This Week's Ebay Rant

[TexRiv_63]

I'm usually the one that defends Ebay in the all-too-common rant posts on here but this time I'm on the other side. Look at this:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-Maxwell-Hub-Circa-1920s/281168676024?_trksid=p2045573.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D17369%26meid%3D1502425650392179864%26pid%3D100033%26prg%3D8089%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D2%26sd%3D310753875404%26

If anyone can't pull up the link, it's for a dented, distorted 1920s Maxwell threaded aluminum hubcap with a buy-it now price of $1,329.00!!!

A little background - in addition to spending way too much time and money on cars my whole life I also do the same thing with collectible Automobilia. I specialize in Radiator emblems, threaded hubcaps, and ID plates and have decent "keeper" collections of each along with quite a few duplicates and extras. Since I retired my wife and I have started an Ebay business and my specialty is Automobilia. One thing I've learned is that while all this stuff is cool, most of it is not really all that rare. Items listed using the auction format and a low starting price sell pretty well but there is a ton of junk like the item above listed with ridiculous fixed prices that clog up the search engines and just waste people's time.

These items sit there for months (or years!) continually relisted, with no chance of anyone ever buying them. Like the overpriced cars we see rusting away in some guy's back yard they are being hoarded and kept out of the hands of someone who might actually use them. EBay's policies favoring the large sellers have created this problem by discounting or eliminating insertion fees and encouraging bulk fixed price listings over auction style.

OK, I feel better now, back to my weekly search...

[Guest hearseguy27]

The problem is Ebay gives out so many free listings that it has caused a lot of people to list items with crazy prices because they have nothing to lose. There is a pair of Peerless threaded hub caps that I would really like but the BIN price is not even in the ball park of what they go for. If they charges for every listing I think it would help.

[Guest bofusmosby]

I've also noticed a lot of outragious prices being posted on the Craig's list listings. Please for give my aditude, but these people are complete idiots! They have no idea as to what they have, nor its true value. I saw where one person was selling an "original" oil painting for $500. I got in line, and did just a little research, and found that the "original" was in a museum up north. I sent the person an email with a link to my info, about his being a copy or fake, and about which museum the original was actually located. Did this make any difference? Nope! This same listing continued to be added back every few days or so for over a month.

[Harold]

I believe eBay has essentially eliminated listing fees (using 'special promotions' as a smoke screen) because they realize sales are way down, and sellers would abandon them in a heartbeat if they had to pay for listings that don't move. For example, a friend who sells primarily hubcaps and wheels recently listed nearly 100 items and only one sold.

[MCHinson]

Looking at his other items makes me suspect he simply was using a phone to list this item and made a typo in the price and did not realize it. Some of his other items appear fairly priced, some seem a little bit higher than I think they are worth, but only this item and maybe one or two others appear to be listed at what I consider crazy prices. I always use a computer instead of a phone when I am listing on Ebay, and even then I make sure to preview the listing and double check everything when I am listing on Ebay.

[ted sweet]

simple, don't buy it, or stay off ebay.

[joe_padavano]

^^^^This!

Life is too short to worry about what other people do.

[Guest Skyking]

Television is no help to this problem........... I was at a cruise the other night with my '54 Metropolitan and on the way out a guy stopped me and went crazy when he seen the hood scoop. He told me it was worth over $2000.00. Of course he saw this on Grease Monkey or some other worthless show. I almost got into an argument with him because he believed the nonsense.

[39BuickEight]

simple, don't buy it, or stay off ebay.

That's the way I look at it.

If it was a one of a kind of something that I absolutely needed to finish a project (though I'm not sure what that would even be) then I might reach out to someone like that. I have other things to worry about though.

I love eBay and CL. Those listings are just part of the deal.

[Scooter Guy]

I like eBay, use it A LOT, and have more-or-less jumped to their defense each time an eBay thread comes up in which some sort of complaint is being expressed.

There are people looking to actually make sales on eBay that start with reasonable prices and let the auction run it's course and then there are people that seem to have some kind of burning desire to put stuff up for sale with "I don't want to sell it" prices (or you might say a "make me sell it price"). The folks that WANT to sell and set up their listings accordingly generally do pretty well and get their stuff sold for more-or-less what the market will bear. The others set some pie-in-the-sky price and sit on their item month after month after month. I suppose you could look at it as asking price vs. selling price and that those with those crazy asking prices rarely sell anything at the stated price. Every once in a great while a buyer comes along that is either uninformed or simply doesn't care about the price and buys one of those things...hard to believe but it does happen. Those kind of sellers really aren't competition, they should just be making your listings look more attractive.

