Will eBay/PayPal Fees Start Slowing Business?

[Zacky1053]

I'm not on eBay anymore, but I was at my LCS yesterday and he pointed out to me that the fees for eBay and PayPal seem to get higher all the time, and how much of a pain it can be when an item doesn't sell for much. My opinion on it is that they (eBay/PayPal) know raising fees will most likely not stop people because they have no really stout competition. (I cannot imagine what kind of lifestyle the President of eBay lives...) I'm pretty sure I know the answer, but will the fees eventually steer you away from eBay, or do you find it's a necessity to get rid of certain items?

[nephinfan]

Like a lot of people, I'm pretty sure I'll be moving most of my inventory to COMC. Ebay/Paypal show they care less & less about the seller all the time.

[ohiomike]

Eventually, I think most ebay sellers will become disgruntled enough to start trying out the alternatives. Once they do, I think each of them will cut their ebay listings significantly. It isn't realistic to drop ebay all-together, but there are several sites like checkoutmycards, sportscardforum, sportlots, sportsbuy, etc all out there each of which offers either (or a combination of) less fees, less risk, or less time consuming. These other sites will only continue to grow (especially COMC and sportlots, in my opinion) and eventually almost no ebay seller will exclusively sell on ebay, like many are still doing now.

[Zacky1053]

Originally Posted by ohiomike

Eventually, I think most ebay sellers will become disgruntled enough to start trying out the alternatives. Once they do, I think each of them will cut their ebay listings significantly. It isn't realistic to drop ebay all-together, but there are several sites like checkoutmycards, sportscardforum, sportlots, sportsbuy, etc all out there each of which offers either (or a combination of) less fees, less risk, or less time consuming. These other sites will only continue to grow (especially COMC and sportlots, in my opinion) and eventually almost no ebay seller will exclusively sell on ebay, like many are still doing now.

Now that I think of it, I almost find it laughable how many infomercials you see about supposedly being able to make money selling on eBay...

[FINS4LIFE]

What does COMC stand for. And there web address. I'd like to check them out. If I could sell my cards without having to pay the rising fees from ebay the better.

[ohiomike]

Originally Posted by FINS4LIFE

What does COMC stand for. And there web address. I'd like to check them out. If I could sell my cards without having to pay the rising fees from ebay the better.

COMC = CheckOutMyCards.com

In a nutshell, they are a full service consignment site. You send them your cards for an upfront processing fee (15 - 50 cents per card depending on how fast you want them uploaded). After that the site... Scans each of your cards (front and back), determines the book value of each card and then uploads them into your account for you to price. Once you price each card, the card goes live (with % off discount calculated and shown) and when the card sells, you do nothing... they ship the cards, or the buyer can choose to hold onto the card in their own inventory. You have the option of spending your sales back on the site for 100% full value, or cashing out any amount for a 20% fee.

Its super simple, already gets a lot of traffic and is constantly growing, and you can sell cards (especially stuff you are looking to get $1-$5 for) for more than what you'd get on ebay and in many cases you'll sell stuff that would never sell on ebay. Shipping fees from a buyer's perspective figure very little into the end price, unlike on ebay. If you have a card that a buyer is willing to pay $3 for... you'll likely get $2.50-$3.00 on COMC where on ebay you'd be lucky to get $0.99 because shipping is likely going to be $2-3 in addition to the bid.

[ricefan77]

what he said

[IndySportsCards]

I'm down to about 10-25 listings a month from 300-500

[petyparamoreAHS]

I'm not going to ever sell anything on ebay again I don't think, it's so much easier to just do it on here or other forums.

[Zacky1053]

Originally Posted by petyparamoreAHS

I'm not going to ever sell anything on ebay again I don't think, it's so much easier to just do it on here or other forums.

I've had prime success selling my things on here...I can make my own prices, accept offers, there are no fees, and you know who you're dealing with...

[jlcherry2477]

Are the fees for Ebay really equal to a 20% fee overall? I can understand if you wanna purchase more cards from the site, but if you wanted the cash on hand, it would seem to me that Ebay/Paypal would be considerably less....i could be wrong, but it seems COMC makes some money for people cashing out....

Can anybody go into detail of these fees related to .99 auction styles/BINs/Final Value Fees and charges? I'm still going through Ebay, but thats because I'm in Iraq. May consider changing to COMC if there fees are considerably less. I already have established feedback on the Bay and would hate to start over....

[ohiomike]

Originally Posted by jlcherry2477

Are the fees for Ebay really equal to a 20% fee overall? I can understand if you wanna purchase more cards from the site, but if you wanted the cash on hand, it would seem to me that Ebay/Paypal would be considerably less....i could be wrong, but it seems COMC makes some money for people cashing out....

Can anybody go into detail of these fees related to .99 auction styles/BINs/Final Value Fees and charges? I'm still going through Ebay, but thats because I'm in Iraq. May consider changing to COMC if there fees are considerably less. I already have established feedback on the Bay and would hate to start over....

The fee %, taking all other things out of consideration, are about 10% on ebay/paypal, where as the cashout fee at COMC is 20%. So if you don't have much to sell, have no interest in buying other cards with the money, or time is an issue, then ebay is probably still your best bet.

However, you will get more money for your cards on COMC on average. My typical sales are probably 50-100% (or even more in some cases) higher than what I would get for the same card on ebay. It may take longer to sell them on COMC though, and I'm always interested in picking up other cards I can use... so for me, using COMC for a majority of my cards is a no brainier.

While I don't typically cash out, in most cases I'd still benefit from COMC taking 20% versus ebay/paypal taking 10%. For example, 2 recent sales were a Doug Flutie Upper Deck Jersey card that booked at $40, which I sold for $10 on COMC. Another is a Steve Carlton Greats of the Game Auto that booked at $15, which I sold for $12.

So on COMC I received $22 for the 2 cards and had I cashed out I would have ended up with $17.60 after fees. Both cards were tried on ebay before sending them to COMC, with $9.99 minimum bid, and neither sold. But lets say they had sold for $9.99 each. After all the fees ($0.70 starting fees, $1.75 FVF, $0.93 paypal fees) I would have ended up with $16.67 selling on ebay. And that assumes I got my minimum bids, which I didn't. Had I started the cards out at 99 cents and let them run, the two cards probably would have sold for less than what I would end up with AFTER fees on COMC.