which offers unlimited free listings, and basic seller store for up to 500 items. They let you list up to 60 days, and you can have the item automatically re-list up to six times… which is a time saver. There are fees for listing enhancements, but they are only charged once and not charged for any re-listing. Otherwise the only fee is if your item actually sells. Those that help with exposure as you suggest, actually get a Preferred Seller Discount of 15% which I haven’t seen before. Like I said the site is small and needs sellers, but with free listings and automated re-listings, its a way to help wean off Ebay. For sellers with multiple items its probably best to use several of these smaller sites and help promote them.
We small sellers made eBay great venue, we will destroy the evil eBay.
Sounds like a great plan Pam.
Steve and Daphne
Pam I would like to invite you to http://www.777warehouse.com we are one of those sites that has no traffic yet but would love working with sellers all over the world to be the one that made ebay stop, look and listen. It is the sellers after all that make these sites what they are and my wife and I started 777warehouse.com for the many reasons stated in this forum.
Pam,
I like how you think, you ROCK!
I agree with Pam too… There are alternative sites ready and willing to take on ebay, but it doesn’t happen without sellers. Our site, toucandeal.com we currently have over 150 sellers and 30,000 listings and it’s growing daily. We decided to keep the selling fees to a bare minimum of only 5% and no limits and no listing or monthly fees. The problem is, people expect high traffic that would compare with ebay, otherwise they assume every new site will fail like all the others. We actually had someone say to “Let him know when we have 100,000 buyers and he will register as a seller.” If we had 100,000 sellers that were sharing their listings on social media, how long do you think it would take before 100,000 buyers showed up? It doesn’t work the other way around – 100,000 buyers going to an empty site will leave and probably never come back.
We have extended our grand opening special and waived all fees until after the new year. We are also giving a $10 credit on your account for every 100 items you list, up to $100. If you sell on ebay or amazon, you can easily import your items and be up and running in just a short time. If you list 1 by 1, it is super easy and fast. I hope to see everybody that reads this stop on by and check us out. Heck, even say hi on the chat to let us know you are coming aboard. 🙂
Oh how I so agree with you, I’m sick of being pi**ed about by eBay & some of there sellers who do not fulfil (what I understood to be a bidding contract) because their item did not reach the high amount of bids & the amount they expected, Yet eBay do nothing !.
I agree. Delcampe has 10 times more items in stamp category then eBay. 2 or 3 times more items on coins & paper money. In nearly all categories Delcampe has overtaken eBay. Till the end of 2016 Delcampe auctions with have more items listed in all categories then eBay, and many US ebay sellers are joining delcampe
Hi,
Our auction site http://www.ebidz.eu is one of the alternatives to eBay. We have far lower fees than eBay, other payment alternatives to PayPal (although PayPal is an option) such as Stripe payments which supports most countries and is as easy as PayPal to set up along with the same fee structure. We offer international membership, and support all categories and currencies just like eBay. We run our site through SSL and through CDN to ensure our members’ online security. But as has been mentioned, it is true that most other auction sites do get a lot less traffic than eBay, and Google can be bad in helping newer sites to get any exposure. Therefore the most other sites can hope for is that their sites will gain in popularity by the internet’s other methods of advertising, as indeed such posts as yours.
What I tend to find is these ebay alternatives which supposedly save the seller money doesn’t exactly translate into better savings for the buyer…
that in and of itself would DRIVE more traffic.. but apparently there is greed all around to prevent these startups from putting a dent in any ebay or amazon monopoly power seller relationships.
eBay used to be the place to go if you were an ordinary citizen of the world, looking to make a few extra dollars to help around the house. It opened up a world of ecommerce to us all, and everybody was happy. But over time, the big box retailers and Chinese sellers came to the platform, and eBay saw immense amounts of growth. With that growth, eBay earned massive amounts of money, leading the company’s executives to want more, and more, and more. To that end, eBay enacted numerous policies that targeted the small and mid sized sellers for virtual extinction, while favoring the big box retailers and Chinese sellers. Many of the policies may be considered illegal, yet the authorities at both the state and government level seemingly have no interest in pursuing prosecution. People across the world have lost their homes, businesses, and in some cases, their lives over the corporate wrong-doings of eBay. Grassroots efforts have sprung up on social media in an effort to take the malfeasance of eBay to task. There has been a spate of recent news articles regarding this, and more are expected. There are numerous online petitions calling for attention to the things that have been going on. The people of the world are mad as hell, and all of them are demanding that eBay executives explain their actions. I have created a petition to bring mainstream media attention to the injustices of eBay which has been gathering steam, but the need for signatures is great, as is the need for people to share the petition with everyone that they know. The petition is located at https://www.change.org/p/all-major-news-organizations-air-a-nationally-televised-segment-on-the-injustices-of-ebay Please consider signing my petition as well as sharing it, as this is a David and Goliath sized battle, and all of the small to mid sized sellers of the world need your help! You may also feel free to come join me and over 3,000 other people like me at http://www.facebook.com/groups/formerebaysellers and http://www.facebook.com/groups/formerebaysellers2openforum Thank you for taking the time to read this post.
come on alibaba , get busy putting the evil feebay out of business!
I’ll drink to that!!
Susan,
I have tried everything imaginable (as far as my expertise goes).
In the past few years I have sold higher end new clothing on ebay and did well enough to keep my drive going about $100 in sales a day, so I invested in more inventory (more than I should have) got a small business bank loan.
Shortly after this, about May of 2014 everything came to a screeching halt and has never picked back up. I called ebay and tried to find out what happened – they had no clue and were of no assistance.
I then decided I need to make some changes in the case that ebay didn’t pick back up.
I hand typed all of my inventory (about 500 items) into bonanza (made one sale) and that was it.
I then designed my own website – no sales (realizing it’s hard to compete as sole little entity)
I have had more success with high end items on tradesy than any of the other services – but only very high end items.
I have dressed up every single item (have a graphics background) so my items are premium displayed (although other ebay sellers steal your images and it’s quite the hassle to get them taken off). They are so many unethical sellers on ebay, and the ebay staff in general just reads from a script but never digs into what the real problems are.
I have created a facebook store, paid for facebook and google advertising (never made a sale from them)
I have tweeted, google plussed, pinned and many more.
I feel like I’m spinning my wheels on a daily basis doing whatever I can to get rid of this inventory, and nothing seems to help.
Do you have any suggestions, because I am out of ideas.
Hi “Deeply Concerned,”
First, let me suggest what could have been the cause for the sudden drop in traffic/sales. In May of this year there was a major Google search update that affected eBay in particular very badly. Here’s a post with some background info:
“Panda 4.0: Why eBay Just Lost 80% of its Organic Rankings”
http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2014/05/21/panda-4
Given that eBay’s search traffic won’t likely recover (at least not in the near future), you should definitely look into other ways to sell your inventory. Will it be harder now? Yes. But, it’s definitely still possible to generate sales. You just need to be creative… and you need to really understand your target audience.
Here’s an example of what I mean. A while back the CFDA teamed up with Google to create one of the first shoppable hangouts on air. Take a look at these posts to see what was done:
http://www.googleplusdaily.com/2013/10/google-hangouts-on-air-shopping-app.html
http://cfda.com/the-latest/the-cfda-and-google-launch-new-platform
In short, keep your presence on eBay and Tradesy, but do build your own site and look for ways to directly engage your targeted buyers.
Good luck!
Susan, I appreciate your bringing me up to speed on the problem that occurred on ebay. I will look into the google hangouts and ads to promote my own website.
Thanks for responding so quickly.
Ebay SUCKS! Their customer service is WORST! I called them for help and I was passed on to 12 persons total in two hours not to count the long minutes I waited so they can transfer and direct my call from one person to another. But at the end, nobody can solve or answer my question. I’m done with Ebay. Others maybe loving it….but not me. Fraudulent buyers/Ebayers that they dont receive any consequences and sellers cannot leave negative feedback BUT buyers CAN say anything they want to say and LIE all they want to. So, they sucks!
Hi. I agree with you. Ebay SUCKS!!.. I cannot list or renew my items for more than 1 year. They let you die slowly…
I just had the same experience and am looking for best alternative to Ebay. I made 4 phone calls over as many days regarding problem I was having with a buyer who wanted to return something they changed their mind on when I clearly state my policy as no returns. I agreed to return anyway but did not agree to refund the return shipping charges. Ebay rep said I didn’t have to, so buyer returned item, I immediately gave them their money back and the next day buyer left nasty feedback because they were pissed that I didn’t pay their return shipping fees. Said item wasn’t as described Ebay can even see email exchanges with buyer in which one was the link to an item the buyer found for less. And Ebay would not remove the negative feedback. Said it was the buyer’s opinion & didn’t matter whether or not it was true. Unbelievable!!! I said what about support for the seller? I did everything right, even agreed to accept a return that I didn’t have to and I’m the one suffering for it, I’m out the sale, fees and now have a negative strike on a perfect record which works in Ebays favor because now they don’t have to give me any seller discounts because of the negative strike. I think they just use sellers, There’s always something better coming up behind the giant, Just have to see who they are.
Right on, Dee.
Unfortunately, we have the exact same sentiments.
Just a matter of time before we leave E-Bay. The imbalance and frustration is too great. It is not so much their fees as the bias against the seller.
Good luck to you!
Have you considered doing something locally, flea markets, stuff of that nature? I have two sales a year, one at my home and another at a local flea market to sell off some stock that isn’t moving quickly elsewhere and have done well enough. Fortunately I have had all your problems as well…there really “isn’t” any serious alternatives to ebay…period…Etsy interested me but you cant even use your paypal card to make payments, which instantly irritated me. Ioffer is terrible because they have no shipping calculator so they want you to include the price of shipping in your sale price. How would you know the shipping price if you don’t know where your buyer if from??? And Bonanza? What incentive does a buyer have to buy from you when they see your item, if it isn’t a auction format?
You got it. E bay is forcing people to list as buy it now or list items in areas they don’t belong. They told me the move was for e-bay to make more money, really this is what they told me on the phone. I have called and expressed my opinion several times of deaf ears. I listed some prints in buy it now form and no one looked not one. I canciled the listing and put it in an auction format and people at least started looking. E-bay is out to lunch and just doesn’t get it.
I meant 30,000 is sales annual in lieu of 365,000.
I also forgot to mention I have 100% Positive feedback on ebay.
Wow, deeply concerned, your story is my story and oh boy, I hate eBay, it became like the communist party of the internet. its no more about business, its about policies. God forbid you breach one policy, you are finished. Alternatives? for me only amazon helped a little, the rest of the pack, a big nonsense. creating your site, what a joke…no sale, just pain and pay…
Me, too Daniel. I hate Ebay. There are a lot of buyers there who are liars and Ebay dont call them or give them consequences for leaving negative feedbacks that are purely all LIES.
Yes, ebay “always” sides with buyers in disputes, no matter how right the seller is. I actually had a buyer, who wanted a refund, but he didn’t want to ship the item back to me. After several days of this nonsense, ebay refunded him his money, even though I explicated stated he hadn’t sent it back to me….Sellers cant even rate buyers anymore…but buyers can rate the sellers…so your stuck at the whims of whatever lunatic who take a issue with you, no matter how ridiculous it is. I had a buyer who rated me poorly because their item took 15 days to get there. Somehow I have control of his package in transit apparently… However when I looked up his tracking information, it has gotten there in 9 days, which is under the limit of USPS parcel select. I presented this information to Ebay and they still wouldn’t remove his bad feedback…even after I proved he was lying…yes Ebay, does not cooperate with small sellers…
I just got my notice today that my account is suspended and I can’t sell anymore. This happened after I called eBay and told them that due to their policies, they made it impossible to do business because they force PayPal to withhold my funds.
It was a vindictive response on their part.
I use a professional fulfillment center that debits my PayPal account and when I get orders and can’t use the funds, then I can’t pay for shipping unless I use an alternative source of payment. I transfer money out of my PayPal account to buy more product and cover my personal expenses so sometimes my account drops, and the sale actually funds the shipping costs.
I had 100% seller ratings, had shipped a partial sea container of products to the US and put them into a 3rd party fulfillment center, sold over $8,000 in products from the fulfillment center and was a Power Seller, but because of a technical glitch with my fulfillment center and eBay, I had to cancel some orders that put me into ‘below standard’. I got the glitch fixed, but there was no ‘common sense’ or ability to take duplicate dings and at least consolidate them a little bit.
I understand the need to keep the selling environment clean and have good customer service for the sake of “all concerned”, but the inflexibility and lack of common sense is mind numbing.
Trying to resolve some issues is like talking to a politician. Ask for a problem to be solved and the reply is, “I know how you feel. It must really be frustrating to …… Unfortunately, there’s nothing we can do for you.” Dealing with them sometimes feels like you shake hands with someone who has their hand coated in lard …. slippery and slimy.
I’m a bit disappointed in how eBay handled things in general, but I was going to leave them anyway so It’s just forcing me to do it more quickly.
There are other ways and places to sell products even during the year since the original post to this thread.
eBay handed me MY walking papers today after being a Top Sales Performer for 15 years! Apparently, a few International shipments took longer than normal to arrive and eBay canceled my account and canceled all of my more than 100 listings without contacting me at all. When I spoke to Customer Service, they said that I needed to come up with a solution on how to deliver International items faster. WTF? I don’t DELIVER packages! I offered to stop selling my products Internationally to resolve this problem, but they politely refused. eBay clearly has NO LOYALTY to the people that helped them grow their business. I say goodbye and good riddance!
I have the exact same problem as “Deeply Concerned.” Looking at Google Hangout+ link and have no idea what or where this is. More info would be appreciated. But Susan, it’s the loss of Top Rated Seller status and whatever eBay is doing to hide listings that is killing us – by lowering our sales volume, the value of our defects increases. Horrific.
Bonanza….crickets.
Hi Kate,
Google Shoppable Hangouts are a new way of adding eCommerce to a traditional Google+ Hangout on Air. They feature both discussions and the ability to purchase products. The setup is similar to the Home Shopping Network in that items are discussed, and then the audience is given the opportunity to purchase those items. Currently, the Shoppable Hangout is in trial mode with a select group of companies participating. You could, however, do something similar with a regular Hangout on Air by directing participants to a purchase page on your website.
But, I think you brought up a very good point that those who conduct business online tend to overlook: it is very risky to build up a business based solely on one third party platform. These platforms can and do change, often without warning. How many business owners built their businesses around eBay, Facebook, YouTube, even LinkedIn, and have watched it all crumble due to a series of policy changes or algorithmic “tweaks”?
I’m not saying that you totally abandon these platforms, but the benefits of relying on them exclusively (all that added reach, exposure, payment processing, etc) can easily disappear. Though it may take more work, in many cases building up your own website and online following is the way to go. That way, even if one of these third party platforms changes, you still have your site and your followers and you can find other ways to reach them.
