eBay & Paypal Fees

[Harliduck]

I agree that Ebay & Paypal fees are a bit much...but I will take the other side.

I am 99% a BUYER on Ebay, and certainly do not buy cards to resell or even consider them an investment. So naturally as mostly a buyer, fees mean nothing on Ebay.

Now...this last month my wife and I adopted a beautiful young girl out of the foster world (to add to my 4 kids) and the wife asked if I would part with anything temporarily for all the fees and such...I have such a great wife I couldn't say no. I picked a 1957 Topps set which I know is in pretty good demand, and it was pretty high grade. Again, I hate selling, but considering what it was for, I dove in.

I first put the set up here for on the B/S/T hoping for a quick sale, and discounted it accordingly. I was missing Koufax and the Berra/Mantle card. I asked $2000, and I felt it was worth $2500. I put up scans of all the stars, and all the high # tough to get cards. I immediately received three offers ranging from $700 - $800 and was told if I sold it anywhere else I would be lucky to get $1000. I did get one offer of $1600, but was also told that was all it was worth.

Off to Ebay...I did sell a few cards offline before I put it up, including the Mantle, for $500. The rest sold on Ebay for $3322. ($3822 total). My Ebay fees ended up being $348 and Paypal took their percent.


So...yes...the fees and nickel and diming is pretty tough to take...but I ask you...where else would I get such a bang for my buck? Certainly a brick and mortor store would have probably offered less than here....and the differences are staggering. I am certainly not an Ebay cheerleader (they have certainly pissed me off before)...but I have to be honest with the results...they earned every dime they got from me for providing such a medium as a regular joe like myself. Its easy to bitch about the fees...and not see the value of such fees.

I also must add as a buyer there is no better medium. To me the auction houses are better suited for the sellers...I see items routinely over sold. At any time I can go purchase just about any card ever made on Ebay in my underware at 2am. Tough to compete with that.

Just my .02...another view. Legal/Adoption fees are paid, as well as new childrens furniture and I even was able to get my 1955 set down to only needing 5 cards. Happy wife...can't beat that.