Recent Ebay Trends

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

I have sure noticed alot of auctions lately that say there cards are "well centered", do this really matter that much in vintage cards especially low grade to warrant adding to listing?

Also there seems to be plenty of auctions not taking Paypal and still receiving strong bids. Is the time of Paypal waining?

Has anyone tried Yahoo's financial on-line service?

Lee

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Posted By: Jeff Mohler

I don't know the answer to the other two questions, but I have noticed recently that many more sellers do not accept Paypal. Maybe the amount of the Paypal fees outweighs the occasional bad check.

I tend to like Paypal as a buyer because it gets me my cards quicker! Buying a money order is a pain and with personal checks it seems like I have to wait two weeks to see what I won.

Jeff

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Posted By: andy becker

i don't accept paypal.....and i'm not sure why anyone would. it's expensive enough to pay the ebay final value fees without "sharing" more of your collection with paypal.

regarding what jeff said, if you have good feedback....or are a known board member, i ship the day after payment is received. i have received one bad check in all the years, and i promply called the buyer's local police department. an officer was kind enough to pay the culprit a visit.....i had a money order in two days.

do i miss out on potential bidders? i don't think so.

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Posted By: leon

I take Paypal for smaller items. If I sell 20 items for under $100 it makes it very quick to get payment and ship. I think my last ebay round I had about 17 items. All but about 1 were paid for in 2 days or less and shipped just as quick. I like the expedience of it....regards

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Posted By: T206Collector

I add as many features as possible to make my potential buyers/bidders happy -- low flat shipping, zero additional shipping charges on multiple wins, PayPal, personal check, etc. I find that I get more bids this way and that the value I receive far outweighs the nominal PayPal cost. Plus, my buyers pay me immediately after winning and the money goes into my checking account in a day or two -- or, better yet, I have instant cash to pay for ebay winnings. Sure, I'd rather have a free PayPal service, but under the circumstances I'm quite pleased with it. I've never had any of the problems that so many people seem to complain about.

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Posted By: dd

As a buyer I prefer to use paypal and will not bid on auctions that do not accept paypal unless I know the seller.

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Posted By: T206Collector

...I get more bids when I allow buyers to use PayPal.

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Posted By: Rich W

I have heard the horror stories with Paypal and have had 2 instances where the buyer claimed that they never received the goods and I had no recourse (Paypal deducted the amount from my account and gave it back to the buyers). In both cases, the goods were uninsured and there was no postal tracking. I force insurance on orders over $100.00 and I will put on tracking for a potentially suspect customer.

And yes, Paypal is pricy, especially if shipping outside the USA. However, this past week, I had 170 auctions end on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. All but 25 of the auctions had been paid by Saturday morning, and of the 25 left, 20 were represented by 3 different buyers whose checks will be in the mail this week. I'm not thrilled with the end-of-the-month Paypal bill, but I believe it is worth it.

Rich W.

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Posted By: Cobby33

I'm with Leon and T206. It's all about the time value of money. Save trips to the bank too and Paypal shipping makes things really easy.

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Posted By: cn

I lower my bid by 3-5 dollars a card when I buy single cards on E-Bay on auctions that don't take Paypal. I also have found that the few cards I follow usually go for a little less on these auctions. As a buyer I love using paypal it is just so much easier.

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Posted By: T206Collector

...I also pay for shipping myself if the price of one or more of my cards by the same bidder goes over $50.00. I advertise this, of course, and believe it also leads to higher bids received, thus offsetting this cost.

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Posted By: David B

My major pet peeve about Ebay card sellers is when they try to make an extra profit by over-charging on shipping. I don't mind paying a little extra above the actual postage to cover the cost of a padded mailer, etc. But when somebody wants $5 to ship one ungraded card and then sends it in an envelope with a 39cent stamp on it, I get a little upset. I usually look at the shipping charges first now before I bid on an auction. I don't care how badly I want a card, or how good the price looks - if someone is blatantly over-charging on shipping, I don't have anything to do with that seller. My hats off to sellers on this board who charge fair shipping costs.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Id hate to think that this is the threat that I am living with when I write a check. Heck, anyone can make a mistake.