Quibids serious option?? That site is a complete scam. The first time I used it they made me believed it was so easy to win. After that first win you will never win again unless you pay close to the full price, seconds after you stop bidding it all the suddenly will show you that somebody else just won the item. I took the time to bid for 24 hours and the system behaved as if everybody was bidding all the time. It was just too suspicious because I’ve never seen that on ebay. It was too automated.
I tried indigoly.com and it is great. It is special for African handmade products and everything is for free for now. Really great! Got a couple of sales in first ten days as well.
Here it is less than a year later. Site doesn’t exist. I hate Ebay but I also hate flash-in-the-pan websites.
I just started Peerhub: http://www.peerhub.com
Peerhub is very easy to use and very low cost. It’s more like Ebay & Craigslist combined and you can accept Bitcoin. We are also trying to build a community too so hopefully you guys join and grow with us. Feel free to check it out and let us know what you think. Thanks.
I’ve been using http://neatstacks.com for a while now. It’s good way to get off the eBay monopoly and I sense it’s going to take off very soon. It’s free international shipping to.
I have been on ebay for 16 years and each year they make it more difficult for the seller and more expensive. The first several years my sales were 70% plus of listings with crazy frenzy bidding that resulted in super great prices. Now my sales are about 15% of listings and no competitive bidding. There fees escalated greatly, their regulations are ridiculous in some cases. They would not punish dishonest sellers and now they made dishonest buyers. It used to cost about 50c to sell a Postcard now, with delivery confirmation shipping is around $2. Paypal has just rendered the “final straw” in that they will allow a buyer 6 months to return an item. The buyer can wear an item out, decide they don’t like it, damage it, etc., and then return it 6 months later. Since there is no longer competitive bidding ebay is no longer differentiated from other sites, they are more expensive, more regulated, etc.,, etc, I am definitely going somewhere else.
Hi Rob,
eBay is very mismanaged, and their recent change to the return policy is just one more “great” example of that… They seem to be too concerned about attracting buyers (even the bad ones), while they are practically forcing many really good and honest sellers off of the platform. It’s a shame, and it means that many, many sellers would be better off trying to sell their products via their own sites and alternative eBay platforms. It may be more work (especially at the beginning), but it’ll be worth it if you can make sales on your own terms.
For anyone who wants more info on the 6 month Paypal return window, you can read about it here:
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/paypal-expanding-return-window-to-six-months-100614.html
I was already planning to open a Magento Community Edition site with the help of someone from http://www.odesk.com to help as needed.
There is a web site that sells e-commerce training that strongly recommended your own site just because eBay and Amazon control and OWN the buying experience and customer relationship.
Fortunately, my 3rd party fulfillment center retains the contact information for each transaction and that will be the seed for my email list to drive past customers to my site.
I’m also looking at using http://www.stripe.com as a payment processor and stop using PayPal, or at least not rely on them 100% for payment processing.
It’s already difficult enough competing with Chinese sellers who can use e-packet (USPS and China Post or USPS and Hong Kong Post) at a price cheaper than I can ship to the US, warehouse and then fulfill to the customer, now I have to deal with eBay’s draconian rules and PayPal’s “Kill the Seller” return policies.
Rob,
I have been myself for 10 years on ebay. The spirit is gone with crazy return policies. I have now people who break the item to be able to return it and I have to pay the back and forth shipping fees and refund all the money. Ebay now asks, let the buyer keep the item and refund full. What am I? The problem is not only ebay, but also the return culture, only in USA, anywhere else in the world, you buy something, its yours! A big market can afford returns, but not a small store or individual sellers. I am very disappointed after the enormous fees we pay. There is no seller back up; we are on our own. I am opening my own online store, but I am seeing the downside of this. It is really hard and costly to promote.
Cheers.
I’m all in favor of photographing the product with customer invoice and storing the image in a data file in the event of a product return.
The consumer is less than ethical in today’s world. We live in a world where people don’t want to be held accountable for their own choices and decisions and want 100% guarantees that they are 100% insured from any kind of losses in life.
Sometimes, I feel like just trading foreign currencies for income and forget about dealing with other human beings where money and selling are concerned. At least I know the rules for trading and the computer is impersonal.
Hi…. Great information!!! I have been selling on E-bay for a little over 2 yrs. now and all Honesty… They have been really great! I know they have some high fee’s but for the exposure you receive I think it’s really well worth it! I sell mostly pre-owned clothing and I have done really well! I agree they seem to be more on the buyers side then the sellers… I have I think a 875 rating as far as feedback and have been truly Blessed with all I have sold… Not saying that cannot all change tomorrow… I list everything as Honestly as I can and have always answered questions or concerns. Most buyers (I feel have good intentions) I have I think less then 4 items returned and all of them did give me a positive feedback… Maybe it’s because I only sell pre-owned clothing I don’t know… But for what I pay E-bay for my store and their fee’s I still make a very reasonable living and even though they get a % of shipping, My shipping fee’s are really lower then what I could get from the USPS… So I truly don’t mind… I think the key to my success on E-Bay has been Good listings, Good pictures and Great Customer Service…
Hi Tony,
It’s good to hear that at least some sellers are still doing well on the site 🙂
But, how did you end up at this post?
Have you had any experience selling your items on other platforms besides eBay?
Found it by accident. Haven’t tried any other places yet.
Hi “Tony” ummm “Bob”
Thanks for letting us know… 😛
Haha Susan, i noticed the name change there too!
I have been on ebay 3 years and was trying to start working full time from home after a car accident.
I find all the potential buyer issues have been literally keeping me up at night. The fees, yes they accumulate for sure, but the buyer allowances and the feedback possibilities are terrifying me!
I have over 1400 with 100 feedback but I cross my fingers every time i sell something haha
It is completely set up buyer friendly and seller beware! I am here because I was hoping there would be a feasible alternative so I can start sleeping better!
I list with detailed descriptions, good photos, i ship within a day with tracking and gifts, and I still get nasty ‘entitled’ types who ruin my day and pray on my sensitivity
Surely there is somewhere with a silver lining! If not, where can someone begin their own website reasonably?
(i have been on etsy a few years and made minimal sales but I still sell my books there, but have met some lovely people)
Hi Bambi,
First of all, I love this quote: “It is completely set up buyer friendly and seller beware!” That’s exactly it in a nice little nutshell.
And, selling your products on eBay or any other platform shouldn’t have to keep you up at night. The fact that you have such a good seller’s record as well as feedback is proof that there is a market for your products and that people like what you in particular have to offer. This is very important.
Now, when it comes to how you should reach your buyers directly, the answer depends on what you are actually selling. Let me know, and then I can try to point you in right direction.
Haha….TonyBob must be getting paid!
ebay account managers are out to make a fast buck.
They will ask money to promote your store – if you do not pay, they will take money from your competitors to run you out of business.They will make their own false accounts and give you negative feed backs to get you suspended.
Big Mafia.If you bring this to the Top Brass they will keep shut as they too get a cut off the Gravy.
Hi Tony. I would bet that you are one of eBay’s reps or employees and are hired to post a positive comment. Great customer service? If you are a seller, they will ignore your issues and leave you on hold for more than 6 hours until you are just forced to hang up.
EBay is getting too big and arrogant for its britches. They need someone to come along and seriously threaten market share from them.
I think it will be interesting to see if http://www.11main.com (Jack Ma’s US site. He started Alibaba and Aliexpress in China and is very smart – as are most Chinese) NOTE: I live in China and ship to the US.
If anyone is going to give eBay and Amazon a run for their money, it will be Jack Ma and his $Billion dollar plus IPO money. It may take some time and Jack may make some mistakes, but he’ll keep his head down and improve until he gets it right. Then, you’ll see a dent in eBay and Amazon.
I dont think they have great customers service! I was passed on from one person to another when I asked for their assistance. Within two hours, I talked to 12 people. RIDICULOUS!!!!!
Speaking of customer service…I was on hold on my speaker phone with eBay long enough to Floss my teeth, Peroxide and Brush my teeth, Gargle Mouthwash, brush my wet hair and cook me up some lunch to take with me to work before they actually repacked back up!!! By the time they picked up, I almost forgot what I called them for…What a Joke!!!
great customer service??? put down the crack pipe my friend! your brain is getting fried!
Ive just started selling on ebay, im going to open a store soon i think though as im not getting many sales compared to ebay stores, the only problem is i only have 50-60 products to list buit thats not really a problem, im abit scared about the fees but ill probably trial it out for a mth or two and see how that goes.
I have however come up with a few good ideas, i have abit of advice (i just started doing this), on every sale i make on ebay ill staple a 5% discount coupon (i just made the coupon on word) to the customers invoice and ill send it off, that way it shows i care about each customer and want their business not just a quick buck, but at the same time increase traffic to my website. Im going to test this out but im guessing out of every ten or 20 coupons only 1 or 2 will be used, but hey at the end of the day your giving your website more popularity because people always want a cheaper price, so if you calculate the ebay fees off the items in your website so theyre cheaper you should eventually get sales.
I also put on my invoices to customers (on the bottom away from the other info) that if they want to leave a review of the product they bought they can visit my website and id love to hear from them.
I think small ideas like this are great, theres a fine line between treading on ebays foot but i know alot of ebay stores do it aswell, and hey why not!! at the end of the day were putting prices up on customers because of ebay!
Hi “Unknown”
These are some really great ideas…
Another option would be to offer eBay buyers a small gift or slightly higher discount if they visit your website and sign up for your email list. Once you build up an email list of customers that are interested in your products, you can then promote new products as they come out, ask these people directly for feedback on current or upcoming products, and slowly build up a community of followers who will be more likely to promote your products to their friends and acquaintances.
Thanks 🙂 i like that idea with newsletters also, makes sense that the people giving your store the most attention would deserve a discount. I still havent got anyone to send newsletters to yet as ive just started this busness but that would get some interested.
I’m definetly seeing that most of the sales will come from ebay at least until i get some product reviews on the website or something, its hard unless your have a physical shopfront or something and even then people will probably just drive there unless they live ages away.. hmm what a tough world this retail endevour has become haha, back 5 years ago i was selling on ebay without having a single worry 🙁 , nowdays ebay stores are getting pretty big themselves though, ive seen some go from a small tiny shops, now they have warehouses packed with products and the customer service is getting really good so i guess its working for some but most of them sell cheap things from china etc
I would love an alternative. I just sold an item on EBAIT. Their shipping cost through USPS was $29.71. I went to the post office. USPS charged me $23.65 off the street! EBAIT still charged me a “shipping fee”. Talk about dishonest.. Charge a fee for a service that you don’t provide. They can’t even calculate the shipping right.
I’ve had decent experiences with bonanza.com. They’re simular to ebay not as popular so you wont get as many sales but its actually pretty good, the fees are only 3% with them then add 2.5% for paypal transactions
Whenever I try to sell a used item on Amazon they say that I cannot.
Plutobay.com is a totally free auction site, with great functionality.
Come sell all you want, and pay NO FEES EVER 🙂
WOO HOO!!
I have in the past used http://www.epier.com as an alternate, it is an auction site that was started by the original creators of ebay.
It has been around for at least 5+ yrs. I haven’t used it in several years so I am not sure of it’s status these days but I had sold some items there and there fees were much, much lower.
I happened to list a wallet for a friend this week and was shocked when eBay took $32 in fees @10%. I was pissed to no end. I will never sell on there again. I had thought that I might try again but after this mugging I will not! I didn’t see that coming… $32 sickening.
I was unaware of these other buying/selling options, I will take a much better look at these sites.
I wish all of those who are getting away from that place the best of luck and may you all succeed which ever way you go.
Really? Okay… Let’s start with the truth… You don’t have to list on E-Bay!!! Plain and simple… But how else are you going to get the exposure? E-Bay makes it very clear about how much it cost to list… If you want I can show you how…. Selling is soooooo easy on E-Bay!!! I am tired of hearing (or reading) about the evils of E-Bay… Some people will make it… Some won’t!!! Either you understand or you don’t!!!
Hi Tony,
Thanks for stopping by, and I’m glad that you are having a profitable and easy selling experience on eBay. If you have any tips to share with us, please let us know.
But the common thread among all of these comments is that the exposure seems to be dwindling for many eBay sellers- even for those who have for several years built up a reputation for quality products and customer service. Simultaneously, the direct and indirect costs of doing business on this platform just keep going up. It’s the reason why people are looking for eBay alternatives in the first place.
Oh gosh, are you ever on target!
Sellers are discriminated against! How balanced is it that only fraudulent buyers could leave whatever negative feedback they want and are able to open up a case against sellers but the seller does not have that right.
Of course we understand the value of the buyer, as without them there would be not sales. But perhaps sellers should leave the site completely….and then E-Bay would see that without sellers there would be no sales either!!
As much as we, as sellers, have bent over backwards to satisfy our buyers, there are unfortunately dishonest buyers looking to play the market and squeeze what they could from the imperfect system E-Bay has set up.
We are also frustrated to the point of strongly considering leaving E-Bay.
Recently, our packer mistakenly mixed up two shipping labels and the packages were sent to the reverse parties. As soon as we got wind of it we tried rectifying the situation. One party was totally cooperative and understanding that these human errors exist and the other still remains incalcitrant. E-Bay refunded the kind party and the second party, who is basically holding on to our item (is this considered theft..? Not according to E-Bay) remains uncooperative. Two months later, E-Bay still claims it cannot force the party to return the item. We do not understand this logic. If they really cared, they would put a mediator or lawyer on the job (they certainly have some of those on staff), to strongly make this party understand that what he is doing is dishonest etc.and that if he does not return the item he will no longer be welcome on the E-Bay site, because they try to run an upstanding site.
But this does not seem to be the case. We remain out our money and out our item. And this, after wonderful accolades from over 1000 others in our feedback about how we conduct our business. What good is positive feedback for the seller if E-Bay pays no attention to it in dealing with issues.
We are frustrated, angry and hurt and will change selling sites immediately if anyone out there has any viable alternatives.
We sell collectible items.
Thank you!
I have had tons of bad experiences with ebay and those other so-called big websites too. I bumped into a relatively new classifieds website in Germany called Trade Gong just about two weeks ago. I decided to give it a try and I have sold a couple of my cars and other products on the site since then.
The traffic is not so impressive but it is improving by the day now, especially as the few of us on the site have struck a deal with the very receptive and considerate owner and decided to individually promote it on Social Media.
I believe if you all team up with us, we could create a formidable competition for ebay in no time. The owner is very receptive to innovative suggestions and that gives an edge, plus the website looks pretty cool.
You could try it out by checking it out to register. http://tradegong.org . The owner is very receptive to suggestions and the website is English based and above all, free-of-charge to list your products and you could basically sell about anything there. Where your desired category does not exist, you could write the site owner and such category would be included almost immediately.
