The Wholesale Forums

[ADC]

[quote=FiveStarWholesale;157246]

Originally Posted by ADC

Can I ask you a question why does the UK have a competition commission?
quote]

The Competition Commission is in place to rule over anti-competitive business practice, not to listen to a bunch of moaners complain about eBay Fees!

In all seriousness, you are entitled to your opinion. The problem lies with people moaning about eBay but not putting any fact to back it up. You are saying eBay is anti-competitive but I've not seen one sentance that justifies this, apart from the 'Paypal Only' issue.

People moan about the fees and say they are unfair, but give now facts to show they are unfair. I'll say it again, if you divide the fees you pay by the visitors they achieve, you won't find many, if any, better options available.

Don't get me wrong, I think eBay have made some big mistakes recently, but as business people you need to look at it from their prospective.

Paypal Only = Customers are driven away from eBay because of fraud, which in the majority occurs when they pay using another payment method.

No Seller Negitaves = Newer customers tend to be scared away from eBay when they get a negitave, so eBay have withdrawn the ability for sellers to do this.

Tighter Controls on Sellers = Again, if a new eBay buyer has a poor 1st experience because of a seller who offers poor service, they tend not to come back - by penilising the poorer sellers, customers are more likely to buy from better ones, and will keep using eBay.

Again, I'm not saying I agree with the above, but people need to look at it from eBay's perspective.

Back to the 'Moaners', alot of them come from people who simply can't find anything to sell that has a fair margain. Because of this they look at eBay's fees and blame that. People need to look in the mirror, look at their business and decide if it's viable. People seem to think it's their God given right to be able to make money on eBay, it's not! It's a business platform just like the High Street, and businesses fail there every day!

OK, one of the areas the competition commission investigates is mergers. When larger companies will gain more than 25% market share and where a merger appears likely to lead to a substantial lessening of competition in one or more markets in the UK.

Another question. Why do you think the competition comission are bothered about the lessening of competition in a particular market?

Just to make it clear, as far as I am aware I have never said ebay is anti-competitive. I think someone else said that. I am also not suggesting that ebay should be investigated by the competition commission. After all it's not their fault they have got so big and no other big competitor has come along to take a slice of their pie. What I am saying is that some kind of incentive should be given to other large companies with the same financial clout as ebay to start a similar auction site.

You say the fees are good value. But how can you tell? because you haven't got another decent online auction site to compare them with. You can't really compare fees with anyone else, when there is little or no competition. Going off the amount of profit they make the fees aren't good value. I think most auction sites would be over the moon if they could just achieve half the profits that ebay makes.

I agree with most things ebay have done recently apart from the paypal only option which i think is really overstepping the mark. I for one will be one of the sellers that survives on ebay after they have finished there cull of poorer sellers. Our DSR's and feedback are very high plus we are a platinum powerseller with £20k per month ebay turnover. Our products make a decent enough margin and I am not saying I want a reduction in fees so we can make more profit. I am saying I want a reduction in fees so I can lower my prices. I'll repeat what I said earlier people are paying more for products because of the high seller fees.

[D M]

Originally Posted by ADC

Just to make it clear, as far as I am aware I have never said ebay is anti-competitive. I think someone else said that. I am also not suggesting that ebay should be investigated by the competition commission. After all it's not their fault they have got so big and no other big competitor has come along to take a slice of their pie. What I am saying is that some kind of incentive should be given to other large companies with the same financial clout as ebay to start a similar auction site.

Goverments can't go round giving 'financial incentives' to increase competition because a company is making profit. What if it was your company?

Let the free market do it's stuff.

[greedyboy]

Check up from the neck up required

[geosamm]

Ouch.... some opinions are starting to bite a little in this thread

[FiveStarWholesale]

Originally Posted by ADC

I am not saying I want a reduction in fees so we can make more profit. I am saying I want a reduction in fees so I can lower my prices. I'll repeat what I said earlier people are paying more for products because of the high seller fees.

That's called business! You are saying eBay should lower fees so the general public get cheaper prices. That's like saying Walkers Crisps should sell their products to Tesco at a lower price so the consumer can get a bag for a few pennies less!

Your arguement has no logic. I can't believe that a person who 'claims' to turnover £20,000 a month on eBay has such a poor vision on the basics of business!

Anyway, I'm calling this a day. As mentioned earlier

[ADC]

Originally Posted by FiveStarWholesale

That's called business! You are saying eBay should lower fees so the general public get cheaper prices. That's like saying Walkers Crisps should sell their products to Tesco at a lower price so the consumer can get a bag for a few pennies less!

Your arguement has no logic. I can't believe that a person who 'claims' to turnover £20,000 a month on eBay has such a poor vision on the basics of business!

Anyway, I'm calling this a day. As mentioned earlier

Ohh some of these comments are getting nasty. Greedyboy says I need my head examining and fivestarwholesale seems to be suggesting that I'm not telling the truth about having a £20K a month ebay turnover. Well just to set your mind at rest I have attached the proof with my ebay name removed obviously.

I don't think walkers crisps have the same kind of dominance in the crisp world as ebay have in the 'buying online' world. Also with ebay we aren't just talking about one product, we are talking about 1000's of different products all having their prices dictated by the ebay fees.

[FiveStarWholesale]

Originally Posted by ADC

we are talking about 1000's of different products all having their prices dictated by the ebay fees.

Prices are dictated by hundreds of costs, that's business! You've yet to put any facts forward that show that eBay fees are high.

Do you run your own site as well? Have you compaired your traffic figures and what it costs you to achieve these figures?

[ADC]

Originally Posted by FiveStarWholesale

Prices are dictated by hundreds of costs, that's business! You've yet to put any facts forward that show that eBay fees are high.

Do you run your own site as well? Have you compaired your traffic figures and what it costs you to achieve these figures?

Yes, but as I explained before 12% of those costs are being controlled by ebay. Nobody can put any facts forward as whether the fees are good value are not. There is nothing to compare them with. They have a 90% share of the auction market and they rake in over 45% of all online sales. If you are a shop owner in the UK you could compare say the rent charged in the trafford centre in Manchester to the rent charged in Bluewater shopping centre in Kent. Because they will both probably have a similar footflow. But in the online world it's ebay or nothing.

[ADC]

Originally Posted by FiveStarWholesale

Do you run your own site as well? Have you compaired your traffic figures and what it costs you to achieve these figures?

We did have our own website. It wasn't getting much business at all to tell you the truth. So we have closed it at the moment and are going to get a professional in to re-do it. It seemed to get quite a bit of traffic thru e-mailing the ebay customers, but didn't get many sales

[greedyboy]

Sorry but this is just getting boring now. Maybe we should just leave it there.