"and i promply called the buyer's local police department. an officer was kind enough to pay the culprit a visit.."

I guess that I should drive further to take advantage of the less convenient bank's overdraft protection.

Sheesh, I can just see explaining to my neighbors about an ebay seller.

- Gil (not yet a culprit)

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Posted By: Joann

I really like PayPal as both a buyer and a seller, and don't mind the fees. I've not run into the problems some sellers have run into.

As a buyer, I find myself leaning more toward auctions with PayPal if I'm not familiar with the seller, especially for anything a little expensive. That's because there is some recourse if something goes wrong. I am a little - just a little - of auctions that won't take PayPal. For anything questionable, I'm more willing to take a flier on something if I can pay w/PP.

As a seller, I think accepting PayPal makes sense. Credit card debt is reality in this country whether we like it or not. Some people can only get a more expensive card if they can use Paypal and pay it over a few months.

Just my opinion.

Joann

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Posted By: Brett

I hate getting sniped on ebay. I lost a t206 Cobb on ebay by 1 cent for god sakes !

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Posted By: edacra

I find that I pay up right away with Paypal, where if I need to get out a checkbook and mail off a personal check, it's easier for me to inadvertantly slack off. If I buy from a seller who won't take paypal, it's usually by accident. I'll even offer to pay their fee if they let me use it. It's silly though, because Paypal and Ebay fees are just the overhead for making the sale, and it's far more convenient then buying a table at a show, or paying for advertising.

What shocks me is the dealers who exist solely as online auction houses on Ebay, and even take consignments, and stuff but they won't take PayPal. I can think of one or two...and it's true they still get top dollar bids even when they're selling something easily found on ebay.

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Posted By: Jeff Drum

I don't "belong" to PayPal and it really hasn't prevented me from bidding on much that I wanted to on ebay. I use money orders exclusively and usually pick up 1 or 2 every morning at Texaco (Western Union) with my morning cup of coffee. Guy charges me .59 each for his trouble. On the off chance that I want to bid on a PayPal only auction I apply my Dog & Boat Principle - good to have a friend with one. Having never sold on ebay before I am sure it would be a different story as a seller if it limited my bidders and prices realized. What is the rationale behind a "PayPal Only" auction approach?

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Lee, I will bid stronger on a well-centered vintage card, and I will completely ignore a card that is poorly centered. Even in the instance of my T205s, which I am building in VG condition, if the card is grossly off-center, I don't want it.

For my '38 Goudeys, which I'm trying to collect in higher grades, the O/C ones bug me. It's like, I'm looking through these really nice cards, and then all of a sudden there's one that's a mess.

So yeah, centering is something I try and consider when I can.

As far as Paypal is concerned, I take it as a seller, and I use it as a buyer, but although it annoys me when a seller doesn't take it, it generally doesn't cause me not to bid.

-Al

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

When I first tried to learn grading standards, it took me a long time to "get it" about centering. Although I now get it, I don't buy it.

But I also get it about paypal. And I also don't buy it. I have no paypal account, and do not want one.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Gil, I didn't always buy into the centering concept, either. It seemed silly to me to focus on finding well-centered cards when miscuts were the norm in vintage baseball. And while I'll still pick one up once in a while, the best examples I can give are from the '38 Goudey set. Here are two cards with the same grade:



Despite the fact that the second card is much more toned and has a weird spot on the upper right corner (that is not paper loss), I was happy to obtain it. The first card was sold on eBay earlier this year, and I did not bid very strong.

This particular card, for some reason, is a bitch to find without weird centering and that left-to-right tilt. Although I've never seen a high-number uncut sheet, if the sheet is identical to the low-number sheet, this card was layed out in the upper-left corner of the sheet. I suspect that it was layed out slightly crooked on the sheet. As such, it almost always has that funky tilt.

Finding a well-centered version - and I've owned two now - was like finding a buried treasure to me. The one I own now (the one on the right) is still tilted, but it's probably the best example of the card that I've seen, centering-wise. When cards from this issue are off-center, I wince. They look so much nicer when the image is positioned properly on the center of the card.