Tony, I agree that eBay’s fees are clear. However, I don’t agree with your comment “some people will make it…some won’t.” With eBay, it’s not always a matter of the seller’s ecommerce prowess, or the products they sell. Ebay does, by their own admission, do throttling, blackouts, or whatever you want to call it, of seller’s listings. I ask you this: If you are paying for a store on eBay, why would it be okay for eBay to accept your money for the store, and then throttle your sales by making your items “disappear” (aka blackout)? You are paying eBay extra money (on top of the usual fees) to have this “store.” So do you think it’s okay for eBay to make a store disappear from time to time, when the seller is paying extra for it? To me, that’s called “not getting what you paid for.”
There is really nothing to “understand” here. If you read eBay’s latest fine print, they’ve used legalese and convoluted language in order to confuse the average Joe seller; but, if you are not the average Joe seller, you will be able to sort out the confusion and see that they are admitting to many of the things sellers are posting about, BUT, in order to use eBay at all, you have to agree to all of this, and by logging in, you are giving consent. Sellers also cannot file a class action lawsuit against eBay, now, as had been done in the past. Your right to sue is basically stripped from you, no matter what eBay does to you. Again, this is one of those issues that is in the fine print, and by logging into eBay, you automatically agree to these new terms, whether you know about them, or not. eBay is not a free market, which it should be. eBay is a controlled market, whereby eBay is interfering with supply and demand, by controlling who is allowed to “enter” the market (or in this case, they control what is visible on the market at any given time). That control is giving unfair advantage to some. Regardless, the items are not selling on their own merits, the seller’s ecommerce prowess, the price, or the condition. eBay is manipulating the market, and sooner or later, Tony, that manipulation will affect you, too. You are not the exception… no one is.
I have had one $10 sale in the last week. My sales on ebay are down, down, down. I have been selling there for 12 years, feedback score of almost 3200, and until last week it was 100%. Someone left me a neg because they did not get their item until the 6th day after payment was received (after 7 pm on the first day, I might add). They left a nasty fb comment, which ebay removed, but ebay refused to remove the neg, which took my fb score down to 99.7 FOR THE NEXT YEAR. Ever since I complained, my store has gotten very little traffic. No questions, no watchers, no sales, no nothing. I pay $50/mo for my store. My items do not sell well on buy it now format, and I mostly have used the 500/free listings (any style) as auctions per month. Now they only apply to fixed price format, since the new rules went into effect May 1. I don’t know for sure whether ebay is purposely blocking people from seeing my items, or whether it is just a combination of May being one of the slower months along with all my auctions ending and being relisted at fixed price in order for me to take advantage of the “new” format requirements for “free insertion fees”. I have a store on Etsy I opened in 2011 but haven’t used much. I only had 5 items there and sold 2. Now I have opened a store on Bonanza.com and am starting to add things to my Etsy store every day. I am using the same store name in all places, which is actually giving me more exposure on the search engines. I have seen information that you can get your own e-commerce store through “go daddy” for $29.99/mo, and accept credit cards and other forms of payment. I am stuck with my ebay store for the remainder of the subscription, 11 more months, so I am listing clothing and things I would sell in a garage sale (nice things I don’t want any more) at BIN prices on ebay to use up the 500/free fixed price 30 day duration listings that come with my store, and hope to clear our my closets and attic and make enough to cover my expenses here, but I am really hesitant to list my best items somewhere that would let a buyer get a refund and keep the item. Some of my vintage clothing items are one-of-a-kind items that have survived in wonderful condition for decades. They are not replaceable, and sometimes sell for hundreds of dollars. I can’t take that kind of risk. Also, Paypal is going to lose me if they think it’s okay to give a buyer 6 months to return an item after they buy it. Not on my watch. I would like to know the best alternatives to using paypal. Any advice?
This Tony (balony) sometimes answering as Bob and this unknown are definitely being paid by eBay to defend their Evil online monopoly empire. Anyone who sells on eBay knows their customer support is horrible, no matter if you are a Top Seller or if you are a simple one time seller. You simply cannot email or talk to Ebay, PERIOD! Their reps (when you have one to two hours to sit and wait for them to answer) just read from manuals, there is ABSOLUTELY NO support whatsoever!!! And this comes from me, an eBay seller for over 10 years and 100% Positive Feedback, imagine the ones who are starting!!!! I have found alternative markets because I sell in a specific niche so I do not get mixed with the whole commodity bubble of eBayers and I do pretty alright but indeed it used to be much better two years ago, now it’s horrible and eBay has become buyer focused only. Like every evil empire, they will be met with a strong foe one day and will fall, it might happen this year or in 10 years and I will live to see this, it will make me so happy when it happens! I sell there but I hate eBay and Paypal, horrible people, they were so good at the beginning, now they are like Amazon or even worse!
I am starting to agree. Perhaps Apple or Facebook could come up with a better platform as an offshoot of what they already do so well. I’ve been with Ebay for a while just to sell my own household items and occasionally buy. It was better then two years ago I got upset over a difficult buyer and the lack of support from Ebay on a $5.00 item!! Very nasty comment – an outright lie made by the buyer. I know it’s not my life and these people are just on the auction site but I took it personally and Ebay did nothing to help me. So I stopped using it and didn’t try to sell anything anywhere for two years. My mother died so now I have all this nice stuff to sell and started again on Ebay. Over 140 transaction in 90 days, but since Ebay does a crappy job of getting buyers to leave feedback I only have 60 reviews all positive though until today. I don’t do returns but agreed to let a buyer return an item who changed her mind due to finding the item cheaper, I wanted to be nice and avoid possible issues with this buyer – I could just tell from her emails – so I agreed to accept a return but didn’t agree to refund return shipping fees. She waits until she gets her money back then leaves nasty feedback for me after I left positive one for her anyway. After hours on phone and 4 people Ebay won’t help , so I’m going to try another place and see if that works.
Watch out for the name calling from Buyers on your Feed Backs as well…Apparently, eBay allows “Name Calling”…How Professional of eBay to do so…Smooth Move eBay…Got anymore Surprises for us Sellers? You just keep on getting better and better…pfft…I believe that if you are running a Business, it should be handled more Professionally and eBay should at Least side with us Sellers by erasing FBs with Name Calling, after all, we Sellers are paying eBay to Stay Alive!!!
But Dealing with eBay is like Beating a Dead Horse…
You’re right. They are mean when I call customer service. Arrogant and unhelpful. And some of them are very hard to understand because they have heavy accents and mumble or speak softly. I’m hard of hearing, so it makes it even worse for me to try to get them to understand what I’m calling about. And it takes a minimum of 1.5 to 2 hours every time I try to call, ending in frustration because they don’t help me at all. So I’m not complaining to them any more. It only makes me more frustrated. I sell to specific niche, too. I know things will work out, because you can’t run off all the sellers and keep their buyers. Eventually the buyers will find their favorite sellers wherever they have gone. I have a feedback score of over 3000. With every package that goes out, I send a hand written note thanking that customer for the purchase. That means I’ve sent out over 3000 special notes, and I have quite a few repeat buyers. So, I’m hoping they will find my other online stores once they see my inventory drastically changing in my ebay store. Time will tell. As far as ebay goes, I really don’t see how they can remain at the top for much longer. They are blasting themselves out of the water by punishing the sellers. Where do they think they will get their fees if sellers keep leaving and buyers aren’t coming around because there’s nothing but cheap knock offs to buy?
I’ve been selling on ebay for the last 15 years and there are the ups and downs to sales and problems.
I got very upset a couple of years back when I received a email notice and was told to call them about items I was selling. The call was about the COACH items that I was selling. I was informed that I could NO longer sell COACH, in less I have permission in the form of a letter from COACH. They stated that COACH, was trying to have ebay shut down sellers from selling their products. They state that another reason was that there were fraudulent items being sold. I stated that I had all the receipts from purchasing the items at COACH stores. They told me that didn’t matter that in less I had this letter from COACH I would No longer be allowed to sell COACH. They then closed all my listings for COACH, I had hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise. What was I to do, COACH policy up till 12/31/14 was that you could return anything if you had a receipt and tag attached. So there over a number months I return everything that I had purchased. Yea that gave me the money back for what I paid out, but not a profit I had hoped for.
I’m a stay at home Mother of 3 and trying to make ends meet, by selling on ebay. This has taken a big chunk of money from our family as sales were Fantastic then, now they have dwindled terribly down.
I look to find another site and came across Webstore.com back in 2012, sales there were really great in the beginning and have slow down. Just a month ago I was watching the Meredith Vieira Show and they had a episode on selling your items on Tradesy.com. Will I was in a the the process of listing items on ebay and the webstore. There it was in front of me, possibly my next step towards sales. So right there and then I started listing on Tradesy. Within two days I had my first sale of a Dooney & Bourke handbag, then a couple of days later a wallet by the same company. Then everything slowed down as it does right after Christmas, when everyone isn’t shopping for gifts. I still have hopes that this will be my new site to sell on, but will wait and see.
I now sell on all three of these sites the same exact items, once it sells off of the one site I remove it off of the other two. This at least exposes me to more chances of selling the items, then just the one site. The only thing about Tradesy that I don’t like is that they don’t show how many hits the item has had or if there are any watchers on the items.
Otherwise what am I to do just seat and wait to see if the item sell on ebay or be a bit more motivated and look for other options. Yes, it does take a bit longer to list items as I going back and forth between the sites, but hopefully it further my chances for selling.
eBay has no love for its sellers anymore , everything is for the buyer.
The fee’s kill you with Paypal ,Shipping and final sale, unless you are selling a lot of high end or cheap crap from China it is not easy to make money there anymore.
Guess what eBay, there would be no you without sellers , but they have forgotten that.
I have been trying many ebay alternatives that are growing day by day. I really hope they just keep growing until Ebay starts to feel like they need to adjust their prices and strategy in order to keep their sellers.
Amazon is the the same situation, they just don’t care.
The two sites that I have been using are http://www.ebid.net and
http://www.ElephantBid.com
Robert, how long have you’ve been using ebid and elephantbid? In your words what is the good, bad and the ugly? These 2 sites you mentioned are 2 that I am looking into.
I’m over eBay, STICK A FORK in me!!!! 8 years listing, Power Seller, 99%+ feedback, over $440,000 in sales which means at $44,000 in fees as well as 3% to PayPal.
Then what happens!!!
1. One negative was left from a buyer in Miami, who in turn brokered it to his customer in Chile. His buyer told him it was the wrong model number. I’ve got emails from the buyer saying that he made the mistake. The product would cost more to ship back from Chile to Miami than what the product was worth. So what does he do — leaves a negative feedback SAYING that it was mis-listed within the description. Requested the the buyer to retract his negative, but he didn’t. Forwarded all the info to eBay and they gave me a “BOILER PLATE” response.
2. Received another unjust negative in the same month. Different scenario, but the same outcome.
What happened, I am now put on “eBay Restriction”. I can only have 55 items listed at one time and I can exceed $4,400 a month in sales.
NO WONDER eBay IS FOR SALE!!!!
Ebay is for sale?
Thank you for this information. I have been a seller on E-bay since 2008….as one other person has said…Ebay is well established.. But they are out of control..and as of 2015.Paypal and Ebay are no longer partnered. I too feel Ebay interferes to much with how to post and it is getting worse..can’t says this! can’t communicate with buyers!.a host of other ….I am trying to branch off as well……I have seen the fees changes with Ebay over the years…com ‘on shipping fees.
9-10% FV fees……that just stated about 2 yrs ago ..It is all crazy
As of the beginning of this year, I’m no longer selling on EBAY, there’s no way I’m going to risk “renting” my items out for 6 months and then pay for them to “maybe” ship it back to me.
It’s absolutely ludicrous. And, yes, I’m very mad about the changes in their policies on returns, no negative seller feedback, top seller status and fees effected because of one scuzzy lunatic leaves unjustified negative feedback.
(My neg feedback over the period of 1 year and just when 1 of them was moving out of the six month range another entered.
20$ pair of new pants delivered to buyer by USPS, tracking showed they were delivered, buyer said she did not get them. To avoid any problems I refunded her the full amount within 24 hours of her informing me and she left me negative feedback saying she never received the item. (No, “it showed delivered” or “was given full refund w/i 24 hrs upon notification”)
Buyer pays late Saturday, I had 2 day ship time on this particular item, I take to USPS early Tuesday and she received 2 days after that. She leaves negative feedback stating “She thinks she can just ship any time she wants”.
Are you kidding me?
EBAY would not remove either, and of coarse I paid more in fees for it. Not to mention the time wasted on the phone.
A couple years prior I shipped a dress and the USPS lost it mid route – could not find it anywhere – the buyer requested refund (which I provided right away) and they left negative feedback. After many, many phone calls all very long, they said they would remove it. They did but it took, another loooooong phone call to actually get it done and it too just long enough for it to cost me more in fees.
I’m looking for alternatives too.
I thought what I read about Bonanza might make it a good alternative, but then I saw quite a few comments regarding it’s legitimacy and I stopped. I realize they could be planted comments, but now I’m also seeing the sales are said to be not worth the hassle. (Even though the import info – listings and seller feedback from EBAY -And I’m not even sure how much of my EBAY could be recovered but I liked the possibility)
If I were a niche seller I’d review some of the others more. And I may decide to find more of a niche. Even then, if I have a niche I may decide to invest in my own store.
I did have mostly easy transactions, and nice buyers, but I don’t trust that going forward. Especially since it’s becoming well known what “rights” the buyers have now. Like it’s said, “Even good people do bad things when strapped for cash”. (Well, that’s not exactly the phrase but I think you know what I mean. I’ll be darned if I’m going to set myself up for that abuse.
Another thing, I see that people are commenting about EBAY’s amount of traffic be worth the risk, but when EBAY is hiding your listings it doesn’t matter how many buyers are passing through. And, yes, many times I couldn’t find my listings.
As for
Bob/Tony ?
&
Unknown 😀 (completely new to EBAY or seller 5 years ago?)
if you’re being paid to leave positive comments for the (ALLEGED ) thieves of EBAY, shame on you! Furthermore, you really should keep your stories straight from post to post.
Thank you, Susan Brown, for your blog.
I’ll check back and also share any new info I find.
Same things have happened to me more than one time. Selling on ebay for over 12 years, power seller, and probably less than 10 requests for returns in all that time. Over 3000 feedback score, most of the time 100% positive, never below 99.7% positive. I sell vintage clothing but don’t list anything that isn’t in top notch condition, and have developed my own niche market. I have been one of the honest sellers that genuinely cares about customers. I don’t understand how it would be “legal” for ebay to block or hide your listings, and I don’t understand why they would want to do that to themselves and lose the 10% final value fees for items that would have sold if buyers could only see them. Why in the world are they doing all these idiotic things to their sellers and themselves? You have to wonder who comes up with this stuff.
