Grrr eBay...

[SuperPang]

God I hate this place more than ever. Stop **** up the layout to appease the retards ebay. And now I see Paypal accounts are mandatory for "safety", lol, what a joke.

[Ringtail]

Well what viable alternatives are there out there? And by Viable I mean enough people browsing to make it worth your while to list.

[Miller]

Am i the only one to think Ebay is one of the best things on the net, barring a few niggles of course.

[theevilfunkster]

Seems alright as a buyer but I don't think I'll ever bother selling on there again.

[Bingo83]

I used to love it but it really seems to have gone downhill. The new search engine is crap, and the amount of horror stories seems to be increasing. Paypal and Ebay have the market sewn up, heres hoping that the Google backed alternative one is released soon.

[Lordstar]

googlebay sounds promising thats for sure. Get them to do a huge ad campaign and it could just well knock ebay for six

[Pete]

Not sold on there for over 12 months & buy very little, sharp contrast to what I used to be like.

[gargoyle67]

Paypal's Safe LOL, Cos no one's been ripped off with the old unverifed address snatch your money back loop hole.

[Checen Rebel]

enough people browsing to make it worth your while to list.

It's a vicious circle - if nobody lists then there won't be anyone browsing.

It's upto the sellers to make the first move. If everyone just whinges about ebay but doesn't actually do anything then nothing will ever change. The power is completely in the seller/retailers hands.

I've not used ebay (for buying or selling) for a few years. I don't like their business practices and I won't support them. Nor will/do I use paypal.

I have an ancient ebay account from before a CC had to be on file that I use occasionally use to browse and then contact the seller to see if they want to sell anything outside of ebay - 95% of the time they are more than happy to as they have no ebay taking a cut so they will sell for cheaper than the listing price.

[chubsta]

I use ebay a fair bit because ultimately its far cheaper than buying stuff in the shops. Ive only had one item not turn up and that was a £2 mug from a guy with thousands of feedback so im pretty sure he had sent it out - he then sent a replacement anyway. When i was selling i sold an old spectrum +2 to a guy who said that when it arrived the tape player didnt work (i had tested it fine befor i sent it out). I sent him a reply saying it must have been damaged in transit and that i would give him a full refund and he may as well keep the speccy as it was no good t me either. He then replied saying that as i didnt want it back he had talen it apart, fixed the problem, and now didnt need a refund! thats how a good transaction should be.

So, yeah, i'm happy with ebay and find it really useful - you have to keep an eye open for the scammers and idiots tho and i appreciate that its probably muc better to be a buyer than a seller, although i guess that goes for retail shops too...

[SuperPang]

Am i the only one to think Ebay is one of the best things on the net, barring a few niggles of course.

It was 5 years ago. Now the fees are too high, its not flexible enough, the feedback system sucks and its populated by morons because everyone and their mother uses it.

[Checen Rebel]

It was 5 years ago. Now the fees are too high, its not flexible enough, the feedback system sucks and its populated by morons because everyone and their mother uses it.

Even 5years ago it was **** - it was just as populated by idiots unfortunately. :/ The amount of times I've seen things sell for more than the RRP is amazing - because it's an auction people seem to go stupid. 10years ago I thought it was because ebay was new. 10years on and it's no better.

As a buyer even cash converters works out cheaper than ebay once you've added postage costs.

[Miller]

So what the alternative people?

[Pete]

Forums with sales sections.

[Miller]

Forums with sales sections.

No disrespect to this site or killer cabs for that matter but they have nowhere near Ebays selling power. Also what happens if i want to sell CD`s or something that does not have a forum? i agree that Ebay needs a real competitor to keep prices down but you just cant expect to sell your goods to that amount of people for nothing its crazy.

[Pete]

AVF is a great selling forum.

[Checen Rebel]

Forums with sales sections.

Definitely. Or car boot sales for retro stuff, but even at car boot sales people have started to want silly prices (with the justification of "I can get £xxx for it on ebay").

If more sellers actually did something about it then ebid or ecarbootsale or one of those could become a viable alternative. I doubt it'll ever happen though - people like to complain but not become active.

[Miller]

Yes people like to complain indeed

[Checen Rebel]

Yes people like to complain indeed :D

Which is no bad thing. It's when they don't back it up with actions that's a problem. ;p

[Miller]

You cannot achieve Ebays huge buying pull with car boots and selective forums you are just **** in the wind. In my view thats worth paying a price for and you just cant argue with market value its foolish to do so.