In my opinion.

-Al

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Posted By: Trae R.

"What is the rationale behind a "PayPal Only" auction approach?"

Jeff, when I am selling a card on eBay it is usually to fund a more expensive card purchase. So it's nice to have those funds immediately available to purchase the new card. If for some other reason I need the money I also have a PayPal Mastercard which allows me to use those funds anywhere Mastercard is accepted (including an ATM) right when they become available in the account.

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Posted By: Jeff Drum

Trae, I understand that rationale. My point of view is that if I am a seller does it make good sense in a way to limit the number of potential bidders on any particular item through the payment mechanism? If nearly all of the people who bid on vintage type items have PayPal then it is not really an issue. The immediate access to funds is a strong incentive but that assumes that everyone who has access to PayPal pays immediately. Maybe that is the case. It seems like in Leon's example above that was and is the case.

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Posted By: Gilbert Maines

Now that I have trained myself to notice centering, I certainly notice it. However, since I recall actually trying to understand the concept and its importance, I remember how happier I was when I was stoopider. But that "stoopider" is only as defined by PSA and Johnny-Come-Latelys
whose opinion is offered for a price which I am unwilling to buy.

Heck, I collect OJs. Many of these have border and cut issues. How important is an offcut card, if you don't notice the cut?

To most - very important! As evidenced by the prices which arguably trimmed cards yield. This phenomonon is interesting.

And regarding your '38Gs: I gotta love those cartoons! I only have one, the Foxx + its among my favorites. I don't care if the plain ones are rarer, the cartoon ones are more fun. Even Topps never did that (I think). Although they did put them on the backs.

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Posted By: Al C.risafulli

Agreed - if I collected OJs, I would be less concerned about stuff like centering than I was concerned about stuff like actually owning the card. The more scarce the card, the less I care about condition. I figure if I'm going to buy a card that's relatively plentiful, I prefer to have as nice an example as I can afford, and centering is part of "nice" for me, particularly on cards with clearly defined borders.

I also agree about the 38s - they're my babies, I started collecting them on a lark a few years ago and quickly fell in love. The set is perfect for an attention span-deficient nitwit like me; 48 cards (24 that repeat themselves) make it easy to really know every card in the set and focus on as much minutiae as I can get my paws on. I keep scans of my set on my website (along with lots of the minutiae) if you were inclined to look: www.swingbattaswing.com.

Sorry for the hijack.

I also agree with the posted who likes the immediacy of receiving Paypal payments. I'm usually willing to sacrifice the Paypal fee in order to get the cash in hand more quickly (and not have to go to the bank). The only reason I sell cards is to generate money to buy more, and the more quickly I can get that money, the less likely I am to start selling off internal organs.

-Al

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Posted By: warshawlaw

Too many bad stories out there, including some really bad ones that some of the folks here experienced. I don't think it has ever been a problem not to take it. I will take it for my book, simply because if someone is enough of an a-hole to want to cheat me out of a book, I will just send another darn book rather than fight. For my cards, though, I really loathe the idea of being paypal-jacked by an unscrupulous buyer. If I take a check or MO and hold it to clear, an unscrupulous buyer cannot use the paypal or credit card system to game me.

As a buyer, I don't mind paypal but I have never refused to deal with a decent seller because he did not take it. I will say that on occasion when a low feedback or dodgy seller is offering a card I want, his or her willingness to take paypal does reassure me simply because I know I can hammer him/her via my credit card company if the goods don't arrive.

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Posted By: Dylan

I think paypal is great for small sales but if i were selling an item that sold for more then a couple hundred i would only accept money order or cashiers check and then hold until it clears. If thats unacceptable to a bidder then they dont have to bid. Cards arent perishable there's no reason that anyone should get worked up about having to wait for a check to clear. Plus paypal fees can really add up, and someone from overseas can send the money, then later cancel the transaction therfore getting their money back, and having your card you "sold" on the way to their mailbox and youve been swindled out of your money and the card(s) you sold.