The "I don't want to sell it" folks USED to be able to just about get a free ride out of eBay by listing the item too high and having it not sell. Ebay used to allow free re-listing of unsold items with no limit. Now they only let you do it once and there are other restrictions in place making it a lot less appealing to deliberately try to do that. It also used to be A LOT easier to get in touch with sellers directly and do transactions outside of eBay, another area eBay is trying to crack down on by restricting access to certain information. Still, a lot of this type of seller is trying to pull off just that, you've just got to read between the lines.

There are a lot of (I think) really uninformed buyers on eBay, too. In my case, I generally keep to scooter/motorcycle stuff. It's funny to sit back and watch prices get run up through the roof on beat to h**l parts when GOOD used or NOS parts are available for less money...they just might not be on eBay.

But life's too short to worry about what other eBay buyers and sellers are doing with their money.

[Guest prs519]

I do not mind a single item being listed at an out of line price -- folks is folks. The search cloggers are several pages of the same mass-produced items with slightly varying application. They do not even use different photos, saying, "Picture may not represent actual item". I think anybody who doesn't have somewhat of a love-hate relationship with ebay has been lucky, or just hasn't had their circumstance, yet. I could write a book about stuff (and have, before I realized how futile it is to negotiate with them). I am still glad they are there, though. I am also pleased that Henry Ford made the model T 09-27, before Ebay came along. Ebay would have prohibited such spamming (it used to be that way on Ebay, now they have compatibility pages that totally and inaccurately spam everything). I also do not care much for the way their clearinghouse (Paypal, which they own), is set up. I find it hard to believe they are within the law. But as someone mentions here, nobody forces me to engage their services (monopoly notwithstanding).

[1937hd45]

May be a typo, then again it may be a smart way to get us to look at all his other auctions. My eBay rant is fact that you don't get a clean slate from the auction you just listed. That book or magazine you offer with FREE shipping stays with the brick you list in the next auction. If you list late at night you sometimes overlook that, and get burnt on shipping.

[Buchans Bread]

It says $29 this morning.

[Guest prs519]

May be a typo, then again it may be a smart way to get us to look at all his other auctions. My eBay rant is fact that you don't get a clean slate from the auction you just listed. That book or magazine you offer with FREE shipping stays with the brick you list in the next auction. If you list late at night you sometimes overlook that, and get burnt on shipping.

I sure do concur with you on this one! Also, heaven help you if you determine for some reason that you need to change shipping service, etc. I personally think they have taken the babysitting of the sellers beyond the point of diminishing returns! Just my opinion. Seems always that those "bricks" default in every place to punish one, late at night!

[MCHinson]

It says $29 this morning.

As I suspected, a simple (but stupid) typo by the Ebay seller is responsible for this entire rant.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Vertigo (see edit history)

[Guest LAT1149]

One of the problems I have identified with eBay are sellers putting very high reserves on their cars, then when the listing is over, they have names and phone numbers and do the actual selling off eBay. This sticks in eBay's side although the seller still pays the sixty bucks listing fee and not the final value fee. PayPal is hopeless as well. Both companies make you agree to pay ridiculous sums if the buyer is not satisfied. We all know there are buyers you will never make happy.

[TexRiv_63]

As I suspected, a simple (but stupid) typo by the Ebay seller is responsible for this entire rant.

Not true. That was only one extreme example of a widespread problem that is definitely NOT due to typo's.

[MCHinson]

Don,

I have to take exception to your statement of "Not true". Your initial post seems to indicate that the initial rant was started due to that listing. The seller has edited his listing to show a price of $29. I share your frustration about a lot of stupid stuff on Ebay, but the listing that you initially wanted to rant about appears to have been a simple, but stupid, typo by the seller.

[Jim Bollman]

I found an item that was priced for over $300 recently (a hubcap I believe) that normally would sell around the $20-40 range, thinking it was odd I contacted the seller. I simply asked him why the high price since all the other items that were similar sell for much less. His reply was "THANK YOU! I would have never sold that item at that price, thanks for letting me know". The item later sold at a fair price.

Doesn't always work that way. I sent a note to a fellow trying to sell a well used early reprint of a manual for $75. I figured he didn't know they were still being reprinted for $19. Got a response back with "???? so"