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Is eBay the Promised Land? 106

Posted by Cliff from the want-bling-bling?-that's-on-eBay dept.
johnny.shz asks: "Even the politicians were claiming: millions of people are making a living off eBay. eBay does have millions of people selling at any given time, but how many are actually making a living? I've sold many things on eBay, mostly junk. My feeling is that I'm making eBay richer (all fees plus PayPal account about 10%), but certainly not myself. Despite all the hoopla of the new promised land, I don't see the promise on eBay. How many of you are making a living off eBay? How many of you actually know someone who does?"
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Is eBay the Promised Land? More

Is eBay the Promised Land?

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  • Yes, but usually not the individual. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rolan ( 20257 ) * on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:06PM (#11325012) Homepage Journal
    There are certainly people making a living off of eBay. They aren't your general user (like you). I'm curious where you read the politicians claiming "millions."

    The people making a living off eBay are the small business owners that may (or may not) have a storefront in some town with limited exposure. They setup an eBay store, or list a most of their items on eBay for sale and make additional sales from stock they already had. They adjust their prices to compensate for the fees of doing business (which may very well be cheaper). They're generally able to avoid dealing with taxes (unless you're in their state), they don't have to deal with the overhead of store rent, electricity, etc that a physical store incurs.

    If I were so inclined, I'm sure I could setup a business in my house that sells purely online/through eBay and be able to make a better profit than a standard storefront, simply due to the considerable difference in overhead. However, I'm not interested in owning that kind of business.
    • I know of a guy that does this in Dallas, selling billiard supplies. Pool cues, billiard balls, tables, all kinds of stuff.

      According to him, he works about 10 hours a day, seven days a week. That amount of time pays for his house, feeds everyone in it (wife and two kids, none of whom work) and drives three Hummer H2s all different colors.

      Its possible if you know how to do it.
    • Last time I talked to my dad, it sounds like he makes more off ebay now than he does off his store front. He runs a small-town hobby shop. He was almost giving away some of his more rare merchandise that had been occupying his shelves for a few years. As soon as he got on ebay, some of his goods (particularly playmobil) were selling for $50 instead of 75 cents (NOT KIDDING).

      I know business must be good, he's paying my sister to handle the ebay business... a job she took over taking a job as a teacher, s
    • In fact, a friend of mine [osnatfineart.com] does make a living [ebay.com] off ebay.

      A couple of hours a day of doing what she likes (well, probably a bit more now as she's painting two pictures a day) leaves her enough time for her family and brings enough money for their needs.

      It is actually quite simple.
      All you need is talent, energy, determination and an acute business sense.

      Way to go, Osnat!
    • " I'm curious where you read the politicians claiming "millions.""

      Dunno about millions, but Cheney, in a campaign appearance, definitely implied that lots of people were making loads of money on EBay.

      The context was talking about "new jobs" that replace the ones that have gone away forever.

      He might well have said millions.
    • If I were so inclined, I'm sure I could setup a business in my house that sells purely online/through eBay and be able to make a better profit than a standard storefront, simply due to the considerable difference in overhead. However, I'm not interested in owning that kind of business.

      Didn't stop to think about the realities of running a business, did you? If it were like you describe, wouldn't everybody be running a business online instead of "deal[ing] with the overhead of running a store"? Consider t
      • Didn't stop to think about the realities of running a business, did you? If it were like you describe, wouldn't everybody be running a business online instead of "deal[ing] with the overhead of running a store"? Consider the realities of the situation:

        Actually, I did.

        1) If you're REALLY running your whole business out of your house, there's a limit on the size of your business. If you're in a shipped-goods industry (like these Ebay merchants), how much inventory can you actually fit in your house? Even
        • Beyond all this, I think the web and ebay are really a much better way of running a small business than a traditional storefront.

          Personally, I think a storefront is a terrible idea for a business, unless you're selling something that people really want to get locally for some reason (like groceries). First, the rent is horribly expensive, if you're located someplace where there's customers (obviously not Wyoming). Second, you have to pay for employees, unless you really want to man the store 12 or more h

  • Depends how you do it. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ForestGrump ( 644805 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:07PM (#11325041) Homepage Journal
    I know someone who makes about $600 per month in sales, which is enough for a college student to live on (if you have fin aid/loans/mom to pay for school).

