MuirHillyBilly Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 It's Friday and it's time for a moan Ebay is undoubtedly a great tool for all manners of bargain hunting, rare finds and general model pleasure. I don't really have a problem with some of the prices as some are clearly worth a high price and those that are not won't sell or some crazy person will buy them. However there are a few big gripes I have; -Lack of pictures- I won't part easily with £20+ if there is just one pic of the item, particularly when it is clearly a 'stock photo'. I would like to see what the whole item looks like not just one side of it. Some guy was selling a County 1884 boxed for £179.99 with 1, badly focused and distant picture!!! Guess what? It didn't sell. -Lack of detail, similar to above, how long does it take to write a more thorough description 'Seed drill, good condition, a few chips' is poor -BuyItNow prices- Ok so it's your right to do this but be reasonable and understand that bidding auctions often get more than Buyitnow. There's several examples of sellers continually re-listing an item at exactly the same price over and over again hoping some idiot will buy it, get this it's overpriced!! If I see another Super 6 'Last off the line' at a crazy price I'll scream, one has been up at least 6 times now! -Stupid postage prices, self explanatory. Rant over, thanks for listening Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tractorbob Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 agree with that ,what the point of relisting, at the same price if it did not sell first/second round Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robbo Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 What annoys me about eBay at the moment > > Non payers who bid and win the auction and then don't pay or even get in contact! I can't even leave negative feedback to warn others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PDH Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 It's Friday and it's time for a moan Ebay is undoubtedly a great tool for all manners of bargain hunting, rare finds and general model pleasure. I don't really have a problem with some of the prices as some are clearly worth a high price and those that are not won't sell or some crazy person will buy them. However there are a few big gripes I have; -Lack of pictures- I won't part easily with £20+ if there is just one picture of the item, particularly when it is clearly a 'stock photo'. I would like to see what the whole item looks like not just one side of it. Some guy was selling a County 1884 boxed for £179.99 with 1, badly focused and distant picture!!! Guess what? It didn't sell. -Lack of detail, similar to above, how long does it take to write a more thorough description 'Seed drill, good condition, a few chips' is poor -BuyItNow prices- Ok so it's your right to do this but be reasonable and understand that bidding auctions often get more than Buyitnow. There's several examples of sellers continually re-listing an item at exactly the same price over and over again hoping some idiot will buy it, get this it's overpriced!! If I see another Super 6 'Last off the line' at a crazy price I'll scream, one has been up at least 6 times now! -Stupid postage prices, self explanatory. Rant over, thanks for listening You'd better get used to the postage prices, come April 4 all Royal Mail prices are increasing by at least 10% and for some weights as much as 15%. Postage on a model weighing 1 kilo will go up from £3-35 t0 £3-71 (11%) First Class, Second Class £2-84 to £3-15 (11% again) and that's before any packaging/time costs are factored in. If you are interested in an item why don't you email the seller. Adding photos to eBay auctions is not cheap, you get one free. I only ever put one up but if asked am happy to send as many as required via email to a potential buyer. Agree the photo you put on eBay must be clear. Totally concur about non-payers, I always leave a negative comment in their feedback, highlighted and capital letters to make my point. May not have much effect but make mes feel better!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MuirHillyBilly Posted February 25, 2011 Author Share Posted February 25, 2011 Good points guys, to clarify my comment on postage is not for the understandable cost of heavy or bulky items, I meant the examples where 3 or 4 sellers are selling the same item from the UK but with a huge difference in postage or indeed an item which we all know is very light but still has a £5+ postage cost. In addition regarding photos if it's a low-ish value item or quite simple (e.g Britains post driller or Howard muck spreader) then 1 or 2 photos is fine. However there are countless cases of very high value items £50-300+ that have one picture, even sometimes a stock photo. I was looking for MB Tracs for example by Weiss or Schuco and these are priced at £60+ but all you get is a stock photo?! = no sale. These are highly detailed models and also come in many versions, colours and editions so extra photos would be great in helping the buyer make a choice, extra photos are a matter of pence and I for one would not mind a couple of quid more on a listing if ti meant I can make an informed decision. I take PDH's point though if you can email a seller, however when doing this in the past half don't get back to you in a reasonable amount of time and sometimes I don't have time to email everyone when I'm on one of my spending sprees Also someone kindly pointed out that re-listing happens if a seller has many of the same item and to clarify that is not at all what bugs me, it is usually private sellers re-lisiting the same item over and over again often because their valuation is over the top, the 'Best offer' option would be a good idea in such cases?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PDH Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Good points guys, to clarify my comment on postage is not for the understandable cost of heavy or bulky items, I meant the examples where 3 or 4 sellers are selling the same item from the UK but with a huge difference in postage or indeed an item which we all know is very light but still has a £5+ postage cost. In addition regarding photos if it's a low-ish value item or quite simple (e.g Britains post driller or Howard muck spreader) then 1 or 2 photos is fine. However there are countless cases of very high value items £50-300+ that have one picture, even sometimes a stock photo. I was looking for MB Tracs for example by Weiss or Schuco and these are priced at £60+ but all you get is a stock photo?! = no sale. These are highly detailed models and also come in many versions, colours and editions so extra photos would be great in helping the buyer make a choice, extra photos are a matter of pence and I for one would not mind a couple of quid more on a listing if ti meant I can make an informed decision. I take PDH's point though if you can email a seller, however when doing this in the past half don't get back to you in a reasonable amount of time and sometimes I don't have time to email everyone when I'm on one of my spending sprees Also someone kindly pointed out that re-listing happens if a seller has many of the same item and to clarify that is not at all what bugs me, it is usually private sellers re-lisiting the same item over and over again often because their valuation is over the top, the 'Best offer' option would be a good idea in such cases?? Agree with all your points Lee but that's the way it is, not right but its all about minimising selling costs. I find taking the photo's for eBay an extremely time consuming process and time is money. If some provides a stock photo then I can see why they use them. If I want more detail on a particular model I generally Google and look at what ever is found, usually you get a selection of photos to look at. Many of the toy forums have some really detailed photos. With a dealer you never get the model in the photo!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaywilli7610 Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 I generally try to stear clear of ebay (although do sumcome to buy sometimes). On the whole I think ebay is a good development, but.... a few points stand out: [list type=decimal] [*]the general toy fairs have suffered greatly, both in number of visitors and available 'quality' items. [*]People tend to have better knowledge of 'everything', making it very hard to find a real bargain. [*]The serious collector has no choice but to use ebay as the 'very rare' or 'unusual' items go straight to ebay and not traditional auctions. all in all for pricing models and seeing unusual items ebay is great, however the thrill of attending traditional auctions, with experienced and very knowledgable auctioneers and the excitment of scanning the toy fairs for that special model we've dreamed about is unparalelled. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_scrivener Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Although some sellers who don't know what they've got ask for ridiculously high prices, they are balanced out by those who offer good items at a low starting price and a poor description (so they don't come up in the usual searches potential buyers would be expected to try), sometimes even in the 'wrong' section. There's still plenty of bargains to be had on Ebay, if you have the time and patience to look for them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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