Hi,
Thanks for the writeup and all the following comments by fellow sellers. Please can somebody suggest a good site to target buyers of ‘Children Books’ in US and Australia. Thanks for any help. Most of the alternatives mentioned above have fashion apparel, electronics etc. on the offer. Thanks again for any suggestions for great alternatives to ebay and amazon.
Do you have any information on who is buying most of your books? How old are they? Where do most of them live (both the US and Australia are very big countries with many diverse regions). Where would these people “hang out” online? Facebook groups, websites, online communities, etc…
Given the nature of the products you’re trying to sell, you’ll probably have the most success by finding out where your customers are online and approaching them there in order to attract them to your website. (for example, a highly targeted Facebook ad campaign may work very well for you).
I know this may be more work on your end, but trying to compete head on with the likes of Amazon, eBay, or the very few other successful book vendors online via search will be very hard. Best to try to reach your customers directly.
Good luck!
Thanks a lot Susan…I appreciate your input.
Our customers are parents/grandparents wanting the children to read good book e.g. in the age group of 35 to 65 years. Which regions of US/Australia they come from is a bit difficult for me to tell.
1. I wanted to know the selling platforms similar to amazon and ebay, where we can register as sellers and make a store.
2. As for direct selling, I understand and agree with you that it is more difficult to come up in search engine organic ranking, ……but as far as direct targeting is concerned, we will try with fb ad……the google adwords do not work for us.
Any more suggestions are welcome
A another alternative I just found is http://www.miklist.com it’s free, simple and you can pretty much advertise anything for sale on there, even your own website’s products
Hi Susan and readers,
I was thinking of offering our products e.g. books on ioffer.com. But I get wary when:
-they ask me of my ebay id and password to transfer listings and feedbacks…how safe is it to give your password….they can do anything to our existing ebay account.
-when i browse the net for the reputation of their site (ioffer), I do not find very good reviews.
Any comments from you…….thanks,
Regarding handing over your account information, you could always change your password as soon as the transfer is complete. Though, I definitely hear your concern.
Regarding iOffer’s reputation, it seems that the vast majority of the complaints are coming from buyers who are getting scammed by bad sellers.
thanks Susan.
Have u also heard about pricefalls.com ….any views on that
I am a firm believer that if you give your password to unknown parties for any reason that you are opening yourself up for serious problems. I personally don’t care if its the president of the united states. I personally believe it is none of your business. and a invasion of my privacy. So in my comment i say this if you have to give another business your password to your bank account. then you are the person that is chopping off your own hands. because in no way is it worth it. just comment from a person thinking about doing business on ebay but trying to outsource more than a couple of selling avenues.
ebid also requires an upfront fee to sell
After having a pretty good 6 months on ebay, roughly $4,500 in sales, not too bad for part time, I will never, EVER sell on this platform again. Not only are the fees the highest in the industry, but the customer service is non-existent. All of my listing are no return / refund items. It is CLEARLY marked in every single listing. Even Ebay gives the seller the option when setting up the listing to not accept returns. What happens? Buyers always say it is not as described, because they KNOW, they are informed in the listing by Ebay, that if it is not as described, then the no return / refund policy of the seller goes bye bye. Completely absurd. I have sold an item, TV parts with serial numbers, and have the seller return the bad part in place of my good part. Ebay does nothing and I am out final value fees, shipping ( to AND from), and the good part. It is a den of thieves now and I will not be back. I am now on eCrater, which offers NO RETURN POLICY, and no seller fees if it is sold from the eCrater platform. They do link your listings with Google shopping and charge I think 3% if sold from Google. I have had a little success with them, and as this is not my primary source of income, it can have patience for this. I am currently working to create my own website, and if you are a local small business, business cards and direct mail are great affordable options to bolster an online presence as well. Glad to see so many entrepreneurs in one place trying to make a stand against the evil that has ruined the business culture in America. Keep at it. We are the backbone of this country.
eBay does nothing to help it’s sellers from scam customers. Horrible!!! Don’t sell there if you don’t have to.
Try selling on PlutoBay.com, where there are never any fees ever. The site is run fairly, too, for both buyers and sellers.
How do these sites treat sellers? The reason I ask is I recently sold a motherboard to a winning bidder on Ebay. He claimed it was defective and when it was returned I noticed that the pins to the CPU socket were bent from installing a CPU incorrectly. In addition the CMOS battery was missing along with some of the SATA connectors. The manual was bent up and had some food item in it and half the manual had oil from whatever this food item is so even if he didn’t damage my motherboard I would be unable to sell it to someone else. I didn’t want to give him his money back because in my opinion he damaged this motherboard, it wasn’t sent to him damaged as he claims. His accusations is that I put some kind of tape over the CPU socket to cover up damages. I soon realized that on Ebay sellers don’t have any rights and when you are accused of sending damaged merchandise, they assume the seller isn’t wrong and that you indeed sold them a damaged product even though doing so would wreck your reputation since the buyer will simply leave a negative feedback comment indicating that they received a damaged item from you and other buyers will avoid you. Soon he kept hounding me for a refund and threatening to get me banned from Ebay. I ended up giving him the refund and still face negative feedback and he is getting irritated that it is taking paypal too long to send him his refund (3-5 business days). Not only am I out a motherboard and even had to give the person who damaged this motherboard his money back, I now have a bad reputation when I did not send him a defective motherboard and I could also be removed from Ebay since he has filed a complaint. I’ve read comments on Ebay’s community about this and many sellers indicate that they no longer send electronic items to buyers since they claim a buyer can damage an item and claim it was defective and request a refund even if you indicated that there are no refunds on purchases. In addition buyers can claim they never received an item or received an empty box and force sellers to give them a refund. They can also claim your item description description is inaccurate as a reason for refund. A site is worthless to sellers when they have no protections from fraudulent buyers.
I know. If you search for seller’s for ebay complaints forums there’s horror stories. I quit ebay after experiencing firsthand the full leeway buyers have over sellers. They can Neg and threaten for any reason or mis truth. Even when we work our best to resolve their issue, BOOM they hit us with red negatives, and its never enough. Ironically, truly corrupt and dishonest seller with Negatives to prove get to stay on board. i don’t get it. Ebay seems to be getting more and more deregulated and haphazard. Unfortunately there’s so few productive options that have the ebay traffic. I’ve had an ebay buyer too who claimed a torn open package where two books should’ve been. I lost big time on that one. Its really a gamble and a seller has scant protection and recourse.
When Ebay started 1995 it was a website with nothing on it. The only reason there’s an Ebay today is because people rolled the dice on what was then a crap shoot. You’re not going to “find” an auction with 60 million active users, you’ll have to find one with potential and use it, promote it until it becomes huge. I have a site with more features and costs less than Ebay, but until people decide to do something different it will remain an empty space on the internet.
Thank you for all the information and especially for the forum part. The opinions there are also very helpful in making up my mind how to go on ‘after’ ebay. After 14 years there I am now closing my account as it is simply not safe for buyers any longer. I had only happy customers and worked so hard in keeping the climate nice and happy until a buyer ruined my 100 & positive feedback by leaving negative for me. After two phone calls with ebay I can safely say they do not care one bit. All has been said about ebay on this subject. I will add by saying that the necessary balance is gone by not being able to rate the buyers. They can only receive positive feedback, no choice, and !!! they can make their feedback ‘invisible’ to hide the text of the feedback. This of course sets sellers up for a lot of heartache and there is no support from ebay at all. Yes, it is time to leave, sad and sorry to say. Ebay has changed into something completely different from what it was when I started selling, not a nice place any longer.
Very well said. I couldn’t agree more.
If you wanted to sell in India, there are few more alternatives available like http://www.dial4shop.com, flipkart, snapdeal, shopclues. They are offering better customer services in compare to eBay.
I was a part time seller the first years of eBay. Oh the good ol days! When one would list an item and 20 minutes later there were 5 bids. The Buy It Now option did not exist so it was fun watching the bidding wars. I continued to sell on eBay part time but it wasn’t until 2 years ago that I began to sell full time with an eBay store. I have noticed many changes throughout the years and each time I think it can’t get worse, it does. In fact each month it gets progressively worse for me. My sales plummeted beginning June 2014 and have never quite recovered. I do all the things a top rated seller should do but to no avail. i.e. detailed descriptions, lots of clear close-up photos, free shipping, returns on new with tag items. Doesn’t matter! Sales stink! My items are high-end to simple high quality pieces. I search the sold prices so that I can offer a fair price and always price a little lower than my competition. Doesn’t matter! Interestingly the high end pieces that I couldn’t sell on eBay (unless I marked them down to ridiculous prices) have sold on Tradesy. Not as quickly as I would like them to but nonetheless they sold. I’m in the process of registering on the other selling sites in hopes that my items will sell somewhere(??) I’ll be spending the next few months going through my inventory and liquidating everything I have. I don’t like the uncertainty of selling online. I don’t believe this is a permanent problem, I do believe things will get better but it will be a good while before that happens. I have also been taking my unsold pieces (items I couldn’t even get a starting bid of $4.99) to a local consignment store and thus far I’ve made about $400.00. This was over a 3 month period. I figured it’s better to get back what I paid than to loose money altogether. Like many of the sellers here I’m doing what I can to sell my items and keep my business going but I have to say it is very discouraging. I wish all sellers on here the best of luck no matter what avenue your decide to take.
You sound like me. I would have to low ball my own self to sell on ebay but that’s a real tough one on heavier items. At least somehow justify the basically standard already bargain prices and low ship rates- if you can. Come on now, selling at a penny? All mighty, PLEASE. Too the local PO doesn’t always honor the sellers’ paypal labels and when that happens you could lose the whole order and end up wreaking your ebay score and reputation. All it takes is one disgruntled buyer’s Negative. On ebay there is NOTHING barring a buyer form negging a seller- for ANY whim or reason. Feedback extortion; that’s another force to be reckoned with. Ebay is okay, I’m not knocking ebay itself, they could adjust some policies here and there but the buyers are SO after ‘all for free or nearly nothing’ and it just doesn’t work that way. Bonanza and rubylane have potential for sales but with the membership fees we have to somehow make that back. Etsy…deplorable. Even sinking to .99 on some promos I never made a sale. Yes, it IS discouraging. Yet…yet don’t give up!
Yes – I had that experience with feedback extortion more than once (more than several times) They would say it did not work (I knew it did and would offer tech support (I sell used digital cameras) right away they would talk about how they would give bad feedback if they did not get their way. They knew they had the power to put me out of business. They actually had no interest in getting the item to work, they wanted it for free and knew that most of the time, sellers would not pay to get it back.Essentially by the time I buy the item, add postage to ship it to them, my profit margin is small. Having to pay shipping to get it back means I have no profit left in the item. They know this and calculate it, realizing they have a good chance of getting free stuff. Blocking buyers is a very difficult process, though it can be done. But then it is too late and they have already shoplifted from you.
The problem with this list is other than Craigslist (yes, I know it has a bad rap and tons of competition making it difficult to be seen) and Kijiji, none of the other sites are good options for selling used or motor parts, particularly powersports parts. I am sick of eBay and have recently decided to discontinue being both a seller and a buyer on their site.
I am opening a Shopify store which will allow me to sell what I want, and I know upfront what my costs are. I will continue to use Kijiji and Craigslist for certain items, but feel setting up my own store, using social media, and forums to market my inventory.
Kijiji is simply a subsidary of Ebay.
Try http://www.sellsim.com. They have very good and quality service. You will be pleasantly surprised.
I’ve floundered to am unfortunate ending.with ebay. I got NOTHING from ioffer, ecrater or storeenvy, even etsy. NO LUCK. Amazon yes, I have but I scantly get paid and never apon shipment confirmed. Paypal and ebay customer service I don’t have a gripe with at all but ebay just doesn’t get much higher than a forced low ball and shipping is quite high enough. I have so much inventory and my own works I simply have to ultimately hand over to the goodwill (gee, aren’t they millionaires with everyone simply ‘giving it up’ to them.) My husband wanted to see me really thrive on my own two sales businesses like maybe in a booth or fair or market, but not much of that hereabouts. I wish ebay would change certain policies and three are dishonest buyers and sellers notoriously so that they simply keep aboard. I’ve simply stopped producing so much works because how can I sell them all, or at least half? I’m so afraid of rejection i didn’t go to consignment stores, they may say “ehhh- PASS” and I just give it all up to goodwill or charities. My hubby said, “Look how cool this stuff is and best of all its good quality neat originals. Why don’t people buy?” But I think the top brand names are whose go first, the “little people” struggle a bit more and our brands are not seen in Walmart, Jewelry Haven or Target. My own website store never made a cent so I closed that one down too.
Hi EB,
What kinds of people would be likely to buy one of your works? Have you tried using platforms such as Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook? The benefit of using such platforms is that you can showcase your work and potentially have it seen by many prospective buyers.
You really should also have your own site- even if you use one of the free platforms, such as WordPress.org, Weebly, or Wix- where people can see more products and find out more details about you as well as how to buy something from you.
I’m so glad a friend sent me this site. I have been a top rated seller on ebay 11 years and have seen my sales diminish in time from over £1500 a month in the ‘good old days’ to (if I’m lucky) £300 or £400 now. My listings are ‘buy it now’ and I sell Indian textiles, silver, incense and silk kaftans amongst other things. I offer free shipping, 1 day or same day posting, in fact every dam thing that ebay have asked I have complied with. Once it was unheard of for me not to have a day without sales, now I can go WEEKS! I’ve been tearing my hair out wondering what the hell has happened to my shop so I am very relieved to have found this site and read the other comments about ebay and what has really been happening.
I’ve long known about the visibility thing, in the UK we call it light on light off, and I have also just heard about the 2 companies, ebay and paypal separating but I was unaware of the 6 months return. Is it something I’ve missed or just applicable to USA?If so it can’t be long before that policy comes to the UK.
Reading everybody’s experiences just confirms my worse fears and suspicions, that it really is becoming untenable to remain selling on ebay. in 11 years I have racked up £87,000 in sales, over 7,000 transactions. I am proud of that record but this month sales were just under £300 but ebay and paypal fees were £70. Add to that a negative feedback left because a buyer hadn’t received an item I posted (and had proof of postage) to the USA. Because it was a cheap item there was no international tracking on the postage so ebay weren’t interested in stepping in on my behalf (not that they are interested in ever siding with the seller anyway) and I’ve finally having to face the reality that I may have to close the store. As another writer on here said, I am certainly not going to open myself up to the abuse of the system which will happen once the paypal 6 month rule comes in.Considering they can take the money straight from your bank account the scenario could be potentially horendous.
If anyone can give me viable alternatives of where to sell ethnic Indian handmade fair-trade items sourced direct (my best friend lives in India and we buy from small business and artisans we have known for years) I would be grateful.