    How he does it.
    Deal sites.
    Rebate whore
    Price match.
    invest all your free time on ebay sales.
    prompt shipping.

    Grump

    • Re:Depends how you do it. (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Profane MuthaFucka ( 574406 ) <busheatskok@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:17PM (#11325228) Homepage Journal
      By deal sites, you mean he buys stock from deal websites?

      And is "rebate whore" the reason why it's common to find hard drives for sale on EBay in the original box, but missing the UPC code?

      • by "Deal sites", i mean he lives on fatwallet.com

        and yea, rebate whore as in do the rebate, sell the box, sans upc.

        I do the upc rebate game, but i make a little cash on the side by doing cable/dsl home installs for people I know (like my manager at work, family friends, etc). I tend to ask for a price of 75-100 dollars, including hardware. works out for me, and they're happy because going to worst buy and buying the router would have cost them 30-50 and nobody to setup for them.

        Grump

  • Check out this guy (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    well, here is one way [slashdot.org] to make money off eBay.

  • "eBay consignment shop" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by vasqzr ( 619165 ) <`vasqzr' `at' `netscape.net'> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:16PM (#11325217)

    A local businessman has set up an 'eBay Consignment' shop, you drop off an item, and he sells it on eBay for a fee. He takes pictures, does the description, lists the item...

    21st century pawn shop
    • Or you could use AuctionDrop [auctiondrop.com] and drop an item off at most UPS Stores®.
    • 21st century pawn shop

      Funny you should mention that. While driving around in Dallas, we passed by a pawn shop that had a help wanted sign for an "eBay Consultant", or some such. Looks like they're still online: Home > eBay Stores > Uncle Dan's Pawn Shop [ebay.com], but they don't have much listed. I suspect they wanted someone to work for little of nothing, in return for 'net access or something like that.
    • They were pretty popular here in Los Angeles for a while. In the past month though I've noticed that the three in my neighborhood have gone out of business.

      eBay does a good job of convincing people that they can do it themselves. The consignment shop idea is a bad one.
      • I disagree. As an occassional ebay seller, putting stuff up there, taking pictures, writing descriptions, shipping items, and (worst of all) dealing with customer questions and complaints takes a lot of time and energy. It's a pain in the ass, quite frankly. I can certainly see how people would rather let someone else do that work.

        The problem, however, is that people are cheap. If your shop is going to charge some huge percentage to sell the item, it probably isn't worth it. And any shop that's operat
  • finding a new in box trackball for an atari 2600 or a hubcap for a VW bus =)

    *shrug*

  • Good 'ole tiny NZ (Score:2, Informative)

    by rgbe ( 310525 )
    And on the other side of the equatorial line, NZ has 1000 new businesses [tvnz.co.nz] created from online auctions.

  • If Ebay is the Promised Land (Score:3, Funny)

    by toygeek ( 473120 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:20PM (#11325312) Journal
    Then Google is the Messiah.

  • Monopoly (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:26PM (#11325421) Journal
    I know lots of people who make a living off Ebay, most own a home business and sell some of their products on Ebay. A couple at work had to quit their job to work full time on the ebay selling, so you can make money buying and reselling. A few buy wholesale from overseas

    The problem I have with Ebay and Paypal, is the monopoly aspect. They start to morally judge what you can and cant sell, who you can/cant take money from with paypal. This is suppose to be a free market, but if you sell something some corporation doesnt want you to sell, they just have to write a letter to ebay to end your auction. Paypal doesnt have the same regulations as a bank, they dont want you transfering money across borders. (Try to donate money overseas with paypal, little problems, but it can be done.)

    Too bad everyone is cornering themselves into 1 company for most products, your choice is disappearing. Finally you end up with a company that can do what it wants, and you have no options to go else where.

    While the fees and prices go up...

    • They start to morally judge what you can and cant sell, who you can/cant take money from with paypal.

      It's a combination of them covering their asses (for all sorts of reasons, e.g. liability), protecting their consumers, and making sure they aren't being abused to do black market transactions.

      Too bad everyone is cornering themselves into 1 company for most products... you end up with a company that can do what it wants, and you have no options to go else where.

