When i started on ebay, FVF were 3.9%.

Now with promoted listings they are as high as 21% because of the extra international fee.

that's a 550% increase in a little over 20 years.

in 2003 i could send a card in a padded mailer within the U.S. for 65 cents.

It's now between 5.50 and 6.00

that's a 900% increase.

Its called INFLATION.
20 years ago cigarettes were $1 a pack of 20 now with taxes inflation and taxes they are $40 a pack of 20 as I do not smoke they could be more.
This applies to most things also 20 years ago there was such a thing as price control no such thing now it is all any thing goes.

Not ebays fault I know, but just a heads up for anyone selling now, if you sell 30 cards a year in the UK you will have to give ebay your national insurance number and they will pass details of everything you have sold to the tax man.
Theres also a money limit I think around £1700 if anyone plans to sell very expensive cards.

A few Ebay sellers are inflating their shipping charges as in around $8-10 for maybe 10 cards. I did buy about 50 cards with $12 as a shipping cost. I thought that was a little high but then the seller did refund me about $4 for the overage so I thought that was good.

Another seller wanted $20 to ship one card that was in a some special holder.

I see someone else wanting over $15 to ship 20 cards.

If the cards are being sent via the Royal Mail, then the price depends on weight, value, type of package and specific shipping method (e.g. regular airmail, Tracked and Signed For, etc.). Royal Mail prices have increased quite a bit in recent months

Plus dear old eBay are forcing their shipping methods on sellers which can be significant.

You can check out actual Royal Mail international shipping prices here:

https://www.royalmail.com/sending/international

Not forgetting that eBay take a percentage of the shipping fee as they now charge their fees on the combined selling price plus the shipping fee.

I should've added that those prices were for just within the U.S. Sending a small box roughly the size of a brick (one of those 300 count boxes you can get at a sports card shop) to Europe or Australia is over $30.

eBay had announced they would allow some kind of $0.75 shipping option (a single card under 1 oz, in a card saver, shipped in a rigid envelope). You print the label through the eBay shipping system and it comes with tracking. Obviously there's a lot of risk the card gets damaged, or comes "postage due" on the other end. Has anyone been happy with this program?

Is this something new ? I placed a bid on a Marvel card on ebay and it demanded a credit card immediately, saying that if I win next week, they will charge me.

In the past, I always got an invoice and they then asked for payment. When did this start ?

quote:

Originally posted by Tommy C:
Is this something new ? I placed a bid on a Marvel card on ebay and it demanded a credit card immediately, saying that if I win next week, they will charge me.

In the past, I always got an invoice and they then asked for payment. When did this start ?

At least this far back:

https://nonsportupdate.infopop...437070207#3437070207

Something weird just happened. I put in an $11 offer for a $15 promo pack accepting offers. The offer was declined and then I noticed the seller had raised the price of the pack to $25 and raised the price of the shipping from $5 to 10. I had already made a counteroffer of $14 but was able to retract it.

I think the seller noticed another seller had the same pack for $25 and thought he could get that too. He lost a sale. Meanwhile, the other guy lowered the price a few bucks because no one has been interested at $25.

I had a Lance Henrikson X-Files auto on watch for $16 and change for about three days waiting on other auctions to end. Then some days later the bin was changed to about $56

Yeah, it appears someone got to him and convinced him he could get a lot more for the card so he raised it. If no one was biting where it was, why would he go along with bumping up the price?

quote:

Originally posted by spidergoblin:
I had a Lance Henrikson X-Files auto on watch for $16 and change for about three days waiting on other auctions to end. Then some days later the bin was changed to about $56

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Yeah, it appears someone got to him and convinced him he could get a lot more for the card so he raised it. If no one was biting where it was, why would he go along with bumping up the price?

[/QUOTE]

Because a majority of the card sellers on eBay now have no idea how to fairly price a card, so they can't tell when they get a fair offer. Also, many are just too greedy for their own good.

I made an offer on an autograph card the other day for $150. I knew the fair range was $100 - $120, but I liked it and the BIN was overpriced. I had to offer more than I wanted just so I wasn't automatically declined. Against my better judgement I bid higher than I should. The seller comes back with a counteroffer of $15 more.

$15 more on a card that was already $50 too high, $100 if you count from the original BIN. Are you kidding me? On second thought, I walked away with all my money. Reminds me of "War Games", "the only winning move is not to play".

I have often seen silly prices for UK original issues being asked for by mainly by users of COMC. It is not unusual for someone there asking for a price for a single card that is 10 times the asking price of the original set still being sold by UK dealers, all accompanied by a shipping charge that is equally silly.

Another weird deal...I bought two promo packs for $5.49. The seller tells me he has only one of them and asked if I wanted the one for the same price or if I wanted to cancel.

Before I could reply, and less than 24 hours after his question, he cancelled the transaction and told Ebay I requested the cancellation. I told Ebay I didn't ask for it and it sounded like a bait-and-switch. I got a refund but I should've had a chance to buy the remaining item for less than the full price. Again, someone got the idea he was selling "gold" too cheap.

quote:

Originally posted by catskilleagle:
Again, someone got the idea he was selling "gold" too cheap.

Maybe the guy was reading the promo threads here and you and pcetodd convinced him to up his prices.

I'm kidding, for some reason I can't get the grinning faces to come up in posts on Card Talk anymore. Is it me or others too?

Anyhow, I find it's best to keep a tight circle of favorite eBay sellers, at least when it comes to card buying. I have some reliable businesses I keep using, and I like some of the consignment outfits because I really haven't had a problem with them not sending items or playing games. They don't do Best Offers, so it's generally BINs with them. It's true that some cards are wildly overpriced, but others are good bargains, so just know what the price should be before you click.

