The Wholesale Forums

[sellsimplestuff]

Originally Posted by Costaconsoles

yeah but they are trading separately - owned by the same (kind of) but still independent

I did know that Ebay & Paypal are earned by the same company I should have mentioned it.

I echo the sentiments above.

[sellsimplestuff]

Originally Posted by ADC

Exactly, there is just no way you can do so much business elsewhere. It needs a big rival like google to claim some of their market share.

If it was any other industry the government would step in.

Imagine if one company owned all the major market halls and stalls in the UK and charged the stall holders 12.6% of their daily takings.

Thats the equivelant of what ebay are doing on the internet. If I sell an item at £15.99 it costs me 85p to list it, 59p final value fee (with my 30% powerseller discount) then another 58p in paypal fees.

That is absolutely extortionate in anybodys book. How can any company justify taking 12.6% of someones turnover. That's not 12.6% of their profit, it's 12.6% of their turnover. So if i turnover 20K a month, ebay takes home £2400. Ebay gets paid more than I pay myself.

But they can charge what they like, because there is nowhere else for business's to turn and they know that.

It's also forcing prices up artificailly, if i was paying 3-4% on every sale instead of 12.6% I could pass most of that saving on to my customers.

I feel like writing to Gordon Brown. He can't do much about the lack of competition, but he should make them either sell paypal or insist that a different payment provider is also offered on their listings. He should also offer some extremely favourable tax breaks to big companies like google or microsoft to try and entice them into setting up a rival auction site in the UK.

As more & more money is spent on the internet & less in shops, it needs some kind of regulation by the monopolies and mergers comission to stop the rich getting richer and to force some healthy competition which will drive prices down.

Sorry if that's a bit of a rant, but at least I've got it off my chest.

Chris

Thats not necessarily true. The internet is not the be all and end all of buying and selling.

For every company/person that relys on ebay to pay thier mortgage there are many others who don't.

I think people shouild be more flexible and have different business ventures

one could be internet, mail-order, property, amazon. Offline business works just as well.

The thing is it requires a bit more work/application but once it does it's great,
and you don't have to worry about getting negative feedback and being shut down for 30days, and you won't have to worry about paypal holding your money.

For people who rely on ebay, it's difficult for them to wean themselves off it.

People should realise because the net is more or less a faceless medium trust is an important factor. Website conversions are around 1% I have been told.

If you conduct business offline (ie) mail order or visiting people it is easier to build relationshhips because you can see who you are dealing with.

I watched a programme called 'Mary Queen of Shops' on BBC2 last monday. The host of the programme was helping a struggling botique.

She took members of the staff to a Gap store in Manchester to see how they work. The manager of the store said on a Thursday night they get 1,000 visitors and expect to convert 40% into sales.

This would never happen online, unless you are a big player or firmly estblished.

I think it shows that the closer you are to youre customers, the more trust you can get and the bigger your sales can be.

People should still try and set up thier own sites, but not see it as the be all and end all, and they should not think that if they can't sell on ebay it would be impossible elsewhere.
'

[FiveStarWholesale]

Originally Posted by ADC

Exactly, there is just no way you can do so much business elsewhere. It needs a big rival like google to claim some of their market share.

If it was any other industry the government would step in.

Imagine if one company owned all the major market halls and stalls in the UK and charged the stall holders 12.6% of their daily takings.

Thats the equivelant of what ebay are doing on the internet. If I sell an item at £15.99 it costs me 85p to list it, 59p final value fee (with my 30% powerseller discount) then another 58p in paypal fees.

That is absolutely extortionate in anybodys book. How can any company justify taking 12.6% of someones turnover. That's not 12.6% of their profit, it's 12.6% of their turnover. So if i turnover 20K a month, ebay takes home £2400. Ebay gets paid more than I pay myself.

But they can charge what they like, because there is nowhere else for business's to turn and they know that.

It's also forcing prices up artificailly, if i was paying 3-4% on every sale instead of 12.6% I could pass most of that saving on to my customers.

I feel like writing to Gordon Brown. He can't do much about the lack of competition, but he should make them either sell paypal or insist that a different payment provider is also offered on their listings. He should also offer some extremely favourable tax breaks to big companies like google or microsoft to try and entice them into setting up a rival auction site in the UK.

As more & more money is spent on the internet & less in shops, it needs some kind of regulation by the monopolies and mergers comission to stop the rich getting richer and to force some healthy competition which will drive prices down.

Sorry if that's a bit of a rant, but at least I've got it off my chest.

Chris

I can understand your frustration but I think you are wrong in your assertion that Paypal fees are too high. They are only slightly above what you would pay for a Merchant Account (Depending on volume). Credit/Debit Card processing fees are expensive across the board, even Tesco have complainted about them recently, so Paypal's fees, and the added services they provide are, in my opinion, fair.

I don't personally agree with eBay's 'Paypal Only' move, but I can understand it.

RE offering Tax Breaks to others to set up a rival business - Why would they do that? The government aren't about to take up arms against eBay. Would the government offer incentives for software companies to develop a rival to Google? no, they wouldn't.

eBay offer a service, if people aren't happy with it, then they should look at other selling venues.

Businesses need to be nimble and ready to react to changes - If eBay is changing, then so do the sellers.

Simple really!