      Here you're making the leap from aucti

      • you end with the imagined possibility that if ebay/paypal get bad enough, no one will come up with a competing service.

        Has eBay been up for 20 years? If not, there may still be patents on aspects of eBay's business model.

      • There's always amazon, and craigslist, or even making your own website for auctioning

        The problem with that is that eBay still has the near-monopoly on customers (who generally won't even be aware of what eBay isn't letting sellers list, so they don't have the motivation to look elsewhere). The net is littered with the corpses of "eBay competitors" that never stood a chance because they didn't have the eyeballs needed to make them viable. If you want to run a business doing online auctions, you pretty mu

  • I don't know anyone making a living off of eBay, but I don't know anyone doing it fulltime. It's just not that much fun. I do know a guy that makes some significant money through eBay, enough for a car payment or maybe his rent. His primary eBay income comes from bidding on large lots, like say 8 printers or 5 Pocket PCs, then reselling them individually on eBay. The best deal for me on eBay is parting out old laptops that my company gives away or sells for scrap, but I have a limited supply of those.

  • Easy (Score:4, Funny)

    by one9nine ( 526521 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:36PM (#11325600) Journal

    "How many of you are making a living off eBay?"

    Once I learned how to burn grilled cheese sandwiches a certian way, it was a snap.

  • Craigslist (Score:5, Insightful)

    by winthrop ( 314632 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:43PM (#11325698)
    The real promised land is Craigslist [craigslist.org].

    If you live in a city with lots of rich people, they just throw good stuff away. I've got a washer/dryer, clothes, guitar, rugs, furniture, most free, some low-cost. A penny saved is a penny earned.
    • Yeah that site rulez. Except sometimes I wonder the validity of the posts. Pick up free Blah Blah here. But what if the joke's on you, and there is nothing there.

    • CL rules. I just got an old SGI O2 for $50. I had to drive a half-hour to get it but I didn't have to pay shipping and I got to see it before handing over my money. And very much unlike ebay, it's free to list things. I (heart) U Craig!
      • Excuse me, but thats about what an old O2 is worth these days. I would actually give $50 for an O2 (R5000). Unless it has a QED, that is, but its still freakin' slow.

        Anything special you are gonna do with it btw?
        • Yes, that's right about what they're worth. The main point was the no shipping and getting to see it in person before paying. I just bought it to learn a little IRIX. Great entry-level SGI what with the PS/2 and VGA ports.
    • eBay bought Craigslist last year.

  • 15 years from creation time, war has turned to ' ' (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Lord Omlette ( 124579 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:46PM (#11325725) Homepage
    Here's the problem: I have to pay the listing fee, right? Then I have to pay a percentage of the final sale, right? Then I have to pay a percentage of the money that was transfered to me by paypal, right? Then I have to dig through the nearest dumpster to find a box of suitable size and strength to house the item. Then I have to carry it to the post office. No matter how high I jack up the shipping fee, every damn time the absolute cheapest shipping fee is always a few dollars over what I charged the bidder. Always. By this time, I'm lucky to have recovered half of the money that I wasted when I acquired the item.

    It gets worse though: there's no other place to sell your stuff. You're lucky to get 1/10th @ amazon what you get @ eBay.

    • I have to pay the listing fee ... a percentage of the final sale ... a percentage of the money that was transfered to me by paypal ... a box ... [and] the shipping fee.

      Don't you factor these things into the cost of your auction?

      If you charge somebody $2 for a CD, and it costs $3 to mail it, and $1 in administration fees, don't be surprised when you end up $2 out of pocket. If you want a higher profit, set the opening bid to something more reasonable, like $3, and specify that the buyer will pay the act

    • the absolute cheapest shipping fee is always a few dollars over what I charged

      You do realize that you can go to usps.gov and find out what it will cost to mail it before writing up the eBay listing, don't you?

      And if you're going to do this a lot, boxes are cheap (if you buy in bulk), or free if you ask the local grocery (or just about any) store.
      • Paper cartons (for slightly larger items) can almost always be had for free from an office or (aha!) a print shop (kinkos, pip, etc). They tend to empty plenty of those every day.

        The flat rate boxes for priority mail are free (if it fits in the box, it is one rate). Easy not to mess up the shipping charge on those...

