Ebay Vault - Marketing/Shipping

[Leon]

I buy stuff on ebay fairly frequently, mainly vintage baseball cards. Today was the first time I saw them put up a shipping option going straight to their vault. They also advertise, that if you do that, you don't pay taxes on the buy. I think that's a little bit aggressive marketing, but that's capitalism for you.
.

And a random M116-like card/ad cut?...(not bought on ebay)

[Flintboy]

How would EBay make $$ doing this? Has to be an end game for them and I’m not seeing it. Do they charge yearly for storage?

[Jay Wolt]

Originally Posted by Flintboy

How would EBay make $$ doing this? Has to be an end game for them and I’m not seeing it. Do they charge yearly for storage?

They probably want you to list it w/ them when your ready to sell
instead of using another auction house to market it

[raulus]

Originally Posted by Jay Wolt

They probably want you to list it w/ them when your ready to sell
instead of using another auction house to market it

I think that's the big piece here. You save on shipping, you save on sales tax. And you're locked into their system when it comes time to sell.

In theory you could take it out of the vault and sell somewhere else. But it would be slower, potentially with sales tax, etc.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Leon

I buy stuff on ebay fairly frequently, mainly vintage baseball cards. Today was the first time I saw them put up a shipping option going straight to their vault. They also advertise, that if you do that, you don't pay taxes on the buy. I think that's a little bit aggressive marketing, but that's capitalism for you.
.

And a random M116-like card/ad cut?...(not bought on ebay)

Exactly how to deal with competition, especially from others not as big yet, but eventually looking to take more and more market share from you. You have PWCC coming up with the original "vault" concept/idea, and then Goldin not long after doing a copycat job and "borrowing" the idea as well. Though unlikely to be unseating Ebay anytime soon, these two competitors are operating their own selling platforms "in direct competition" to Ebay. And this is the same Ebay that is/was also subject to and experiencing additional operating pressure due to and brought on by the sales tax ruling from the SCOTUS back in 2018, which ended up causing them to have to start charging sales tax on all applicable transactions on their platform to begin with. And that is the same initial action that was likely a huge factor behind the "vault" idea to begin with, but sadly for Ebay, they weren't the ones smart enough to initially come up and put into operation the "vault" idea to begin with, making their competitors looks smarter and more reactive/proactive for their customer base's benefit. Now add the additional pressure and issues caused Ebay's sellers/users due to the more recent change in the 1099-K reporting rules, which will potentially impact most all of their smaller sellers, and now Ebay is facing even more direct, negative pressure coming up against their normal way of operating in the past.

Granted, many of you may say that the selling of sports and other cards on Ebay is really just a small fraction of their overall business, so why would they even care or worry about some small, insignificant AH based companies doing things like PWCC and Goldin have started doing? Doesn't make any sense, right? LOL Now go back in time and tell that to others. like say Sears, J.C. Penny, K-Mart, and so on, that weren't really paying attention to other sales vendors/platforms when they first started out, like say Amazon, that began as just a simple online source selling books I believe. Or maybe even Ebay itself, that really began as a platform just to help collectors sell their Pez dispensers online IIRC. Funny how ideas can take off and completely replace and sweep away old ideas and ways of doing things, along with companies/providers that used to supply those old business/service ways of doing things, but failed to adopt and keep up with the times.

And to paraphrase an old saying, those that don't study and learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Think about it!!!

[D. Bergin]

Not a fan, but as a seller on Ebay, I hope it becomes wildly popular, because every time Ebay collects sales tax from a buyer, it costs me more money in selling fees.

However, seeing as I sell mostly memorabilia and lower end cards on Ebay, it probably won't be much of a factor either way for me.

[Cory]

You pay seller's fees on sales tax?

[darwinbulldog]

Originally Posted by Cory

You pay seller's fees on sales tax?

I don't believe so. I think you just get lower winning bids.

[BobC]

And by the way, on a sort of related note, we've all seen/heard how many people are not super happy with Ebay's new Authentication Program (AP) in regard to sports cards. Was just another recent thread complaining about the additional delivery time required. And have heard most all of the various thoughts and ideas behind why Ebay started the program, but one I haven't yet heard of anyone even mentioning or talking about is that the whole idea may actually have to do with Ebay now looking at ways to potentially keep up with and/or counter potential competitors. Do PWCC and Goldin, or most any other AHs out there, deal and transact mostly through Paypal G&S like Ebay does? I believe the answer is a resounding NO! This newly lowered 1099-K reporting threshold doesn't really directly affect any buyers on Ebay, but it does potentially directly affect literally millions of their sellers. And if these sellers start looking for and can find new platforms/ways to sell that doesn't have their sales being reported to the IRS, we all know a lot them are going to start making that switch. But most Ebay buyers are hooked into and love the ease of using Paypal. And isn't one of the main reasons that buyers love Paypal G&S so much is because of the protection it offers them? Hmmmm, so what is Ebay to do if they start losing more and more sellers due to such a change in the tax reporting requirements?