[ADC]

Originally Posted by hardwareheroes

Thats it - ebay doesn't owe you a living - they have so many visitors, they can charge for the privilege. If you don't like it - go elsewhere and see if you can make a profit there

That's not the problem. The problem is they are a monopoly. Yes they have a lot of traffic. But that is because there is no serious rival. That's not good for competition and it's not good for consumer pricing. That is why the government need to step in and sort it out. They do step in with bricks and mortar stores so why not on the internet? What should they do? Carry on letting them get bigger & bigger until they wipe the floor with every single other online retailer.

[ADC]

Originally Posted by FiveStarWholesale

I can understand your frustration but I think you are wrong in your assertion that Paypal fees are too high. They are only slightly above what you would pay for a Merchant Account (Depending on volume). Credit/Debit Card processing fees are expensive across the board, even Tesco have complainted about them recently, so Paypal's fees, and the added services they provide are, in my opinion, fair.

I don't personally agree with eBay's 'Paypal Only' move, but I can understand it.

RE offering Tax Breaks to others to set up a rival business - Why would they do that? The government aren't about to take up arms against eBay. Would the government offer incentives for software companies to develop a rival to Google? no, they wouldn't.

eBay offer a service, if people aren't happy with it, then they should look at other selling venues.

Businesses need to be nimble and ready to react to changes - If eBay is changing, then so do the sellers.

Simple really!

OK lets do some forward thinking and step into your future, where the government don't do anything. Sales on the internet are going to keep increasing for a long time yet. So ebay will carry on the way they are and get bigger & bigger. 30% of online time now in the UK is already spent on ebay, so god knows what it will be in a few years. Most things you can think of can be bought there so why should buyers bother going anywhere else. The sellers aren't going to leave ebay because all the buyers are there. So really most sellers are going to be on ebay and probably have their own website too. But if they just had a website will they be able to survive? It's the same as what the big supermarkets are doing to your high street greengrocer, they are gradually killing them off. Fair enough websites are cheap to run but as ebay gets bigger & bigger there won't be any business going through them. Your existing customers may keep coming back but all the new ones will be on ebay. So looking into the future if you are a seller and not on ebay you're not going to be able to survive. Ebay control the fees they charge the sellers and the sellers set their prices accordingly. So in the future inflation is going to be partly controlled by how much ebay put up their fees. And basically they can charge what they want because there is nowhere else for sellers to go. Is that what the goverment really wants? Consumers paying higher prices just because they didn't step in and do something about ebay sooner.

Now step into my vision of the future where the goverment actually does something and through generous tax breaks persuades a rival such as google to set up an auction site. In the future there will be an alternative to ebay, so if ebay charges the sellers too much they can go to google and vice versa. It's healthy competition and it keeps the fees lower for the sellers who will in turn have lower prices and it will help lower inflation.

Competition is healthy in every market place and the same applies to the internet as anywhere else.

[ADC]

Originally Posted by sellsimplestuff

Thats not necessarily true. The internet is not the be all and end all of buying and selling.

For every company/person that relys on ebay to pay thier mortgage there are many others who don't.

I think people shouild be more flexible and have different business ventures

one could be internet, mail-order, property, amazon. Offline business works just as well.

The thing is it requires a bit more work/application but once it does it's great,
and you don't have to worry about getting negative feedback and being shut down for 30days, and you won't have to worry about paypal holding your money.

For people who rely on ebay, it's difficult for them to wean themselves off it.

People should realise because the net is more or less a faceless medium trust is an important factor. Website conversions are around 1% I have been told.

If you conduct business offline (ie) mail order or visiting people it is easier to build relationshhips because you can see who you are dealing with.

I watched a programme called 'Mary Queen of Shops' on BBC2 last monday. The host of the programme was helping a struggling botique.

She took members of the staff to a Gap store in Manchester to see how they work. The manager of the store said on a Thursday night they get 1,000 visitors and expect to convert 40% into sales.

This would never happen online, unless you are a big player or firmly estblished.

I think it shows that the closer you are to youre customers, the more trust you can get and the bigger your sales can be.

People should still try and set up thier own sites, but not see it as the be all and end all, and they should not think that if they can't sell on ebay it would be impossible elsewhere.
'

I certainly agree with you on that, don't put all your eggs in one basket and all that. I do also have money invested in property, but the internet & ebay is an amazing thing. Nowhere else can you do so much business with so little outlay. Me and 2 friends put £200 each in 3 years ago and we all had other jobs at the time. Now we have a business that turns over 200K. If the internet & ebay weren't around we would never have rented our own shop, paid for the shop fittings etc on £200 each. We wouldn't have taken the risk of borrowing any money either, so we probably would never have bothered.

Yes ebay is a fantastic invention, but so was the internet and the guy who invented the internet doesn't get a percentage of every sale.

What i'm saying is the whole buying online thing is bigger than just ebay and the goverment shouldn't allow it to be a sellers only option.

[hardwareheroes]

Originally Posted by ADC

That's not good for competition and it's not good for consumer pricing. That is why the government need to step in and sort it out. They do step in with bricks and mortar stores so why not on the internet?

The government will only step in if its in the interest of the consumer / gen public and not if its in the interest of the traders trying to sell to the public.

[D M]

Tax breaks for Google and Microsoft? Are you joking? These are even bigger monopolies than ebay.

[FiveStarWholesale]

ADC, It's never going to happen. Paypal doesn't have a Monopoly position. It may be the only method of payment for eBay but that is only one venue.

You seem to think that Paypal fees are far too high. I suggest that you haven't really looked at the costs of alternative services, because if you do you'll see that they arn't very much more.

The Government will only step in if there was a true Monopoly, and there isn't one here.

[studio1one]

we pay merchant rate of 1.9% with paypal.

That competes with any bank for online processing