  • In olden times, using internet chronology (Score:3, Insightful)

    by alexjohns ( 53323 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [cirumla]> on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @04:56PM (#11325886) Journal
    There were people who used to do this. Back in '98 or so, there were quite a few people who would haunt flea markets and yard/garage sales, buy anything and everything they thought they could resell and hawk it on ebay. I know I read more than one story about these 'entrepeneurs'.

    Eventually, the masses figured out they could do the same thing and supplement their income. All of a sudden, things were a lot scarcer at the junk sales. There were all kinds of articles about the lot of the poor ebay entrepeneur.

    I'm sure there are still a few people making a living off of ebay, but I seriously doubt it's 'millions'.

    • There were people who used to do this. Back in '98 or so, there were quite a few people who would haunt flea markets and yard/garage sales, buy anything and everything they thought they could resell and hawk it on ebay. I know I read more than one story about these 'entrepeneurs'.

      In my neighborhood, if we don't want to bother hawking something in the classifieds or on eBay (because of that little bugbear called "personal time,") we just put the old crap out in front of the house/apartment. And by God, it

  • A friend of a relative of mine supposedly buys and sells vintage clothing via eBay.

    I couldn't say how well a living she makes, but she hasn't worked a regular job for a while now and has a relatively comfortable lifestyle.

    I suspect that, like just about everything else, making a good living solely via eBay requires a lot of time and hard work, so that even if there were millions doing this it would still hardly be revolutionary.

  • "* - Allegedly"

    He appears to be collecting video tapes of rock videos, performances and interviews. And by video tapes, I do mean low quality VHS. Then he'd just sequentually burn them to DVD-Rs and sell them for full retail price.

    He's got to have the fat wallet from this operation. And, of course, if you buy one thing, he'll offer you several other items after the purchase.

    I see that other people's negative feedbacks don't do any good, so I'll report him to eBay for violating the CR-R/DVD-R policy, and

  • Possible - yes ; Easy - no (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Port1080 ( 515567 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:24PM (#11326319) Homepage
    Starting selling on eBay is just like starting any other small retail business. It requires a lot of hard work and effort, but it's certainly possible. The bonus of selling on eBay is that the world is your market - the downside is that you have a ton of competition. I do about $54,000 a year gross sales on eBay (net profit is, of course, much less than that). It's enough to keep me going while I take some time off between undergrad and grad school, but I wouldn't want to be doing this my whole life. There are, however, plenty of people out there who are making a lot of money on eBay. The keys are:

    1. Find a reliable supplier where you can get items at wholesale

    1a. Find about 20 items that sell well from that supplier and list them over and over again! Nothing sucks more than having to write new listings every week.

    2. Spend a lot of time initititally working out your shipping system to minimize cost and time effort.

    3. Profit!

  • Not a living, but making Earth more livable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by computersareevil ( 244846 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @05:26PM (#11326354)

    I'm certainly not making any real money on eBay, but I can't tell you how much better it feels to ship some piece of junk to somebody who want it, rather than dumping it in the trash can.

    eBay may not be the "promised land", but it certainly is improving the land by being the best recycling tool ever invented.

    • I think that you probably have it there. Whatever else eBay does, it helps keep stuff out of landfill. Disposing of electronic goods has actuually started costing money now in some parts of Europe. This can help save it.
    • Something that may be junk to use may be perfectly usable (or parts of it may be usable) to someone else, so that's a good point. I know I loathe tossing things that are functional, so ebay provides a way to sell things other people might use. Larger houshold items are too heavy to ship without charging an excessive shipping fee, so they get donated to shelters or service organizations.

      I suspect it is possible to make some money through ebay, but your chances of making money would be improved by shippin

  • My father is a trained professional drug and alcohol counselor and has been for the last ten years. However, the past 4 years or so he has spent and increasing amount of time on ebay, growing a military collectibles hobby/business he has. He is at the point where he is making nearly as much money due to his ebay transactions as he is by his legitimate job.

  • I've got a lot of friends who seem to be losing money on Ebay, regularly.

    I honestly don't understand it, the first place they visit is Ebay no matter what kind of purchase they're interested in.

    To start with it might seem like a good deal, but I've seen lots of them pay way over retail prices in the "heat" of the auction because they don't know how to stop.

