Ebay question/opinion/poll

[Mathius]

I was looking through some old Hot Rod and Car Craft magazines I have. I d*tched the subscriptions to both a long time ago because it seems like they print the same old crap over and over again every year. Hot Rod is laden with sponsor driven stuff as well.

But I digress.... Point is, I came across an old ad in one of the magazines for Ebay that was run oh... I dunno 4-5 years ago.

The ad gave two guys, and listed the parts for their project vehicle, each guy using identical parts... but the point of the ad was in the price column. One guy bought all his stuff off of Ebay, the other guy from "parts stores" and the guy who bought from Ebay saved enough money to buy a nice radio for his project that the other guy didn't have.

I thought to myself, that back in the day this was certainly true. You could find a lot of cheap stuff on Ebay, brand new. But that has certainly changed. It seems to me that now manufacturers have dropped their prices and Ebay sellers have raised their prices to the point where they're pretty even.

You can still find some deals on a few things here and there, but for the most part IMHO, Ebay is only good when looking for used parts, and even then, good luck finding a deal.

These days it seems like I save more money just ordering my parts from Jegs or Summit Racing and get free shipping than if I buy them off Ebay and pay to ship.

I was wondering if it was just me, or do you guys get the feeling that Ebay's only real benefit these days is finding rare items, not necessarily the deals?

Mathius

[Mossimo777]

I agree with you that back in the day there were some great deals and today not so many. As a seller every now and then, I have to say the ebay fees are getting rediculous. You have to give the option of the buyer to use Paypal. Then they tack on the Paypal fee. Aren't they the same company? This seems like double dippin.

[Restomod]

There are still deals there but it takes more effort to find them. Idiots with more $ than brains and azzholz that bid and dont pay have messed ebay up more than Gone in 60 sec. did to Fastback prices.

[Munster]

Back when you could get the same part for a lot cheaper it was good. Even the shipping was ok back then. Now you don't find that big seperation in prices and the shipping prices suck.
I remember when ebay first started it was a lot of mostly people selling old stuff from around the house, and you started to find good car part deals, then cheap prices on parts cutting out the middle man, then the storm of every over seas marketer and such jumping on the band wagon pushed it to not a great place for the best deals. Progress sucks sometimes.:machine: I have more posative feedback there then posts here, doesn't mean much now.
Just be cool to be the person who comes up with the next cool idea of the era like ebay started as.:look:

[Restomod]

Just be cool to be the person who comes up with the next cool idea of the era like ebay started as.:look:
Craigslist is that but you have to use other searchers to find stuff allover. That is its biggest drawback........

[dhutton]

Ebay is a good place to buy hard to find used parts but I don't bother looking for new parts there very often.

Don

[CRead01]

I feel like so many large companies are there with there regular prices on things it drives up the prices of the sellers that used to keep it on the cheap.

[Boyd]

Kind of off subject, kind of not: For the last couple of years I've been wondering why no one has tried to compete with eBay. Home Depot has Lowe's, WalMart has Target, Sears has JCPenney, Microsoft has Google. Why doesn't eBay have a competitor? I don't really count craigslist as a competitor to eBay because craigslist isn't set up in the auction format.

Ebay's fees have been steadily increasing over the last few years to the point that it's almost not worth it to list on the site.

[Mathius]

Kind of off subject, kind of not: For the last couple of years I've been wondering why no one has tried to compete with eBay. Home Depot has Lowe's, WalMart has Target, Sears has JCPenney, Microsoft has Google. Why doesn't eBay have a competitor? I don't really count craigslist as a competitor to eBay because craigslist isn't set up in the auction format.

Ebay's fees have been steadily increasing over the last few years to the point that it's almost not worth it to list on the site.

There are competitors, they're just not well known and therefore not as successful. Ebay works because you can actually find things that interest you. If another auction site doesn't have what you're looking for consistently, most people won't come back and look again and the site loses out.

Mathius

[Takid455]

Ebay's fees have been steadily increasing over the last few years to the point that it's almost not worth it to list on the site.

Recently I listed a old snowmobile I have. when I saw that there would be a minimum of 115 in fees, I had to up my price which made it seem too high. If let it go for 250, they would get almost as much as me. jerks