eBay Alternatives?

[OilNerd]

I'm kind of fed-up with eBay, for a while now, really. Endless policy changes, high eBay and PayPal fees, tiered treatment of sellers, and now the last straw: Final-Value Fees (FVF) on shipping. I understand that eBay is doing it to stop FVF evasion -- people who list a $25 item as $0.99 and charge $29.99 in "shipping" -- but I kind of expected a serious drop in FVF, to compensate. (Naïve, yeah, I already know.) Who knows what bombshell will come next?

I'd like an eBay alternative, but so far haven't found one. I don't consider Craigslist to be a true alternative, or at least, not in the same class as eBay because of spammers, dealing with yahoos / time-wasters, [my small] local market exposure, and CL-imposed limitations.

I don't sell on eBay for a living, or anything like that, but it used to be that I could clear stuff out of the house, list it, and make a few bucks in the process. Stuff I thought nobody would buy, sold -- sometimes surprisingly quickly, and at a decent price. But between eBay and PayPal, I'm looking at roughly a 15% cut for both, now assessed on the sale and shipping, which seems a little steep, at least to me, anyway. That leaves me with a choice of eating some, or all, of the fees, or inflating the sale price by 15% and reducing my chance of sale. The eBay fee structure has become so ever changing and arcane, I have to estimate the fees beforehand, with an online eBay fee-calculator to see if listing something is even going to be worth the effort.

Are there any other BITOG'ers in the same boat? You guys having any luck with an alternative, other than CL?

I'm really looking for personal experiences, here -- good or bad. (I've already googled "eBay Alternatives", but that doesn't really give you the inside scoop.)

Some things I'm looking for:

* A decent national market exposure
* Nothing item-class specific (ie: only for art, memorabilia, etc.)
* Easy listing process, preferably HTML friendly
* Low and understandable fees, preferably back-ended
* No membership fees required for listing (unless insignificant in the overall value proposition)
* No delays or messing about with payments due to me
* Little-guy friendly (like eBay used to be in the early days)

Am I asking for the impossible?

 

[Turk]

Yea, I'm mildly in the same boat, so the answers will be interesting...

 

[barlowc]

Yeah, the fees have gotten pretty outrageous over time. I recently sold a set of golf clubs for $250 with free shipping. eBay fees were $18. PayPal fees were $755. And it cost me $13.45 to ship. The total fees of $39 equate to about 15% of the sale.

But it's basic supply and demand. There's plenty of demand for their services, but there's really no one else that can provide a supply. So they can raise the fees incrementally and thus raise their profits.

 

[oggb]

Amazon Marketplace
USFreeAds

That's about it.

 

[Bluestream]

Try quibuds

http://www.quibids.com/landing/index.php?c=ca&mb=gs&lp=50&sub=

or Craigslist

 

[PandaBear]

I'd say amazon market place for general items and half.com (own by ebay) for books, dvd, games, etc.

ebay is a monopoly, unfortunately.

 

[OilNerd]

Thanks for all the replies.

A friend just dropped by. I'll be back later.

 

[OilNerd]

OK, I'm back.

I looked into the suggestions so far.

Craigslist:

I've done Craigslist, but my experience has been mixed. Spammers and time-wasters are my biggest complaint. Buyers act as if everything is a scam.

It's also geared toward selling in your local area. Great if you live in a city, not so great in a small town, where I live. Niche items seem to just sit there posted and don't move. I tried to add a hit counter one time, just to see if anyone was even looking at my listing, only to have CL block my posting (they consider hit counters to be data-mining and against their TOS). Their support is little to non-existent, IMO. (Oh well, at least they're free)

If I'm going to deal directly with people buying stuff from me, I'd like the window to be short, so fielding calls and emails is done all at once and ends. Their limitations on multiple posting make selling a number of varied items difficult, unless you lump them all into one ad. Not good for when you're selling several things at once, IMO.

EDIT: I'd gladly pay for more service on CL, but the site operators don't seem to be concerned with making money.

Amazon Marketplace:

I had a quick look at Amazon Marketplace, but it looks centered around their database of items. Also, their fees make eBay's look simple and are mostly on par with eBay, as far as cost -- Amazon Marketplace Fees (you may need to log into Amazon for the link to work). I don't have anything to back this up, but it doesn't look geared to casual sales -- that's just an initial impression.

The 14 calendar day hold for "new sellers" followed by a 5 business day disbursement period doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies. I'm hoping that this is a one-time thing, but they don't define how long they consider you "new".

Has anyone actually sold stuff with AM? What if what you want to sell isn't in their database?

Quibids:

This site is an alternative for buyers only. They don't accept listings from users.

USfreeads

Didn't really research much into this one, yet. I'm looking for more of a full-service deal, to replace eBay selling experience, basically like selling on eBay, but without eBay.

Originally Posted By: barlowc
... But it's basic supply and demand. There's plenty of demand for their services, but there's really no one else that can provide a supply. So they can raise the fees incrementally and thus raise their profits.


They [eBay] have a great web site, a detailed category structure, a payment platform, and a good search engine. Nothing about this seems like magic to me. Doesn't seem like rocket science, so why isn't someone out there with access to funding competing with them and cleaning their clock? Plenty of disgruntled buyers and sellers to captialize upon. Sure advertising is expensive, but there are a lot of smart, well-funded people out there that could pull it off, or one would think.

Originally Posted By: PandaBear
... ebay is a monopoly, unfortunately.


Yeah, it's certainly looking that way.

Has anyone cracked this nut?

 

[Silk]

We don't use eBay in New Zealand,by far the biggest auction site is TradeMe,practically nothing else is used.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/

 

[OilNerd]

Originally Posted By: Silk
We don't use eBay in New Zealand,by far the biggest auction site is TradeMe,practically nothing else is used.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/


Lucky [imagination time]!

Nice site. Basically that's what I'm looking for here (USA), but eBay seems to be the only game in town.