Increasingly less and for quite some time. Buying, extremely rarely. Browsing, almost never. As a seller we do most of our business through our website and private sales. They are a business, just like PP is part of their business, and so of course they have to make a profit for their shareholders, but the fees versus returns as less and less people use the site and the rate of deadbeat buyers rises makes the whole operation for cheaper material a very time consuming exercise.
The numerous bells & whistles to not realy go toot, whistle, plunk and boom properly, the search engines are erratic, and so on. Fold in the general economic world downturn, the upsurge in gas prices (and the subsequent knock-on effect to the day-to-day cost of living) the drop in discretionary spending as people have to re-arrange their financial priorities and one can see why the drop-off rate has been so dramatic. Plenty of sellers joined the " strikes" and may well have discovered they were better off in dollar terms simply because many amateur sellers or " hobby sellers" simply don't do the math on listing fees/time spent vs. returns, but had it done for them when they became emotionally engaged through the strikes. The potential answer to e*ay's problems is staring them in the face, but they are incapable of seeing it. As sellers leave, so do buyers. Alienate the regular/professional (in all senses of the term) sellers, then the charlatan ratio rises, the " buying experience" becomes far less attractive and the results we see become reality. Phil E. On Mon, 9 Jun 2008 07:32:20 -0500, Bruce Hershenson wrote > I USED to be a really regular buyer on eBay (for a while, my buying level was > so high I needed a full-time employee to take care of paying, unpacking, > leaving feedback, etc). Not just movie paper, but also vintage glass frames, > paperback books, 1939 World's fair items, #1 magazines, and a few other areas > I somehow wandered into. > > I had a lot of really good searches saved, and I also would go through a few > select entire categories, and also check all the offerings of the sellers I > bought from the most. > > One day, I noticed that eBay had added a lot of unnecessary categories, that > really messed up my category searching, and worse yet, many sellers were > posting items wherever they wanted, and no one was policing this at all, and > complaints to eBay went unanswered. > > Later, I noticed that most of my searches had gotten screwed up (some kind of > changes eBay had made), and I was just unwilling to re-do them all (since > eBay might ruin them again at any time). > > I also noticed more and more sellers being deceptive in their titles, meaning > I would have to click on the listing to see what it REALLY was. Sometimes > titles like "Casablanca, rare style original movie poster" might turn out to > be a 1990s video poster! > > Finally I noticed that many of my "favorite" sellers were listing less and > less, and when they did list anything good, they would usually have a high > starting price, unwilling to gamble their good posters on an eBay that was > clearly delivering less and less in the way of good buyers. > > Worst of all, I was finding that a growing percentage of my purchases took > longer and longer to arrive (sometimes I would have to complain to get it > sent) and a growing percentage of my purchases were not very well wrapped, > and a growing percentage of my purchases were ovrer-graded and the seller had > somehow "missed" extremely obvious defects. > > ONE DAY, I JUST PACKED IT IN AND QUIT BUYING ON EBAY COLD TURKEY. Do I miss > finding lots of cool stuff? Absolutely! But do I miss the hour a day I used > to spend searching all over eBay, finding something that seemed to > be promising but that turned out to be nothing, or do I miss the crushed > packages, or the over-graded items? Not at all! > > HOW ABOUT YOU? How do your eBay buying habits NOW compare to a few years ago, > both in terms of time spent on the site, and total money spent? > > BruceVisit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at > www.filmfan.com___________________________________________________________________How > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing ListSend a message addressed to: [EMAIL > PROTECTED] the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-LThe author of this > message is solely responsible for its content. -- Nelson Bay Online (http://www.nelsonbay.com) Visit the MoPo Mailing List Web Site at www.filmfan.com ___________________________________________________________________ How to UNSUBSCRIBE from the MoPo Mailing List Send a message addressed to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] In the BODY of your message type: SIGNOFF MOPO-L The author of this message is solely responsible for its content.