I don't like to deal with individuals that have small inventories or severely mixed inventories of everything they ever owned. It's not so much that they are trying to cheat you, as it is that they don't know what they are doing. I only risk a questionable new seller it if I see a card that is unusual or very hard to find. Just a cheap price alone won't hook me because there is always something wrong with those cards.

Here's a true story that happened to me a few months back for the first time in all my years on eBay. I tried a new seller with a somewhat short sales history because he had 3 cards I was looking for and the total was high, but not very high. I messaged him first and the conversation was good, so I went ahead. In short order I received the package and it had only one card inside when I opened it. Not any one of my cards mind you, just one fairly expensive multi signed card.

For a second I was tempted to shut my mouth because the one card was worth more than my three. Of course, I did call him up right away and he had already received a message from the purchaser of the card I had received, who didn't much care for my choices. Also that they were down some money on the value. Yep, he sent the two orders to the wrong buyers because he put the printed eBay labels on the wrong boxes.

So now I had to send the card back to him, making a special trip to the PO and paying the postage. Then I had to hope that my cards would be sent back to him by the other buyer who probably wasn't very happy with the short end of the stick, so that he could then send both orders back out to the right people.

After about another week I got my cards and I was refunded my postage money and a little extra for my trouble by rebate. He is a nice guy, not trying to cheat anybody. I left him positive feedback. Bad businessman though. I won't be coming back and that's what you run into on eBay.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Raven,

Yes, you are veering into the unknown when you buy from people other than established professionals, but then as you noted, that's often who has the oddball stuff - cards you don't see often or haven't seen for sale before and the prices are reasonable.

Those are actually two of the maybe 5-6 negative experiences I've had on Ebay and I've been buying since the last days of the 20th century. And those deals ended with me not out any money. I just didn't get the stuff.

I had one of those not too long ago. It was even more convoluted because the seller was in Canada, me in the US, and other buyer in Australia. I received the wrong card and buyer in Australia received my card. There was also a UPS brokerage fee I received after the fact for the original international transit Canada to US of my wrong card, and getting the return shipping label was a bit of a pain since it was international.

The approach above is the right one- send back to the seller. Some people just cross send to the other buyer but this is playing with fire and not the way to fix this, especially for anything expensive, as that provides no protection for you as the buyer. Maybe for a $5 or $10 card but definitely not for a $100 card etc. Needs to be sent back to seller so they can sort it out and resend.

The return shipping label is generally purchased on ebay by seller and you as the buyer just print it out. In fact in these return cases sellers must provide the buyer a label, it should never be money out of the buyer’s pocket to purchase a label. Problem with mine was it was international- which ebay does not allow a return label to be purchased for. So the seller basically had to purchase a UPS label on his end independently, and then provided the label electronically to me which I was able to use to send the package back to Canada.

The package finally got back to the seller, but it was long and tedious. I decided I didn’t even want the original card anymore after all that (seller didn’t even offer it to me anyway). I understand…mistakes happen.. I certainly wouldn’t leave a neg for an innocent mistake (as long as seller is responsive and deals with it appropriately). But man this whole thing was caused by such a basic oversight. It’s like sellers…double check your packages especially if sending them all over the world.

quote:

Originally posted by wolverine651:
The return shipping label is generally purchased on ebay by seller and you as the buyer just print it out. In fact in these return cases sellers must provide the buyer a label, it should never be money out of the buyer’s pocket to purchase a label.
. . . But man this whole thing was caused by such a basic oversight. It’s like sellers…double check your packages especially if sending them all over the world.

Interesting, I was not given the option of a label. I had to supply my own packaging and postage to send it back to the seller. I even added insurance because if it went missing from there by the PO, I don't know who would have covered it. The whole conversation was on eBay messaging, but no one complained to eBay itself as far as I know.

Yeah, sellers have to be more careful than that and on foreign buyers I don't know how you would even sort out the custom fees now. I'd just tell eBay he screwed up and ask for my money back. Let them deal with the seller.

My seller wasn't some mass warehouse either, if he had a couple of buys on the same day it would have been a lot. He just apologized and said go to the PO and send it back to him, which we both did apparently, but if either of those packages had gotten lost in the mail there would have been a dispute, I'm sure.

It was also the first order I did with him, so even though I got my money back, if you blow the very first chance with me, you've lost a customer.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Interesting, I was not given the option of a label. I had to supply my own packaging and postage to send it back to the seller. I even added insurance because if it went missing from there by the PO, I don't know who would have covered it. The whole conversation was on eBay messaging, but no one complained to eBay itself as far as I know.

Ah, yea the seller isnt quite doing it right and sounds like a new seller, but if you got refunded the shipping I guess doesnt matter.

The verbiage eBay uses for returns is “Seller has until X date to provide you a shipping label and if they don’t you can ask eBay to step in (I.e. escalate to eBay). So you *could* have done this in theory if the seller didnt provide the label…if they never do, escalate the claim and eBay sides with you I’m sure. Basically it’s sellers responsibility to provide the label, and you don’t have to purchase one yourself to then rely on the seller refunding the shipping. Seller can purchase return shipping label right on eBay (for domestic returns), or purchase it elsewhere (carrier, online shipping site) and provide it to you that way.

Thats a good question about it possibly going lost in transit back to seller- it would be so, so rare but it’s enough that I asked an eBay rep about this on the phone once. They essentially assured me as long as you do your part: providing evidence of an acceptance scan on tracking for the return- it’s out of your hands and you did your job. If it somehow goes lost, ebay itself probably takes the hit but I think you’ll be made whole. Or if the original seller tried to scam and refuse the return package etc, doesnt matter, eBay should side with you. So basically they the insurance on the return wasnt really needed, but seller should have provided the label anyway.