    I've used ebay a few times, (only a few - my positive feedback has me listed at 4), but I've always known what my limit was.

    I don't understand how so

    • How I avoid it:

      Before bidding, I ask myself:
      1. Do I really want the item?
      2. How much am I willing to pay for it (including shipping)? If the bidding goes over this amount, I stop.

      I think a lot of it boils down to "collectors" having an echo chamber effect on the price. If it's bid high, it must be valuable, and therefore I should pay a high price. It really sucks if you're looking to use something that the "collectors" are fixated on. Right now I'm looking for a TLR camera, but they keep getting bid up t

    • This is where people really make money on ebay. All you need is two idiots with credit cards, and you can get 4x the price of something that may not even be hard to find.
    • I submit the "Ebay Paradox" of available goods:

      The masses will flock to ebay to find merchandise at a discount. (Joe Random wants an Xbox for $99)

      The sellers will flock to ebay to attempt to make more on their sales than they are worth. (eBayStud013413 has an xbox, new in box, listed with a reserve price of $239)

    • Aside from the possibility of paying more than you would from a retailer, there's the time consideration. How much is your time worth? Spending hours haggling and agonizing over the purchase of some trivial item is a waste of time, as well as being an affront to human dignity. There are too many good online retailers with good prices and cheap/free shipping to bother with eBay-related nonsense, unless the item can't be found elsewhere.
    • That's funny. Someone recently gave me a used computer game. I found it on amazon used for $15. I sold it on ebay for $20???

      I was shocked.
  • Everyone one I know (except me of course) practices shill bidding when they sell on eBay. This is a very common practice that you need to watch for at real auctions, but there is really no way to check on eBay. I would be suprise that anything has ever been sold without the seller bumping the price by shill bidding, or maybe everyone in the world is honest.
    • If you're doing a high volume of transactions, the costs associated with "selling" to all those winning shill bidders will take a significant bite out of your margins.

      I've been selling casually on eBay since '98 and have never engaged in shill bidding. Only once have I been disappointed with the final selling price of a "big-ticket" item.

    • To be honest, I'd never even heard of shill bidding until this post. I've got a decent ebay rep (~ 180ish feedback, roughly 50/50 buying and selling). I've never practiced that for any of my auctions and I've always gotten pretty much what I wanted when the item sold. I also only have 1 ebay account.

      I've also never had a bad experience with eBay (bum sellers, nonpaying bidders...). I also don't get caught up in the head of the moment with auctions ending though, and I know legitimate bargains when I se
  • Along with Ebay and PayPal, of course.

    The key to Ebay's success is not the pricing or the auction model, but the advertising. All the goods of a particular sort that you might be looking for, readily available in one spot, and deliverable regardless of where you are located.

    Ebay cuts down the work you would normally have to do to find items to purchase on the net, and provides a "standard framework" for same.

    The "standard framework" could, of course, exist without Ebay...

  • I know somebody (Score:3, Interesting)

    by itwerx ( 165526 ) on Tuesday January 11, 2005 @07:11PM (#11327912) Homepage
    She just "has an eye for what will sell" - mostly little figurines and other dust collectors. She cruises garage sales and eBays whatever she finds. She considers it a full-time job and clears about $50k a year. ('Course she lives down on Florida where there's tons of estate sales with collectible stuff from all the retirees croaking... :)
  • I know of one guy who buys cheap stuff at closeout sales and cheap things online, then resells them on ebay for .5 to as much as 10 times what he got it for. He isn't extremely wealthy, but he does this and makes a pretty good amount of money off of it.
  • You know I've had alot of dealings with E-Bay. I've met people all over the world who have used the Massive Electronic Auctioning Web Site Called E-Bay. But you want to know one thing? I myselph, a advid computer buff never once even clicked on the URL http://www.E-BAY.com . Why you ask? Well first off I've had no reason to. I Like to keep the things I find Interesting. Most of the things I think are of value or have sentimential attachments, I treasure and Keep on display inside my house. OK, Ok, ok, I
  • I've had a mixed experience with eBay.

    Things I've picked up for free but didn't need, I can generally resell quite easily. Cases in point: an industrial label printer, SS7 motherboards (sold these for $50 each, got em for $1 each) and a plethora of other random things.