HI Gina, I feel your pain, I actually mourned my loss because I loved running my eBay store. I’ve been selling on eBay for the past 9 years, full-time as a power seller. Just recently with all the Ebay Policy changes, store limits, 21 paypal holds my sales went down over 90%. I realised then that it was not really my store, eBay controlled it and me. My eBay store was my only source of income for my family, so I needed to find a good honest business I could run myself. With lots of online searching I found a legit business that I can work from home, I now have a website, and the option to dropship products direct to my customers or I can keep some stock at home if I choose, last month the company that I’m involved with sold over 78 million dollars worth of product in 1 month alone. If you would like more information please message me for information, you do not need any experience as training is included when you get involved.
storhttp://lookathereyes.com/warm/?u=3811
ClassAdLister can help you list your products on sites other than eBay if you wish.
Like one lady said, she hand typed 500 items on Bonanza when trying to move from eBay to Bonanza. Yikes! Enter your item once in ClassAdLister and it stays in your own local database forever until you decide to delete it. List it wherever you want with ease. List it again down the road if it is a hard to sell item. Rotate inventory from site to site easily.
Give it a try if you have an android based device.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.iss.classadlister
I’ve been selling on eBay for the past 9 years, full-time as a power seller. Just recently with all the Ebay Policy changes, store limits, 21 paypal holds my sales went down over 90%. I realised then that it was not really my store, eBay controlled it and me. My eBay store was my only source of income for my family, so I needed to find a good honest business I could run myself. With lots of online searching I found a legit business that I can work from home, I now have a website, and the option to dropship products direct to my customers or I can keep some stock at home if I choose, last month the company that I’m involved with sold over 78 million dollars worth of product in 1 month alone. If you would like more information please message me for information, you do not need any experience as training is included when you get involved.
I’m really glad I found this site. I’m looking at any and all alternatives to ebay, and I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of them popping up in the very near future to fill the needs of tons of sellers looking for a friendly place to sell their wares. I have no idea how ebay is allowed to do some of the things they apparently do. First, it was the unfair and unbalanced “feedback” manipulation where sellers are not allowed to leave negative feedback for bad buyers, but buyers can hold sellers hostage and ruin their hard earned reputations. Then, ebay baits the hook with some attractive perks to get you in to a year long subscription on a store, then they change some of the most important reasons of having a store in the first place without even giving you the chance to opt out of your subscription with no cancellation fee. So you’re “stuck” with whatever the new rules are, and you just have to make the best of it. If you complain, it seems your store’s visibility disappears from being seen by buyers, and your sales, in turn, plummet. You now have to pay return shipping if someone wants to return an item, which will encourage people to return items for frivolous reasons, and I’m hearing that Paypal is going to give buyers 6 months to return something for any reason whatsoever. What? Have they gone completely crazy over there? I’ve written down all the great suggestions and information on alternatives for selling online, and I will check them out. Thank you, Susan Brown, for this interesting and informative site. It looks like a lot of people are coming together to try to find viable solutions for a growing problem.
Ebay, I listed a camera, it was not working, so listed as spares and repairs.The buyer said he repaired cameras. I sold the camera and the buyer after 3 weeks complained that “the camera does not work”!! Yes it was sold as not working, spares and repairs. Ebay allowed him to return it for a refund as it was “not working”! There customer service agreed I had listed it as not working, but said he still had the right to return the item because “it was not working”! what the hell is going on, Ebay customer service is total crap! I received the camera back recently and guess what, the camera in the box is not what I sent, I informed Ebay and sent pictures of what is in the box, they said, it was his word against mine, they could do nothing!. I contacted the police, they also said they could not help. So Ebay really can do what they like to anybody.
I have had it with Ebay!
My eBay horror story… This is the message I sent Ebay about a returned laptop.
“The customer lied about conditions for returning computer. The listing clearly stated it was sold “as is” and guaranteed against “Dead On Arrival” only. Buyer used statements “the screen for about 30 seconds before it went dead” & “I suspect that the trip on the UPS mite have Been a ruff ride to hear and damaged the laptop” to claim that the computer was DOA. When I received the computer back I did a complete inspection and found that the computer had been taken apart, the ram cover plate had not been put back on (pictures taken of everything as proof), and the black cover on the laptop had been broken off and reattached using a hot glue gun. After checking all components I reinstalled the battery, plugged in the unit and it booted right up. once on the desktop I saw right away that it was completely different from the default windows 7 desktop that it had when I sent it out. It isn’t even the same as the original m17x r1 alienware system. The keyboard lights no longer work. I spent several hours going thru the data logs (logs showing dates files were modified, download history dates and windows update logs) and collected evidence that the computer had been running from the date it arrived with the buyer (5/22) all the way to the day it was shipped back (5/28). I even have the buyers network log on info and password. This evidence shows that the buyer lied about the condition of the computer, took the computer apart (to remover parts, or to try and render the computer inoperable to fit his false claims) and at some point broke off the cover and tried to GLUE it back on to hide the fact. The computer has been irreparably altered from the condition when I sent it. A refund is not warranted and I am ready to ship the unit back to buyer as soon as shipping is arranged by him. ”
Ebay never even contacted me, just closed the case in the buyers favor and refunded them. They refuse to let me appeal the case and is trying to get me to pay them back for the refund. I told them to pound sand and I’ll see them in court.
Ebay Simply sucks, i have been with them since 2005 and was a power seller , a few days back for no reason they simply shut my account and will not re-instate it.
I asked them for a reason and no response, i wish they go down. You cannot trust your business with ebay,
I have recently had a bad experience as a buyer on ebay, and due to Ebay’s unbelievably poor customer support giving incorrect instructions found myself $800+ out of pocket! They refused to except responsibility and there is nothing i can do to get my money back. But maybe I can help the many others also wishing for an alternative to ebay.
I’m a web and app developer and would love to create an application that gave sellers and buyers a great platform to do transactions through. But most of all I would like it to be free to use! Yes free! Surely that would be a massive incentive to ditch ebay once and for all?!
If you have time it would be great to hear what your must have features would be for such an application.
Best regards
I don’t think your site would even have to be free to use just reasonably priced with decent customer support. I don’t think ebay’s fees are too unreasonable at least as compared with selling on Amazon Marketplace but dealing with ebay’s inflexible polices that don’t effectively support buyer or seller are too much.
As a small time ebay seller, I haven’t really had any problems but as a buyer I have had major problems recently with sellers not shipping items I have paid for and not responding to my inquiries. Ebay makes you wait until the package should have arrived even if no tracking numbers have been entered and the package shows as unshipped. After that, you can open a case and they make you wait another 4 days for the seller’s response. Add to that the bank turn around time to process your refund and as a buyer, you are often left waiting a month or longer for a refund. I am rapidly growing to hate ebay for purchasing anything, I’ve had too many problems and despite best efforts have not been able to make much money there as a seller.
The truth is that for selling many types of items, the shipping prices are prohibitively expensive.
A site that operates regionally in various cities like craigslist but somehow verifies identities of the members (so that consumers and sellers feel somewhat safer than craigslist) and allows for both online purchase and shipping or local pickup would be a winning combination in my estimation but for any of these endeavors to have any chance of success, someone is going to have to spend some serious advertising dollars to get the word out there. Otherwise, people will continue to turn to Craigslist and ebay because it is what they know.
Niche sites may be the only way to break into this type of business. Etsy did it with handmade goods, for example.
Thanks for your thoughtful reply and feedback. Sorry to hear of your bad experience with ebay also, like everyone else here.
i think managing the deputes would be the big cost in the equation of an ebay alternative. Ebay have managed to get themselves in a “legal” position viewed by law to pretty much wipe their hands with an really despute work and get away with it. And still take the money. How could one manage disputes fairly?
I have been selling on ebay for 15 years. It has changed a lot over the years. First it was a simple online auction market place with low costs,simple payment methods, the option to rate buyers the same way they rated you as a seller and it all worked to make ebay successful because the website worked more like an actual buy/trade auction website. As ebay grew they focused more on becoming more “retailer” like. Focusing on the buyer only and the buyers needs, shunning sellers out of protection like the option to rate buyers, taking over paypal to have more access to your funds to refund buyers, increasing fees to the point their website is no longer cost effective to sell on. Their business model no longer caters to sellers and buyers equally it’s made to please buyers. It’s too easy to be “legally” as in ebay legally be scammed by a buyer. Without question ebay will refund a buyer if they check off the right box.
Ebay sees no risks as the money comes from you and not them and they take no responsibility for any merchandise that the buyer damages or keeps despite their “Seller Protection”. I have had almost every scenario you can imagine happen to me in the 15 years I’ve been selling on ebay. The closest I’ve come to buyer protection is being told by their “Office that handles escalated calls” is that they could not find my paperwork I faxed to them consecutive times in time to process my claim to be refunded by Seller protection. Paperwork that would without a doubt result in eBay having to pay me for an item that somehow was never received “on time”. Which mean they received my fax and took their time to not process the information they requested to deliberately avoid paying me under their seller protection policy to which my case was valid.
Ebay tries to compete with Amazon and they know that Amazon’s business model is “The customer is always right regardless”. Instant refund and return anything for any reason. That is what Ebay is intently focused on and unfortunately sellers suffer because of it. I can’t complain about sales as Ebay has a large market of buyers but they have a very low quality market of buyers. Mainly “Thrift Store type shoppers” looking to find a cheap bargain at your expense. This is why you have a lot of purchasing fraud, return fraud, etc. etc. on Ebay now. The quality of customers is low. You’ll even have customers complain about shipping when shipping might be free. You’ll have customers buy items with no intention of keeping them. Just to use them for a week or so then claim there’s something wrong with them and return them. Since you have no control over your money they WILL get a full refund and these buyers know that. You can’t give them a negative feedback rating like you used too when ebay was good.
Mainly eBay blew up as a company because they started out with a good idea and when they had enough business they became greedy because they know there really isn’t a good enough competitor to leave them for. Why is that? Because Ebay just like Amazon has brought out their competitors and business threats. That’s why any potential company that could sell on their level is light years away from being them.
Listing and auction and just walking away from your computer is no longer going to cut it. To make sales you have to be competitive. On ebay you can be less competitive because there’s already that “low quality” market of buyers out there but on smaller websites you have to work harder because there’s less traffic. Which means you have to draw people to your listings yourself by using Pintrest and facebook and twitter and other things.
The only real way to be a seller and have control is to open up your own webstore and spend the money you pay in fees to these market places into your own website and advertisement to your website. People have been looking for alternatives to Ebay for years and sellers are dying to get off there. I always say if you don’t hate ebay as a seller you’re either not selling enough or you haven’t been there long enough.
Ebay is better suited for those companies selling foreign junk that’s just as cheap as the people purchasing it. There’s no reason that every sale should turn into a courtroom hearing. Dealing with “cases” and “disputes” and “claims” and “judgements”. Ebay is a very time consuming place to sell and as a seller is not a very good market at all. 1. You always have a gun to your head with feedback 2. You can lose your merchandise or profits at any time for any reason 3. The buyers are low quality (compare Walmart to Nordstrom).
There is no real solution against ebay other than to spread out your selling and try everything. A sale is a sale no matter what site or place it’s done on.
Very well put, Sama. I have been selling on eBay for 15 years, and a Top Rated Seller since they started that program (although it really means nothing, in terms of customer service – they don’t help, and don’t listen!)
My items are all high-end consignments – mostly from seniors who are downsizing. I can’t just give the items away, because I have to protect the consignor’s interests. More and more I just see “bottom feeders” on eBay who want something for nothing, and will come up with laughable reasons for why an item is not worth the asking price.I realize there is a certain “game” to this, but I get so tired of dealing with idiots. .
The other part of my eBay business is administering eBay sites for local non-profits. These are local thrift shops and I sell their higher priced items at prices they would never get in the thrift shop. The items need to be worth at least $100.
This too has changed. The items are donations, and I used to be able to put them up for auction at $9.99 and get a good price – at least 90% of the time. Doesn’t work any more…everything has to be fixed price because the auction prices were often pitiful. This was a dramatic shift over the past two years.
If I do an auction, I have to start it at $99 (or sometimes $60) just to make sure that the non-profit doesn’t lose their shirt on the sale. So often, at a fixed price, the items just…sit on a Good Til Canceled basis. This shift has totally undermined my business model for the non-profits.
The return process on eBay is a nightmare; I’ve had people return things they claimed were “defective” just because they didn’t like the product (buyer’s remorse.) This requires a 45 minute conversation with eBay, so I’m not responsible for the return shipping fee. If I don’t make the phone call, I get a “defect” on my account. This would be so easy to fix, but nobody’s listening.
I am 63 years old and wasn’t born yesterday. For 14 years I handled all the returns myself – 100% positive feedback with over 3,700 positive comments. I know how to treat people with respect;, I know how to mitigate conflict with a customer. I don’t need Big Daddy eBay to come in and meddle with my business. And their system of rating sellers and “defects” on seller’s account is so juvenile and insulting. I loved your comment about every sale shouldn’t turn into a courtroom hearing.
This is all so sad…I’m trying to hang on until I can retire at 66. I’m thinking about moving my vintage/antique/jewelry items to Ruby Lane, just because – as you said, the customers seem to have a bit more class. These are people who are fearful of eBay’s reputation for fraud and dishonest sellers. Actually, in 15 years, I have only purchased about 10 items on eBay. I may see something at a good price, but after looking at the seller’s feedback, I am really turned off by their unprofessional conduct. But – as you also mentioned, one has to support the non-ebay listings with Facebook, Pinterest, etc.
I do hate the way eBay treats sellers. Buyers follow sellers, and so many of us are just disgusted with eBay’s heavy handed and insulting approach. Don’t know what the answer is, but I’m checking my options.
I wish you well and good luck to you.
Agreed. I started selling on eBay in 1998 and have been selling off and on since. I use to make a living selling from eBay for the first few years but it has gotten harder and harder. In 2004 eBay refunded a buyer 3k on a product that I shipped in good faith with tracking. The buyer got their money back but never returned the product so I was just out the money. Since then I have sold a few things on eBay each year but I just don’t trust them and the greedy fees really prevent me from even making a profit there. Still haven’t found an acceptable alternative though I do sell CD’s and books on Amazon. Used to make decent money selling books on half.com when it first started… until ebay took it over too.
Why not try https://www.AuctionWin.co.uk Free to list.
Loads of cool cheap items.
Hey that Ubid is a total scam!!! There should be a class action lawsuit against Ubid, rip off artists.
Have you had a personal experience with Ubid as either a buyer or seller? If you can summarize your experience with the platform, it will help others who may want to give the site a try.
Here’s a brand new website worth looking into. Much lower fees, ebay and amazon import function, and more. It is functional, but is not even complete yet so come on over and help us fill it up with products!
Is eBay really that bad?Ann Sieg or Renegade Community doesn’t think so.They have been promoting it like wildfire and is in the process
of making it their number one revunue earner.There are daily reports of success stories on eBay.If the business is not viable why do they
conduct so many workshops and initiate so many trainings and webinars?
