eBay & Paypal Fees

[glchen]

Originally Posted by 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.

+1, great story, and I agree that ebay tends to bring net higher prices for most things. good luck w/ your adoption. read a recent story about adoptions in the nytimes. I have three kids and my wife and I are always scrambling. That's terrific that you and your wife are able to do so much.

[Exhibitman]

My experience has been that auctioning mainstream postwar cards tends to be as good as or better than the net results on eBay, provided you can control the lotting and prevent your stuff from being thrown into dealer-friendly mass lots that are just going to be broken up anyway. There is also the headache/BS/time commitment aspect of eBay to consider. I don't have the time or the energy to list bunches of cards on eBay, monitor results, invoice buyers, pack and ship orders, chase down deadbeats, deal with the inevitable fraction of buyers who are mentally ill, etc.

[Rollingstone206]

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[bobbyw8469]

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.

+2 on the great story! I can totally relate, as I (and probably everyone that has tried to sell on the Net54 BST board) has been subject to the low balling that goes on there. I have a hard time giving cards away on there, to the point that I am scratching my head and second guessing what I am doing wrong (only to see them sell higher on Ebay). For all EBay's faults and the high percentage and fees they charge, for the amount of eyeballs they bring, there is no better game in town.