What about coming up with an idea to offer an alternate way to help protect buyers, like something similar to this Ebay AP, so they can then really push offering alternative ways for sellers to get paid that doesn't result in them getting those sales reported to the IRS, and sellers jumping ship from the Ebay platform as a result? And of course, before you do anything that potentially radical, wouldn't you maybe try rolling it out on a bit of a test basis first, to see how buyers and sellers react, how well it may actually work, and allow for feedback and tweaking the process to make it as seamless and acceptable as possible? And then, if you can get most of the bugs out, and make it more accepted by both Ebay buyers and sellers, maybe expand and roll the AP concept/idea out to pretty much everything sold on Ebay. And that way, you can start to offer sellers and buyers an alternative way to transact business on Ebay that doesn't necessarily mean pretty much all seller sales are subject to tax reporting, yet buyers can still have that feeling of safety and protection they had under the old Paypal G&S payment service. I could then see Ebay starting to push the use of a different payment platform/method that doesn't require sales being reported to the IRS, like Zelle, as an alternative to Paypal G&S. But since Zelle doesn't provide the same buyer protections as Paypal G&S does, can fully understand how buyers may not be so taken with the idea of switching, so Ebay needs something else to fall back on to keep up that buyer confidence. Doesn't mean it is why all this may be happening, but can certainly understand if it is at least of part of reasoning why.

And before any one of you jumps in and says the Ebay AP came out before the new law lowering the reporting threshold was ever sign signed, so the one had absolutely nothing at all to do with other, don't even bother. Do any of you really think the idea for the changes to the reporting threshold just suddenly appeared after the September 2020 rollout of Ebay's AP, and miraculously before the March 2021 signing of the new law that included the lowered tax reporting threshold? Ebay was obviously aware of issues with counterfeits and fakes of high value and collectible items on their platform, so the AP was also an obvious attempt to see about dealing with that also. But with the somewhat limited rules as to what items that otherwise qualify for the AP, but don't get subjected to it because of the ease of what sellers can do to get around it, like saying something being sold is part of a set or adding a second card/item to what is being sold, the idea that Ebay's AP was solely for protecting buyers of such high vale/collectible items doesn't quite make total sense.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by Cory

You pay seller's fees on sales tax?

Yup, full Final Value fee (anywhere from 12% to 15%, depending on how and what you're selling) on the Sales Tax / Vat Tax / Shipping Cost

Add another point and a half or so, if you sell your item Internationally.

[D. Bergin]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

I don't believe so. I think you just get lower winning bids.

You get lower winning bids AND you pay for the privilege of Ebay collecting the sales tax for you.

[darwinbulldog]

I have an update here in case anyone else was thinking of giving the eBay vault a try as I did. I bought a modern shiny card explicitly to see if using the vault and flipping might be profitable, at least under the current structure. It turns out the title field a) automatically populates, b) is uneditable, c) leaves out important search terms, and d) is factually inaccurate (wrong grading company). Furthermore, the photos cut off the edges of the slab so any interested buyers who did manage to find the card wouldn't even have the reassurance that the slab hasn't been tampered with. So now I can either run a poorly titled (fraudulently titled actually) and poorly photographed auction or I can pay hundreds of dollars that I was allegedly saving through the vault to have the card shipped to me so I can list it correctly.

0/10. Do not recommend.

[Snowman]

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

I have an update here in case anyone else was thinking of giving the eBay vault a try as I did. I bought a modern shiny card explicitly to see if using the vault and flipping might be profitable, at least under the current structure. It turns out the title field a) automatically populates, b) is uneditable, c) leaves out important search terms, and d) is factually inaccurate (wrong grading company). Furthermore, the photos cut off the edges of the slab so any interested buyers who did manage to find the card wouldn't even have the reassurance that the slab hasn't been tampered with. So now I can either run a poorly titled (fraudulently titled actually) and poorly photographed auction or I can pay hundreds of dollars that I was allegedly saving through the vault to have the card shipped to me so I can list it correctly.

0/10. Do not recommend.

Oof! What a mess. Thanks for the heads up. Definitely will not be using the ebay vault

[Leon]

0/10 isn't very good. I say their program doesn't stand the test of time. They have lost too many users in our space. But who knows, I have been wrong before.

Originally Posted by darwinbulldog

I have an update here in case anyone else was thinking of giving the eBay vault a try as I did. I bought a modern shiny card explicitly to see if using the vault and flipping might be profitable, at least under the current structure. It turns out the title field a) automatically populates, b) is uneditable, c) leaves out important search terms, and d) is factually inaccurate (wrong grading company). Furthermore, the photos cut off the edges of the slab so any interested buyers who did manage to find the card wouldn't even have the reassurance that the slab hasn't been tampered with. So now I can either run a poorly titled (fraudulently titled actually) and poorly photographed auction or I can pay hundreds of dollars that I was allegedly saving through the vault to have the card shipped to me so I can list it correctly.

0/10. Do not recommend.