Could it be they are using the right strategy and connection?
Hi Dan,
I don’t know so much about Ann Sieg, but at a glance, it looks like she’s teaching people how to flip products from Amazon on eBay or find an overseas supplier that can beat the average listed price of “quiet” top selling products. That may work for a small group of people willing to make the effort to put such a system properly in place. But, it’s not easy, nor a foolproof way of making money.
dan,
yes. e-bay is REALLY.THAT.BAD.
yes,you will hear plenty of success stories-coming from hi power sellers.e-bay has a vested interest in them bc it is well known that if you have the money to pay e-bay,you get exposure and you get it first.there is a reason that the same sellers/stores show up at the top search listings,regardless of what you are searching for.money gets them that spot.
there are so many workshops & webinars bc,for the most part,the vast majority of e-bay sellers aren’t high profile sellers and have no clue they are even being screwed over by having their listings/stores blacked out,per e-bays convenience.these sellers have no idea they are being ripped off on a regular basis.the people holding these workshops are PAID…and the naive sellers think THEY are doing something wrong or just not “good at this”,so they look for answers,to improve how and what they sell…not knowing,REGARDLESS of the effort they put forth,the hours they put in,etc.etc.is all fruitless bc e-bay does what e-bay wants and THAT is to cater to the sellers who can afford to pay big money to always be at the top of the search list.the folks holding these workshops are just catering to supply & demand.
e-bay is no different than politicians.
Ebid is an alternative to ebay. Slow sales at present, but very low fees and user friendly. Complaints, queries etc are quickly dealt with by a live, thinking human being.
I left ebay about 8 years ago, too much stupidity and greed there. Ebid should be a strong contender if ebay finally does collpse under it’s own greed
Hello all, We at freeBid offer an alternative to eBay, You can list for free, no comission or fees for sellers. Its a new site we are growing and have a forum. All products listed are uploaded to google shopping too. Try us today http://www.freebid.lu
Hey all, we’ve recently launched a marketplace called “I Am Attitude”, aimed strictly at the alternative fashion scene (think pinup, punk, goth, metal, rock, etc!)—hand-picked, high quality boutiques and designers only, including lots of handmade, and all currently commission free. Check it out at http://www.iamattitude.com
There is also an app named Close2Buy that is a nice ebay alternative. It can find buyers and sellers for you:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.connectingapps.close2buy
I have been buying and selling on eBaysince 2006. I’m beginning to hate the way people act on eBay. I was just ripped off on that site by a seller that sent me an email for some vintage Ralph Lauren sheets. The cost was $161.00. The thing was she was pretending to be the seller that I was buying a set o Queen sheets from and I really thought that I had paid the right seller. I was so disgusted when I found out she had put the same price on a pair of Twin sheets. The picture looked the same. She got away with a bait and switch and it went off so well for her. I had told her when she started emailing me that I couldn’t wait to get my Queen sheets. eBay gave her my phone number and that’s when she told me what I had bought. She also wanted to buy all my Vintage Ralph Lauren bedding and Curtains. I was livid. I filed a complaint against her with both eBay and PayPal and lost. I finally got some justice when I filed another complaint with my PayPal Credit account. I just have to fax a receipt with a tracking number, I went through Hell to get this done. They had all said to just forget it but no way. This is just one of the worst rip offs I’ve gone through but there have been many. There is no intergrity on that site any longer. I stopped selling because every time I listed something eBat would try to talk my price down. I used to just let them do it and I lost so much money. A buyer hardly ever wins there. I want to sell my things on a site that people can get a fair price and the buyer will also get a good deal without someone butting in all the time. eBay needs to but out of personal listings as long as the seller isn’t in violation like the one I dealt with. It’s my stuff not theirs. I hope that at least some people out ther know what I’m saying. They make plenty off of us just to buy and sell there. I’m so fed up with them I need a new place to sell. I appreciate that I’m able to say what I’ve put down here. I am never going to get over how easy they handed out my personal information go a thief. We’ll take care out there and let’s all get another site built up that we can buy and sell and not be judged by eBay when we don’t sell enough for them so they can just take more of our money.
Thank you and God Bless us all, Barbara
Hello Everyone,
While I’m sure we are going to get alot of snickers and omg’s from this post but want to share OUR new auction platform. Right now and for the next 39 days or until November 01,2015 our site is open to all that want to try it out FREE, so for those that do sell feel free to visit us. We would love to be the actual Ebay alternative. My wife and I don’t live in the GREED zone of the bigger on line auction sites, in fact that is the reason we started 777warehouse.com NO we don’t have anyone on the site yet but are working hard to change that.
I’m not going on and on here and bore ya’ll to tears but will say that anyone that wants to push our brand and help us gain a respectable place in the world of online selling AND be treated with respect we hope you’ll put your trust in us.
Thank you for reading this post
Steven and Daphne
Hi Steven & Daphne, I think i will give your site a try. Is there a way to advertise what i have listed on the auction site on my fb page like a selling page app for facebook.
Also couple of quick questions i belong to hundreds of fb groups & even have a facebook business page that i use to post & list items for sale. I would like a more quicker & easier way to cross post items into lots of groups at once or schedule posts. Such as a app, program or website. I have already looked into mass planner, postcron, post radar & few others, can post planner help me here?
Also i post on craigslist, offer up, olx & maybe a few others i provide my facebook business page link in there & say check out my other listings at link to other sites such as fb, yakaz, inselly & even my own fb group. Do you know of another free website & one that can even be linked to my fb business page?
Sorry for long post but this dumb #Adhd has me always thinking outside the box. My goal is to have my own business with selling, marketing & handyman service. Jack of All Trades. (“To Be The Best Ya Gotta Be Smarter Than The Rest”) God’s blessings to you!!
Respectfully,
Ron Schroeder.
Quality Kare Treasures
I think after reading everyone’s post… I personally have never had a bad experience with E-Bay… I have been with them for 3 years now.But… I can see that the buyer has more control over the seller… I am just a small time seller…I normally only put in about 1 hour a day… So I think an extra G-Note plus works for me…
I hear sellers complaining but buying has lost any appeal as well. Rule changes and loss of tools reduce an auction to so much muddy water. I spent a lot of money buying there but enough is enough. I had over 600 buys which were almost always paid instantly. I usually ate the rip- off items from private sellers as a lack of due diligence on my part and went to the resolution center only when the fraud was just too excessive to bear. I had a 100% feedback rating both as a seller and buyer. I closed my account today. My view as a buyer is that eBay serves only the big commercial sellers and as such, I can find it elsewhere for less. I bought from eBay while the general opinion was that I was crazy many years back. I believe eBay is gone, replaced by something else . I used to see it as a deal between two people(for a fee).
Think Amazon is better than ebay? As far as sales, it will vary by the items you are selling. Customer Service? They favor the buyer, just like ebay. Really doesn’t matter what the complaint is, there is no validation… if the buyer says it happened, it must have happened and it will be deducted from your seller’s account. Here’s 2 examples, both within the last 2 months: Buyer bought an item from Canada, it was shipped to the address they provided. They started contacting us right after the tracking showed delivered. We told them to call their Post Office, but they kept emailing us. They filed a claim with amazon stating tracking showed “Delivered, but they could not find it.” Amazon forced us to refund them.
Next one: before I explain this one, you should know that Amazon allows other sellers on a listing to change details and pictures on that listing. In fact, they “Encourage it” because “It makes the listings more complete because you get input from various sources.” This is a descent plan, but it really doesn’t work, because they don’t have any verification the information is correct. So, we had another seller change the picture on one of our listings to match an item that he was selling. We sold the item and used the matching SKU for that item, but did not open the picture to notice it was changed. The buyer contacted us about the incorrect item and we advised we don’t have it, but we checked with our supplier and it was a new design that was not in yet. The buyer said he would wait, “No problem” just let him know so we could exchange the incorrect item. Well a couple weeks went by and it hadn’t come in, he decides to file a claim and amazon again grants the claim (of course from our account).
Another one (from about 2 years ago, but it’s a classic). Overstuffed package didn’t fit into the mailbox, so customer was left a notice it was at the Post Office. 2nd notice was left. Buyer contacted us after about a month “where’s my stuff?” We told them to pick it up at the Post Office, but I guess that was too inconvenient because he filed a claim instead. He was granted the claim because the item did not show “Delivered.” Of course after the claim, he picked it up at the Post Office and they scanned it “delivered.” We have a few more good one’s, but I don’t want to make this too much longer.
We give Amazon thousands of dollars every year in fees and there are typically a few claims every year, totaling maybe $50-$100. Knowing how many successful transactions we run, you know there are going to be scammers looking for free items. I get that. What I don’t get, it how people are content with just calling it “the cost of doing business.” Well, ebay and Amazon, what about YOUR cost of doing business? Why is it they always get their cut, but any cost of doing business always falls onto the sellers?
We have created a new site that puts the sellers first, (the way it should be). Please join us at http://toucandeal.com if you don’t want to be controlled any more.
Thanks, and I hope to see you soon!
There are lots of sites to use instead of eBay. You have to really look at the terms of service, the prices to list, etc… Not all sites are created equal.
This is nice list. A lot of these websites I have never heard of. One site that is missing is a site called Tripleclicks. This site has been around a long time (longer than most companies listed on here). They don’t charge any listing fees and you have the opportunity to have people help you sell your products online. They’re not as well known as other companies. I wrote an article about it. You can click my name to find out more.
Keep writing these great posts.
“I think after reading everyone’s post… I personally have never had a bad experience with E-Bay… I have been with them for 3 years now.But… I can see that the buyer has more control over the seller… I am just a small time seller…I normally only put in about 1 hour a day… So I think an extra G-Note plus works for me…”
Is this the same Tony as posting on the 12 November 2014? Sure you work for Ebay Bob!! Lol
It’s very simple there are 2 places to sell. eBay and Amazon. Both favor the buyer and both have high fees. If you had a website and actually wanted sales it would cost you just as much in advertising fees and no guarantee in sales. These sites bring you traffic and sales. If you are not selling find another product. I am a single mother and I change my products all the time I sell what people want and I sell used items. I started like everyone else by selling stuff from my home and now I sell more than 2k a week. Yes the fees are crazy high and there are people who rip off sellers……. it is what it is. I make six figures from home but I work for it. I am constantly searching for items to sell. It’s hard work but I love it. I highly doubt that any other site will ever get sales like eBay or Amazon instead of crying about it do something about it. There are many tricks to making more money and one of the biggest is shipping costs and supplies. Open USPS and fedex account….all supplies are free and the more you ship the cheaper the rates are. I use fedex smart post and the more you use it the lower fedex charges you. The only supply I buy is tape everything else is free. You don’t have to be an expert on what you sell…….it took me a while to figure that out…..I thought I had to sell what I like and know……..wrong!…….I figured out if I wanted to make a living I had to sell what people want. Research research research. Here are some things to sell that people want….kids toys, kids clothes, women’s clothes, plus size clothes is one of my best sellers, small appliances. Forget electronics and electronic accessories unless you can buy a truckload it’s not worth it,. I don’t have any special business degrees or anything like that I’m just a regular person who wanted to be with her kids and I worked hard to make it right for me.
Hi Eileen,
Thanks for sharing your experiences… But, what brought you to this post if you are already doing so well with eBay and Amazon?
THERE’s an interesting question…..
eBay is VERY buyer-centric and too often the seller – you know, the one paying the fees – gets screwed.
I’m done with it after 17 years.
Wow Mark, sorry to hear you had to let go after a long 17 year selling history with that company perhaps you’ll find another selling platform more in tune with the sellers wants.
I am a volunteer at a nonprofit online marketplace that allows business / individual to sell their products online completely free (as long as they meet the criteria) – for more information google EthicalStores.
Good Post, I have been on ebay for 15 years and in the last year tried to sell some things and althought I sold the items and got positive feedback its been awful. First the Ebay and Paypal fees combined are crazy high. Second out of 10 sales I had 3 non paying bidders or people that changed their mind and its been a pain the but to solve the problems because ebay offers no assistance. I started listing things on Etsy and so far its been slow but when I sell the fees are fair and all wen t well. I am working out alternatives mixing Kijiji and Subito (i am from italy) with Etsy and soon will try one of the ones above.
But yeah Ebay its become truly awful for small sellers.
Yes, we went through the same thing with Ebay as have countless other sellers. People have been complaining about Ebay for years and their unfair practices toward the sellers. We like many others have ventured off to find new selling avenues and have tried a couple. You have to be very careful with some of those as well as they have adopted many of Ebay’s unscrupulous tactics. We tried selling on Bonanza and noticed that while it seemed like a good idea based on your ability to list freely, it did not turn out as well. Bonanza’s free platform basically gets you no traffic unless you have all the UPC codes for all the items you sell. If so, Google will pick your products up through indexing. So people searching for your specific product might find you. Bonanza’s main goal is to get you to pay for all the little advertising options such as the premium subscription. If you pay for that at $70 per month, they will feed your products to Google and Ebay. Then they have a Turbotraffic option whereas if you pay them $24.95, they will send you a huge amount of traffic. If you items sell using these options, they get 1.5% for pushing to Ebay for you and based on how many clicks your item gets via Google, they charge you a pay per click fee of either 13% or more depending on the advertising package you pick. They also favor the buyer and get alot of scammers. I paid for the subscriptions and all forms of their advertisement and received 6 sales in 4 days. Two of the buyers was clearly a scammers as Paypal would not honor seller protection because the addresses did not match. I did a google search on both addresses and one satellite view showed it was an abandoned home. I refused the sale and refunded the payment via Paypal immediately, contacted Bonanza (email only, no person to speak with) and asked for a refund on the FVF, which you have to do even though the transaction shows as refunded via Paypal. The buyers knew they were caught and never contacted me to find out why I refunded them, they just up and high tailed it out of site. Bonanza was upset because they had to refund me the FVF and advertisement fee. A day later, I began getting all these emails from a Bonanza robot Otto for offers and then immediately the robot cancelled the offers. Right after that, Bonanza stated that they were suspending my account for not sending my products to scammers thus making me a high risk seller. I tried calling to speak with them and never received a call back, only a canned pre-written email of typical response that is used for everyone. They never even looked at the other 4 orders that were processed, shipped and received by the other people who purchased from me. Also, I made too much noise complaining to them about their bulk loader and how once you load bulk, they deactivate your account for 24 hours while they review your products. However, their deactivations would last for 48 hours and I would have to email them and prompt them to review and activate. Between being the person that used caution in making sure I wasn’t scammed and complaining about their broken system, they as mentioned suspended my account. Keep in mind that this was after I spent over $300 in a 4 day period purchasing their advertising packages. The sales I did receive did not cover the cost I paid in advertising and the subscription that was to last for 30 days was not fulfilled due to their suspension. In addition, the Bonanza completely locked me out of the account to where I could not see any of my historical correspondence, money paid, or sales received.When I requested at the very least a refund on the subscription based on me only being on there for 4 days, they sent me another canned response and dismissed me. I immediately contacted my bank and disputed not only the subscription charge but the advertising I paid as well. My bank awarded me all the fees and advertising I requested. While talking to my bank, we also noticed that when they charged me, the charges were not electronic, but they were manually keying in my credit card number to process the payment as if they were using Square or something. The manual charges, the complaints, and the fact that they overcharged me before I ever had a problem with them is what led my bank to agree to refund all my fees paid to them. Had Bonanza just working with me and refunded the subscription when asked, I would have only gotten the $70 back instead of the almost $300 the bank refunded me back. After all of this happened, I started reading reviews regarding Bonanza only to find out that they had done this so many times to so many sellers.It also seemed as if they were trying to become like Ebay and simply forget about the seller. My message here is do your due diligence first. Ioffer is another I wanted to try out but after reading so many BBB complaints and Consumer Review complaints, it did not look so good. I must say however that Ioffer does lean more to the side of the Seller. However, all of these are almost the same, you have bad buyers and sellers on every platform and just need to exercise caution
My wife and I have started an auction website. That said it doesn’t have a ga-zillion members because we are new! In reading some of the comments on here a few have stated that some of the other sites they have tried don’t have the traffic that Ebay has, why would they they are either new (like us) many don’t really want to start over with an unknown site (that’s understanable) they want a site that has a couple of million views a day to move product and (I get that). Seems to me if you want to get away from Ebay or where ever you are you might consider a newer site, give it your support and help to mold it into something that is BETTER THAN EBAY. jmo.
