Ebay sales slow/down

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WesternPA-collector

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Has anyone noticed that activity on Ebay seems to have really gone downhill this year? Many bottles listed don't even get a single bid and the ads end up just running out. Something seems to be happening with the glass/bottle market. Or have people found other online auction sites that are better now?
 

RCO

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its not just bottles I've noticed other things are slower too , not sure what the exact reasons are .I'd partly blame greedy sellers and high shipping costs . some of the sellers set initial bids or buy It now prices far too high and dream up prices that are unrealistic in todays market and then want more for shipping than it actually costs to mail the item


I've also noticed there are a lot of independent auction places doing online auctions now that focus on selling locally , can think of at least a couple places doing this so a lot of items aren't going to ebay but being sold on local auction sites instead
 

TROG

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One problem with ebay sales is that generally quite a few sales are made to overseas collectors and with sellers using the global shipping option postage is coming out at twice or even 3 times what it should cost. I am in Australia and know of many collectors here who wont even look at a sale from the U S or U K where Global Shipping is mentioned. Also know quite a few U K collectors that wont buy from the U S for that reason as with dealing with the seller direct they can often get the item sent with a lower value on customs forms to save duty which is not possible when using Pitney Bowes
 
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nhpharm

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Yeah...I opt out of the Global Shipping option and do quite a bit of overseas sales. I have not noticed a real reduction in sales on my end on items that I would expect to sell on eBay (in other words, good rare/desirable stuff). Lower end stuff on the other hand has gotten to be a harder sell over the years and at this point I have better luck selling it at bottle shows and other person to person venues.
 

RCO

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some of the sellers just want too much money , some nice local acl's went up this weekend but the opening bids are extremely high , one of the bottles is set at $200 plus $20 shipping , its a nice hard to find bottle but $200 as an opening bid is insane

at those prices any new collectors or more general bottle collectors who aren't specifically looking for that town are never going to bid , only someone who has to have the bottle and has money to burn is going to bid on it , which would be an older more established collector with money
 

adam.w.brymer

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I hear that a lot of people are using etsy.com for antiques. Maybe some of the sales are shifting to other websites.

Sent from my XT1635-01 using Tapatalk
 

nhpharm

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High opening bids are a killer for sure. I think a lot of people use them to try to protect themselves from eBay's fickleness (a bottle that might go for $300 one week going for $100 the next week). I use high opening bids from time to time on quality "one of a kind" items but on mass-produced items like bottles, I think it backfires. Generally, people are looking for something that they want that they also feel like they got an OK deal for. A low opening bid gets people invested in watching and bidding on an item and in the end may drive the final bid price higher. But you have to have the stomach to see your Tippecanoe (for example) sell for $50 if its an off week and remember that time that you listed a lowly local pharmacy bottle and got $300 for it. In the end I think it all evens out. People also have to have the sense to look at the "sold items" search for the item they are selling and if 50 of them have been listed and didn't sell for $4.99, there is no sense listing the one you have. I think part of the problem with eBay is that a lot of categories are clogged up with thousands of items that belong in a landfill, and some people just get sick of wading through that crap and give up on searching out the higher quality stuff.
 

CanadianBottles

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I think part of the problem with eBay is that a lot of categories are clogged up with thousands of items that belong in a landfill, and some people just get sick of wading through that crap and give up on searching out the higher quality stuff.
This is one thing that got me sick of Ebay, that and people who buy dollar store items in bulk and then mis-list a thousand of them individually. I haven't done any searching for a while on Ebay but the number of can koozies and plastic water bottles and other miscategorized junk in the bottles and insulators category drove me crazy. That and the number of people who kept relisting the same $5 bottle for $300 every month for five years in the hope that someone would be stupid enough to buy it, but of course no one ever was.
 

American

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Ebay doesn't charge a listing fee anymore (Insertion fee), so anybody can just throw anything at any price against the wall to see if it sticks. There used to be a minimum insertion fee and the higher the opening bid in the auction format, the higher the insertion fee. The idea was to let people bid and the market would determine the value of a bottle. It also used to cost more to do a buy-it-now. Now, all that is free, a seller does not have to take any chances on an auction, and they can do it at no cost to them. If their item doesn't sell, no problem, just re-list it forever. Ebay just decided to jack up their commission to 10% to cover the loss in insertion fees, but they will see, eventually I hope, that the strategy is flawed.
 

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