Whats up with Ebay lately ?

[LampHead]

  I have been out of the loop with Ebay sales and prices for a few years on lava lamps. Most of what I see are very high "buy it now" prices with "best offer" also available. I never remember this many auctions with those terms. Is it something to do with Ebay fees ?

   I remember a lot of sellers were leaning to very high shipping fees offset by very low priced items. I understood they were not paying the Ebay fees on the shipping money, just the sale price of the item so it saved them $$$ in fees.

  Is there some trick or has Ebay gotten that bad ? I know their fees are crazy once you add in the Paypal cut too. I just find it odd so many auctions are set up the same today. I also did not notice many quality US made lamps like I did back in the day.

[Deb]

Hi Mr Head.. I think the seller is just keeping their options open in case they don't get their BIN auction price without having to relist if it doesn't sell. And yeah, not sure about those high shipping/low bid auctions. Maybe eBay cracked down on that practice since they were losing $$ on their fees. I can bet though that those BIN prices include whatever fee the seller will be charged for listing.. Just a guess...

[Steven]

Well.....the objective has always been the same: to make as much money as possible. But ebay has put more policies in place to prevent people from cashing in on the shipping more than the auction price. I too remember people putting a buy it now price of $0.05 and charge $40.00 for shipping. To add insult to injury they use parcel post through usps. So I always avoided those select few. If they want to screw ebay out of their then just imagine what it would be like to deal with the seller if your product was defective or no where near "as described."

[Rich C]

I don't think ebay allows the seller to dictate shipping costs anymore.  I believe they have to now use built in shipping calculators.  Kind of like you more or less have to use PayPal for the money transactions.

[Erin]

eBay now charges you a percentage on the shipping you charge the buyer. It's nuts. That's why you see more free shipping nowadays. But, they get their money either way. The seller CAN dictate shipping costs, but eBay takes 10%, I think. 

As for the high prices of lava lamps, it's because they saw one go for $150 (that was worth it, and rare), so they figure any old lava lamp is worth that. 

[Critter]

Which one went for $150 that was rare Erin?

[Kirk]

From my perspective, demand seems down.  I think this is why you see more BINs, higher starting prices, and less real auctions. People are afraid of giving it away.  It may be a good time to pick up some bargains.  

However, if you think OG is a leading indicator of motion lamp demand, there seems to be LOTS of new folks becoming members who are hopefully interested in building a collection.  We shall see.   

[Erin]

I'm just talking generically-speaking. Someone sells a decent, semi-rare lava lamp and suddenly sellers think their lava lamps are worth that. 

Critter said:

Which one went for $150 that was rare Erin?

[Todd Miller]

I have been watching Ebay for over 6 mon's on Lava Lamps. What get's me is they

always say "60's lava lamp" but if they did their homework they would truly know

the year which is always much later.

[Steven]

A lot of times there are a lot of listings on ebay that are listed by people who "think they know what they have." That of course can be a good thing for the buyer or the other way around. I scored the chocolate wax with the snake skin base and cap for $18. But auctions can go either way. All the seller really needs is for 2 - 3 people to declare war on each other and that auction will boom. I noticed a negative feedback that had been posted on a sellers record (not a lava lamp.) The buyer purchased a rare coin and seller charged $9 for shipping. Included in that charge is a $5 handling fee. The coin arrived in an envelope with a single stamp on it. So you can thanks goons like this for ebays excuse for the 10% fee.

[Dr. WHAT?!]

Dont even get me started about ebay. Its a f-ing joke now and a rip off. I will only do ebay if I have no other choice.

[Steven]

Did something happen to you on ebay Dr. What?

[Dr. WHAT?!]

yes I dealt with crazy buyer which in turn lead to a open case (which neither of us were found at fault so the case was closed by ebay) she left me negative feedback so I called ebay to try to have it removed and got transferred overseas to someone who barely spoke English and sounded like she was reading from a book in all her responses. Just to have them say sorry but the seller left you negative feedback about your disposition. I was like are you f-ing kidding me? 12 years of being a member not one neg feedback and they wont remove it. This seller was a nut job and lied throughout the entire ordeal so she could put anything in there she wanted. Whatever, ebay is a joke not to mention they take so much money from sellers. Its not even worth it anymore.