We are just putting the word out about our site at this time and we arn’t charging any fees of any kind, NO sign up fees, NO listing fees, NO end of sale fee, if you sell your stuff (we don’t get any of your money), right now all expense’s for running the site keeping it on the air comes out of our pockets we just want sellers to at least check us out give it a try and if they like it to tell others so that it will grow into something GREAT something like what Ebay use to be at its beginings. It’s my wife and I that run the thing NOT greedy, uncaring CEO’s.
One thing that we do to help our sellers promote their goods is we take their “New Listings” and put them on Pintersest for added exposure.
Anyway, just my 2 cents worth, we invite you to stop by http://www.777warehouse.com we appreciate your support!
17 REASONS WHY DELCAMPE, NOT EBAY
In my opinion, D is the BEST marketplace for those sellers who do not accept various stupid
and really idiotic restrictions as well as any pressure that we constantly get from eBay.
There are no ANY restrictions on D ( except porno, drugs etc. ).
– There is no any discrimination for non-US users like on eBay ( for instance, on eBay
foreign sellers can not get “Top rated seller” status if they use non-US postal carriers !
I can not get this status as I use usual Russian Post. Obviously idiots from eBay stuff
think that US postal carriers can operate from Russia and other countries ! ).
– D never opens unpaid item cases ITSELF without seller’s request ( like eBay does ).
– D never forbids some buyers to bid without seller’s restrictions ( like eBay does ).
– You can contact with ANY user DIRECTLY ( email addresses are not hidden ).
– You can charge buyer any payment fees ( PayPal, Skrill etc. fees ).
– Any methods of payment are allowed ( incl. forbidden on eBay Western Union etc. ).
– You can leave negative and neutral feedback ( rated from 0% to 75% ) to bad buyers.
– You can sell stamps and any other collectible materials originated from any country
including those that are restricted on eBay due to US embargo etc.
– Both auction and BiN listings are free.
– D seller’s comission is twice less than on eBay.
– To list a lot is at least twice faster than on eBay as there are no intermediate pages.
– There are no debility S&H system using on eBay – you can state shipping cost
in the separate S&H block and have no necessity to do this for every lot while listing.
– D is very conservative, they do not change the interface, options etc. during many years
( eBay makes stupid changes constantly ). Just recently D announced and warned all users
by email that they are planning to do some changes soon.
– Very simple and quick direct email contact with Support. They always reply very quicly and very friendly.
– Very easy, simple and quick form for lots redaction and altering.
– Lots can be listed from 3 to 28 days 99 times with automatic relisting ( w/out email notification ).
There are some downsides:
– You can not list your lot in more than one category ( but you easily can list it several times in diff. categories
if necessary ).
– Generally items on D sell worse than on eBay because D is a marketplace almost exclusively for collectors.
It’s not a flea market and not a market for Chinese etc. goods, therefore much less people visit it.
I think most sellers of collectible materials ( incl. sellers from US ) will go to D one day as it’s much
more easier to use and cheaper.
I know many sellers from US and Canada who had done this already.
Hi “Mon,”
I’m approving this comment, but it looks pretty promotional to me…
It’s best to state if you are affiliated with Delcampe if you really want to people to try the platform out.
Hello, I enjoyed your article on 27 serious alternatives to etsy. We are a marketplace that opened up September 2015. We have a similar selling style to etsy as we are offering handmade art, crafts & antiques to be sold on our site. We are similar in one aspect of it as we offer sellers a free store. We differ in a few ways though. We offer auctions, no listing fees, no member costs and low final sales percentages. We are growing slowly and I would appreciate if you are going to do any other articles or updats to this article to be included in future articles.
Thank you,
Craig Weiss
Artyah.com
I have created a niche site that includes with many other features includes marketplace where users can become vendors create their own store and sell products.I do not charge anything for this service.
My thinking being that dealing with people who are knowledgeable in this particular niche and not paying the fees associated with sites like eBay and amazon would create a much better experience for both buyer and seller.more of a community.
My problem as I see it is people that are selling or buying in this niche are already involved with one or more of the larger sites.I am having very little success attracting users to my site.
any advise or feedback would be appreciated
Thank you
justpanhead
Hi Justpanhead,
My advice… instead of building the site first and then trying to attract the necessary community of buyers and sellers, why not build the community first, then the site? Can you create a niche site that would attract the kinds of people who would buy and sell those items? It may be more work, but this concept has more chance of success these days.
Thank you for the feedback.
I have been working on building the community through my blog, forum,social media.
the Facebook page is steadily gaining popularity but creating users?
will have to keep working on it.
thanks again for the feedback
Thanks to all of you for the factual reviews and hours of research they have put in to inform those of us that have online stores. We too were just affected by ebay and are not able to sell after having to cancel transactions due to ebay relisting our already sold items. We are under review I guess – as I had called in three weeks earlier telling them of the issue and having to cancel order. We went from above seller rating to below in just three weeks and now canceled. I just signed up for 777warehouse and am looking forward to building a great relationship with them.
Hi,
I am an owner of a relatively new website called Artyah.com. We cater to Artists that want to sell their handmade goods and Antique sellers. We offer sellers unlimited free listings and a unique, classy gallery design. Easy to use format, auction or fixed store pricing. I am writing to ask if you can include us in your next feature or story about ebay alternatives. Thank you – Craig Weiss Artyah.com
A very new way to sell and buy used things is bidroop. It is currently still in Beta, but is approaching to provide a simplistic global auction house, where everybody can sell or buy everything to or from everybody.
It features automatic currency conversion, as well as an escrow service through stripe payments. Creating an Auction is free and takes only a few seconds, similar to creating a post on facebook or twitter. You can upload unlimited images and the auction stays online until it is successfully sold, or if you decide to delete it before. Bidroop charges a small fee when something gets “successfully sold”, meaning a buyer received his item, and the seller received his money.
We also offer an innovative Crowd-Income System, where users get money-rewarded for improving the platform / doing activities – this feature is still in private Beta tough.
Give it a try https://www.bidroop.com
I’d suggest a new entry for this list of alternatives to Ebay. Open Bazaar is now up and running and promises to be a revolutionary leap forward. It requires a dedicated app be downloaded, but hopefully they’ll eventually offer a web browser interface as well.
https://openbazaar.org/
Thank you for taking it up this article.
I’m not sure if you are familiar with http://www.rebelsmarket.com – it’s the largest counterculture marketplace with a great selection of fashion, home decor & artwork.
It would be a great alternative to e-bay.
I had so many issues with ebay being ripped off by them. No use in repeating them over and over. But Instead of complaining as most people do. Just Boycott sales. Not just one or two people Everyone. But of coarse no one ever sticks together. You can also bring your feedback with you by starting all your listings on other sites letting them know your screen name there on ebay and why you left ebay. They can check your feedback there and even answer questions. As you negociate to buy it elsewhere instead of paying ebay fees. You draw all your customers from ebay in and they know where to find you. Or just email them and let them know. Than you can sell for a fraction of the cost. Or even sell on craigslist in other states by offering to send C.O.D. Personally I never hated a company more than EBAY. And the ones I hate more are the sellers with there power seller license plates and coffee mugs who have never broken a rule in there life and answers to ebay as yes sir like they are King of All websites. ((( F Bay))) Should have a special day set aside to offer discounts to anyone who buys at your other auction sites even giving free items as a way to get them from buying from Ebay. Kinda like that direct TV offer. Giving 100 to refer people. I would pay 100 not to go to direct tv. lol. I advertise in my ads on ebay bad stuff about ebay. The few that I now place.. They do not read anything obviously. How can you respect a site that was ALLOWING people to sell flood water bottled from floods which killed 10’s of thousands of people like 5 years or so back. So many people died in that and the water was contaminated with everything imaginable. I reported each and everyone. I’m shocked they do not have countless lawsuits against them. I’m .Gone to get personalized FkThBay license plates if not sold out lol
Bay of Pigs I may wanna start my anti Ebay store like spencers, who’s primary sales items is all anti ebay items. Im shocked no one has yet lol
Like many others, after 16 years I am fed up with e-bay. It is not that they always take the buyers or sellers side, rather they simply have no interest in finding truth, trying to be fair or just, maintaining good business relations with their sellers or producing satisfied customers – they just are pure money hungry for today without regard to how today’s money grab may hurt them tomorrow.
Over 15 years e-bay has raised fees so many ways that destroyed the sellers ability to profit. Additional costs for the sellers have been implemented through sneaky policy changes. Some of these are:
The addition of e-bay and PayPal fees to shipping charges
A return policy that strongly favors buyers who can stick the seller with additional shipping charges based upon unvetted claims
The inability to issue partial refunds through e-bay which allows e-bay to charge fees based upon the full price before the partial refund
Charges for cancelling sales even after the faulty e-bay program relists already sold items which must be cancelled after the resale
Costly but worthless insurances that exist only to find ways to avoid paying claims
Just a few examples of the decline of e-bay over the years which gave them a short term gain but is starting to catch up with them. Additionally, what I find the most disconcerting about e-bay is that they sock it to their honest, hard working though imperfect buyers and sellers — when they do get a true deceptive, dishonest con-artist buyer or seller — they do very little to hurt them and protect the honest ones. Over the years e-bay now has the reputation for being worthless for catching the rip-off artists, both buyers, and seller, who continue to prey on e-bay users while e-bay covers the cost of the dishonest ones by raising fees on the honest but imperfect customers.
Overall e-bay is a company in decline, a decline that was produced by greed, going for the short term gain instead of the long term gain, laziness, lousy service, disinterest in values and fair business practices. A one-time good business model has become to corrupted to be of no value for its customers.
I agree with the poster above who says that we all should stop buying on e-bay. I have decided to do just that.
No other auction site comes close to ebay I think.
With all the people that comment about the problems with ebay, I find it hard to believe there is even one seller on the entire ebay site that has not experienced a situation where a buyer tried to scam their way to a free product, ebay unjustly removed listings or restricted their account, forced a return or refund because a buyer said the item was not as described, got an unfair negative feedback that ebay wouldn’t remove, restricted visibility from low DSR’s, or any number of other problems. Anyone that comments how wonderful ebay is, is most likely not a seller, a part-time, a few sales a month seller, or a brand new seller. Anyone that does reasonable volume and has been doing it for a while knows what goes on and wouldn’t comment how great ebay is.
True, ebay is one of the largest marketplaces and they have traffic, tons of traffic. In fact, they have so much traffic, they limit the views your listing gets. Yep, they know and plan how much sales and traffic you will get. Do you think they really care about the small seller that has 100 items listed and sells 20 items a month? Of course not. They care about the Chinese sellers with 10,000+ items listed and sell 500+ items per day. They will eventually squeeze the small sellers out.
ebay is trash I would not recommend it at all they make money on sellers but protects buyers who found a way how to scam sellers. One day one seller her name is Lisa Alfonso said that she wants to buy from me 3 bracelets I was super happy I sold them. During a week eBay deleted my items that I violated eBay policies because people complain but she was doing that , and they suspended my account. Lisa Alfonso the big criminal ever asked for a return because all 3 items are fake I accepted sent her a shipping label, and she did not return all my three bracelets value of 450$ but opened a case against me and EBay closed the case in her favor give her my money from PayPal and I have never received the bracelets back.I was crying a lot because I lost my items and money by contracting eBay they said we ca not help you because you are suspended and you are not a eBay member , another situation a buyer asked for a return after 4 weeks and she sent the item on wrong address I have never received it she opened a case eBay refunded her money again no money no item, when I contacted eBay I SAId first of all give me the associate number and name the person who closed this case in buyer favor because I have proof I have not received the item I was ver very angry they got scared and return me the money. Nooooo eBay it is trash
Great article. THANK YOU.
Delcampe International: We should hear more about this European based site which is one of the largest in the world for antiques and collectibles. Yesterday I checked Delcampe’s inventory and they had over 44 MILLION postcards for sale—yes 44 MILLION and over 1.5 MILLION old photos for sale. They have been in business since 2000. You’ll have to learn about the values of the Euro and, although you can easily access the English version of the site, many of the listings are in French. I believe that they are based in Luxembourg. The nearby United Kingdom alone is the world’s second largest online marketplace. If you sell small items like stamps, some ephemera, postcards, jewelry and photos international postage shipping should not cost much. Seller fees are very reasonable.
Heres a free site that just like craigslist but goes worldwide http://www.ebayclassifieds.com… and this one too http://www.adhuntr.com/ and http://www.discoverstuff.com/ and https://claz.org/
http://www.theluxbay.com is the new classifieds site for bargains in Luxembourg, France, Belgium, and Germany. Quickly find the ads that work for you and simply contact the seller by email or phone.
I was surprised that I didn’t see GunBroker on the list. Though specific to the sale of firearms and firearm accessories, it is a legtimate and inexpensive alternative to ebay, especially for the sale of firearm accessories.
We have just discovered an online vintage marketplace (www.retruly.com). There are no listing fees and they offer a great product import service so can get your ebay or easy products imported really quickly.
We added lots of our products and got a sale within a couple of days
itshandicraft.com is a good addition to the list. Nice place to buy and sell handicraft products. Try it out.
Ebay’s customer service is non existent.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen
Dum Spiro Spero (dot world) – dot com is sooo yesterday, lol, – is a brand new metaphysical marketplace website. We are l@@king for people like you who are brave enough to start listing their esoteric, new age, metaphysical services and physical goods and or downloadable items while the site is in it’s infancy.