    Things I've paid money for, generally didn't sell quite as well.

    Then there was the esoteric, when I tried to sell a matched pair of StorageTek 3060 Fibre Channel array cabinets. You know, the kind that sell for $25,000+, weigh the better pa
  • Even the politicians were claiming: millions of people are making a living off eBay.

    How would politicians have figures like this? Most eBay transactions are not taxed and you can believe the people runnng eBay businesses are not giving acurate figures, if any, for how much they supplement their income with eBay to the IRS.

    I reckon the politicians claiming figures like these are the same ones trying to institute sales tax on all internet transactions. Why? With state budgets shrinking and more demand bein
    • "I reckon the politicians claiming figures like these are the same ones trying to institute sales tax on all internet transactions."

      No, it was Cheney responding to questions about job losses in the US, suggesting EBay sales as a rising new industry that would replace lost manufacturing jobs or some such bullshit.

      From September '04:

      "Indicators measure the nation's unemployment rate, consumer spending and other economic milestones, but Vice President Dick Cheney says they miss the hundreds of thousands wh
      • Ah, so the figures are probably not backed up with any hard data, just speculation.

        Thanx for the source, though. I'd mod you as informative, but you're replying to me so I'm kinda powerless.
  • Well, it is the land of milk [ebay.com] and honey [ebay.com]...
  • Perhaps millions have made a living for a small period of time over the last 10 years, but I gather few have been doing it consistently for over 2 or 3 years. Hell, selling ad space on my forehead [slashdot.org] or selling an image of a woman's face on my grilled cheese [bbc.co.uk] would have been sufficient for me to "make a living" for a year.

  • Yes, eBay IS the Promised Land (Score:3)

    by Motherfucking Shit ( 636021 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @05:40AM (#11332774) Journal
    Over the past year, I've made more than $10,000,000 via eBay. That's net, not gross! My strategy is: set a very high "Buy it Now" price, and make that the same as your "Reserve" price. For someone to actually win, they have to capitulate to exactly the amount you were hoping for. If you locate evildoers who are selling similar products at a lower price, just have the Attorney General send a VeRO dispute to eBay. Easy!

    The media has criticized me for running what they call "no-bid" auctions, but it's sure been profitable on my end, so what's their problem?

    Regards,

    R. Cheney
    HalliBay, Inc.

  • Promised Land (Score:3, Insightful)

    by turgid ( 580780 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @05:52AM (#11332838) Journal
    It's where they promised to send me something, and it never turned up.

    50% of my ebay transactions have resulted in the loss of my time and money. I don't use ebay any more.

  • Just look in the digital camera, PC and gadget sections in ebay and you find numerous of powersellers making it big on ebay. Most of the stuff comes from Taiwan or that sort of region and the sellers themselves reside in other countries (e.g. Australia).

    They make the buyers pay for the tax as it enters their country, which helps them sell at a greatly reduced price. Plus, they don't maintain a storefront and thus can reduce their prices even more because their costs are less.

    Personally, when shopping

  • Makes a pretty good living selling bootleg music CDs on ebay. I'm not sure how he gets away with it. From what I hear they're really cracking down on that type of stuff.

    I guess I should define "pretty good living." To him it means not ever having to go to work. I'm guessing he's able to pay his rent, car insurance, buy food, etc, but that's about it.

  • FreeCycle (Score:3, Informative)

    by ClioCJS ( 264898 ) <cliocjs+slashdot AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @10:22AM (#11334420) Homepage Journal
    http://www.freecycle.org [freecycle.org]

    Index of 4000+ local yahoo freecycle groups. All groups are ways of getting stuff for free, and getting rid of your own stuff easily. I got a 27" TV for my bedroom and a free router.

  • On Thursday, January 13, 2005, eBay announced that it would increase its "Final Value Fees" by more than 50% (more than a 70% increase for larger transactions). (This really deserves its own thread). The announcement does not really give any idea of the magnitude of the fee increases (which are substantial).

    The Final Value Fee for these sale amounts would increase as shown:

    High Bid - Old Fee - New Fee - Increase
    $10.00 - $0.53 - $0.80 - 51%
    $20.00 - $1.05 - $1.60 - 52%
    $25.00 - $1.31 - $2.00 - 53%

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