We can’t make Dum Spiro Spero (which means “while I breathe I hope”) work without YOU the seller.
We pledge to always treat YOU the seller with the kindness and courtesy that you so utterly deserve – as let’s face it no e-commerce marketplace site can succeed without YOU the seller !!!
Any way don’t be shy give us a try https://dumspirospero.world/about/
And a BIG THANK YOU to Growing Your Biz for generously allowing us, a small start up, this opportunity to plug our new venture !
Peace and positive vibes from the Dum Spiro Spero team
Looking to sell online? With ready integrations to global marketplaces, front-ends, and leading last-mile fulfillment companies, Vra Infotech Pvt Ltd http://www.vraitpl.com helps you sell across marketplaces, manage orders across multiple channels & fulfill with ease.
I recommend checking out https://www.bidroop.com – It is a next-generation online platform with a Stripe-powered escrow-system. So it is absolutely secure for buyers and sellers – sneaky persons/betrayers got no chance from the first hand.
Besides of selling, bidding, buying and asking questions, with global currency conversion and automatic language detection, users are also able to build a passive income source with bidroop.
This is possible by an innovative “Crowd-Income” System, where users are able to earn money in active and passive ways from the weekly Crowd-Income-Money-Pot. Every successfully sold auction, adds 4% of the selling price (accepted bid) to the Crowd-Income-Money-Pot.
By completing activities: Selling / helping to sell, Recruiting People into one’s personal Troop-Network / or help your friends to get more people in their networks, and contributing to the Product-Encyclopedia.
The Crowd-Income System is currently in Private-Beta (V4/2017). If you want to give it a try, and profit in the long-term, let me know – I can generate a invite code for you (only once at a time for now).
Not sure if I can post this here, but, if not, you can go ahead and remove it.
I have a new FREE auction site that is similar to E-bay, except that, you don’t pay anything unless your items sells(fixed 1.2% no matter how much you sold your item for), and upgrades(extra category, bold, homepage feature, and those are far less than E-bay if you compare), and FREE store for up to 250,000 items. We also, recently installed the new feature, where you can directly import your E-bay listing by a click of the mouse(though it’s in version 1, and update is coming). It just celebrated the first birthday on December, though we don’t have many members yet, with just over 1,200 items, but if anyone’s interested, please join us. url is: http://net-steals.com
Thank You.
I am using TrueGether – http://www.truegether.com – with some success. It is a free marketplace and probably the only one. I suggest giving it a shot.
Start selling where millions of customers are shopping every day For Free!
NO LISTING FEE. NO TRANSACTION FEE.
FOR THE FIRST 500 SELLERS
https://platzo.com
Hi Susan,
Great post and even more interesting comments.
I have been selling on eBay for 8 months. I’m based in the UK and do this full time. I’m at about 5000 dollars in revenue a month now. I sell toys and apparel.
I recently started getting nervous so looked into etsy, tophatter( not on your list but worth a try) and bonanza. Etsy had the best interface and I made 9 sales within 2 weeks. Top hatter has an interesting concept but is a bit buggy and not easily suited to a UK seller. However I made 4 sales there, and its better to put your slow or excess stock there as it’s mainly an auction site. Bonanza is not producing any sales and I agree with an earlier comment that it seems very advertising-centric. I don’t believe in forking out loads for advertising especially as there are other ways(seo title description and photos), I always advertise or promote new listings on all platforms but put the lowest tier or percentage so I don’t lose much on a no sale. Fortunately on eBay u pay wen u sell, but be careful with this as you do still need an in demand or good product(many forget this)
I do think a lot of complaints here are justified, but would caution everyone to always be prepared to adapt to new changes. Every policy change is a new challenge but perhaps also a new opportunity. Another commenter emphasised research. I cannot stress enough how this is key to my current successes. I try to find out what is popular or still growing in popularity and then source it from China at the best possible price. I then do my utmost to create titles and descriptions with relevant keywords and eye catching photos.
Anyways I think from going through every comment here I will look at Ebid, Webstore, delcampe, and Kijiji. As I know this eBay upward curve may not last and am trying to get ahead of any drastic downturns in the future. I will also look at my own Webstore and Amazon when I start private labeling(coming up with a unique branding and product idea is a little higher risk and takes time for the less imaginative among us)
Just my 2 pennies worth
I love number 21. I like liquidation
Businesses have many reasons to release furniture. In fact, liquidation is one of the best things you can do if you want to replace furniture at any company in Danang. When your furniture is put on sale, you know that your old furniture is turning into money for reinvestment … Imagine you can completely revise your office with a fraction of the cost. It is very practical, from the liquidation of the old.
Okay all sellers here complaining. How about ripped off buyers.
I ordered an item. Some how the seller got two orders for me on the item. I did not need the second order. Contacted seller asap before a chance to ship. Seller promised to fix but sent me second order anyway. Now expects me to pay to send back. That was not feesable because shipping back would cost more than the refund I would get.
Not sure why seller did not simply cancel order after I was told they would fix. I guess because they knew the item was hard to sell and they found a sucker. Now I am stuck with something I do not need and likely never able to resell without a lot of hassle not being a regular seller, I proceeded to leave a negative feedback, first one ever.
Now seller starts harrassing me because of the feedback. Finally I told them to leave me alone which did not stop. My final communication with them was when they told me ebay removed my feedback which did really happen. When I called ebay they reviewed all of the emails, the ebay rep said the feedback should never have been removed because the seller was wrong. However there was nothing they could do to reverse the removal.
I
So as a seller who always gives positive reviews you can understand that when I found that a seller can have my review erased like it never happened I was shocked. So now as a buyer I do not trust any reviews and never buy from people that have many thousands of sales and are top rated because I don’t trust that nevative reviews have not been removed.
I only buy from people who have sold a very few items unless it is very cheap stuff under $5.
A great site for fashion/accessories for men/women/children items is Poshmark. Haven’t seen it mentioned here but I didn’t read every post. I’ve been an online seller since 2003 and quit eBay several years ago for all the reasons mentioned here. I have sold on several sites mentioned, most notably eCrater and Bonanza. I have lackluster sales on both sites and usually only sell a few items a month. During my first two months selling on Poshmark, I have had 130 transactions and expect that to continue to increase each month. Poshmark should definitely be reviewed and sellers of fashion goods really need to give them a good look. I’ve been very, very pleased with them and haven’t had one bad experience. It’s a great community of buyers & sellers.
Hi,
Thank you for having this site.
We are an online marketplace for sellers of handmade, antiques, vintage and craft supplies.
We do not allow outside manufacturers, illicit material or any copyright infringed items.
We came from etsy, ebay and decided that we needed to do something about the high fees and costs of doing business.
We are a family oriented, family friendly site.
Thank you,
Craig Weiss
CEO Artyah.com
My experience with ebay started 2 months ago.I sell stickers on there, very low cost items but they started selling like hotcakes for about a month and a half. then I got suspended on one of my channels for risky behaviour. I contacted them and did get my account restored, but my sales started falling off. Then I got a bad review from a guy who ripped one of my stickers trying to put it on and blamed me for it.
Then my sales just about died,,,,,on all my channels. It’s been 2 months and I am done with them already. That didn’t take long! Ebay is like a bunch of nazis controlling you with a bunch of social justice type millinials waiting to mess with you any chance they get.I am moving over to Bonanza. I am also going to start driving traffic to my own site and bonanza with social media and do some craft markets ect.
I just don’t want to build a business on ebay when it is so neurotic. I don’t see ebay as a long term part of my business. I could build a nice big business on there and have it destroyed by some idiot in seconds. I have seen hundreds of stories about sellers on there for 10 years plus and have some little nazi decide they violated one of their little rules. I think I’ll spare myself the pain and build something more reliable.
95% of these sites you listed SUCK and are NOT viable alternatives to ebay. You can claim they are, but most of them get NO TRAFFIC and NO SALES. Very, very few of the sites you have on this list get you any sales at all.
Hi Fred,
As I mentioned in the article, most of these platforms are niche sites, and the key to making sales (whether on ebay or any of its alternatives, social media, your own website, or any other platform) is to really understand your customers and give them the products they want.
Pretty sure the article is “25 Alternatives to eBay” not “guaranteed income for people unwilling to put in the work.”
The website’s listed vary in relativity for each person. I myself have no use for newegg because I sell luxury clothing. However I am also chalked full of this secret ingredient I like to call common sense, so I know what is applicable to my niche, and I take what I can use from the article.
As far as no traffic….. Do you even SEO bro? All it takes is keying in a few relative words on any search engine to get the same websites again and again and again. Such as resell, vintage, fashion, sell my clothes, cheap luxury brands, consignment, etc. will bring up Poshmark, swap, eBay, tradsey, threadup, vinted and the real real. So if everyone who googles how to buy/sell preowned clothing gets the same combination of site results, logic tells us that those sites are going to get visited more than let’s say topshop, Linda’s stuff, nastygal, and materialwrld, even though they are giants in their own circles, the average web surfer has less of a chance to be directed to one of them vs the previous list.
As for sales, well I gotta speak up and disagree with you again champ. I sell via poshmark , the real real, swap, thredup, vinted and eBay. I quit my full time corporate job as an executive manager over the sales department at a very well known AC company in 2014 when my then hobby netted me more in 5mo. then I would have made all year at my desk job. It’s now 3 years later and I have provided my family with a very comfortable lifestyle that I may have eventually reached behind a desk, but not this young and I certainly wouldn’t be having this much fun. Plus I have been able to be a full time mom and that is more valuable than any monetary equity.
So as what you might call an expert in the field I gotta say that this list is not that bad, and it covers a very wide range of categories. I do feel like mercari , vinted, and offerup, should have been there, but its still a good list.
As laughable as this may sound, ArtYah.com is the current go to “new” marketplace for the dedicated sellers that were once so faithful
to Etsy that nothing could shake their confidence and take them away from their once beloved “handmade” selling site.
We are a start-up of just two years young… Born 2015, on the internet for the same reasons that Etsy started back in 2005. People needed a
place that they could call their own. Now Etsy is riddled with manufacturing goods, copyright infringed and illicit materials that I would not
want my niece to view at the age of 13.
ArtYah .com is taking on about 1000 of Etsy’s finest sellers every week. We are welcoming them in as we are the marketplace that is all the rage
in the Etsy forums. We are the talk of the town, the “new kid’s on the block.” We are welcoming in all of the disenchanted Etsians that were the Etsy
bread and butter. We are a marketplace that will not tolerate any manufactured goods, copyright or illicit materials to be allowed on or in our site.
ArtYah.com is handmade, antiques, vintage and craft suppliers
Thank you,
Craig Weiss
CEO ArtYah.com
530-492-3140
I would have tried artyah today, but your terms of service SUCK;
“You acknowledge and agree that if you contribute, provide or make available any Content to this Web site (“Your Content”), whether as a Seller, Buyer or otherwise, you hereby grant to ArtYah a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub licensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise the copyright, publicity, and database rights (but no other rights) you have in the Content, in any media now known or not currently known, with respect to your Content. You agree to allow ArtYah to store, translate, or re-format your Content on ArtYah and display your Content on ArtYah in any way ArtYah chooses without compensation to you or any other provider of Your Content.”
Sorry, but my photos and content are copyrighted to me, I don’t grand world-wide perpetual, IRREVOCABLE , royalty-free license to re-use MY photos for your profit and promotions!
We welcome all sellers to try out the Happeno Marketplace! Completely new and we just launched it! You as a seller only pay 3% in fee per sale. No hidden fees. Create your store on https://www.happeno.com/
Another good way to sell your stuff online is with an application called ADYOYO. I would highly recommend everyone the check out this amazing application it’s very easy to use, and fast to sell. On top of this it uses Video instead of photos to help you sell your product. It makes it easier on you since you’ll be answering less questions from customers about the quality and exact use of your product since you can demonstrate both of those.
ive sold a lot of stuff on gumtree.com with no problem, smyler.co.uk is a good new one aswell.
Craigslist seems to be a complete waste of time for selling on, it’s full of bots and scammers.
I browsed Bonanza and was shocked. The prices are ridiculously high. For example a $50 pair of sneakers was being sold for $126. NO THANKS. I’m still looking for a good alternative to Ebay but Bonanza is not it.
I started using Glacier Bid. They have auction and buy it now formats. Very simple and straight forward. If you are a seller you don’t have to worry about your store getting closed over something trivial from a buyer complaining. Which is nice. The balance between buyer and seller is great. Check them out. Unlimited listings for sellers and no listing fees.
I would just like to add this if it’s ok with you Susan, My name is Robert Corriveau CEO of a new auction platform working with Cryptocurrency. I am looking for sellers so that we can get products on the site. I would like to offer your readers a special offer, if you have products to list then I will make it free to list for life. You will pay nothing, no listing fees, no cover cast, no commission payment 100% free and you keep 100% of the sale. If I am able to call you directly talk to the new seller and verify them then I will also make them a VIP seller on the site as well. If you are interested please contact me at robert@cryptodipity.com. Our website is http://www.cryptodipity.com
Thank you Susan and great post!
FYI Tradesy hiked its seller fees a few months ago, to ~14% (from 9%) of sales price,a nearly 56% fee increase!
This is a great list. I believe Etsy will overtake Ebay soon become the 2nd largest marketplace behind Amazon.
Etsy’s user agreement condensed to the important part;
“C. Rights You Grant Etsy. By posting Your Content, you grant Etsy a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sub-licensable, perpetual license to use, display, edit, modify, reproduce, distribute, store, and prepare derivative works of Your Content. ”
There’s that key sentence again;
“a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, sub-licensable, perpetual license”
The biggest key word there is “sub-licensable” which means you grant them forever, free ability to resell your content for profit to outfits like WorthPoint, you get nothing.
Balotrade is best online b2b marketplace alternative to sell and buy any type of products and services from any country another good part of it its free forever give it a try now https://www.balotrade.com
I am looking for alternate svc to buy from because my state has strong-armed both eBay & Amazon to collect state sales tax.
you can try druzza.com
eBay is dead. Its been a torturous process but with all the time, dedication nd professionalism I’ve socked into my store, I have to face the facts. I think ppl are just bored with shopping Online and shitBay allows the sellers to be abused…not a good prospect for success. shitsy is worse, though- like shitzon, who all the sudden charging me such high fees I was actually paying THEM to even have a listing. Now I try consignment/clothing exchanges, yard sales and shofify analogues. eBay has definitely imploded over the past year and its a waste of my very dignity. I’M done.
TrueGether is a no-fee marketplace with features and functionality similar to eBay that makes it a much better and cheaper alternative for selling products. TrueGether supports online as well as international transactions. It is user-friendly and busy marketplace to navigate around. The protection and trust of buyers and sellers are made a priority and listing items and selling is absolutely free.