Goodbye, eBay

As of May, I’ll have been a member of the on-line auction site eBay for 10 years. During that decade, I’ve done a lot of business on the site, both buying and selling. But the one item I have posted for sale right now could very well be my last.

Like many others, I’ve become disillusioned with eBay. No longer is it the place to realize the best possible price for almost any item, from collectibles to clothing to cars. It’s now the place people look for bargains almost exclusively. I’m just as guilty as anyone, having sought things at a low price rather than go elsewhere and pay the real market rate. What this means as a seller, though, is that most of the things I’ve put up for auction in the past two years have either failed to get bids or resulted in sale prices way below what they realistically should have.

Arguably, this could represent the market setting the price, and in some categories, that seems to work. My field is comic books, and what eBay has done in this category is drastically depress the price of your everyday, average well-read comic book, because that’s the condition of most copies that people have dug out of basements or pulled down from attics trying to cash in on the on-line auction craze. Even 50- or 60-year-old comics in “good” condition often fail to get bids, because there are so many out there or the buyers are waiting for a better bargain.

Where eBay has changed the comic collecting field is in the realm of the high-grade collectible. These comics go for higher prices, but still, the price is often less than the value listed in price guides.

The last few times I’ve posted comics for sale, if I’ve sold anything, it’s been for the minimum amount. Perhaps I set my minimums too low, but judging by the fact that many others don’t get any bids at all, I think the market is just saturated. I’ve gone from highs --- in 1999, I sold a comic for which I paid 25 cents for more than $200 --- to the lows of not getting any bids at all on pretty good condition 50-year-old comics.

OK, so it’s sour grapes. But eBay itself has helped with the souring. Earlier this year, the company increased the final value fee it charges, a percentage of every sale made on the site. On my most recent sales, eBay took a cut of more than 17 percent. The company also recently eliminated the ability of sellers to leave feedback on buyers, significantly hobbling the ability of sellers to police the site.

And then there’s PayPal, the payment processing website that eBay owns. It’s almost impossible to sell on eBay and not accept PayPal; buyers demand it, and the site pretty much thrusts the option down the throats of sellers. While it offers the convenience of accepting immediate payment without having to set up a credit card account, PayPal also takes a hefty chunk of every transaction it processes. Between the two, eBay and PayPal can take more than 20 percent of each sale, which doesn’t leave much when you’re talking items that sell for less than $10.

Security is another issue. At Thanksgiving, I happened to check my email while out of town. I discovered a bunch of PayPal transactions I knew nothing about. Somehow, my account had become compromised. I immediately called my local bank and froze any PayPal transactions, and ultimately the only thing I lost was a lot of time straightening the situation out and reconfiguring my account. I was unable to use the account for a month while PayPal investigated the situation, and lost out on several eBay items I wanted to bid on because the sellers would only accept payments through PayPal.

To do well on eBay, you either need to have really good items that people really want, or sell high volumes of low-cost things. Many sellers have resorted to padding shipping costs to make up for the low sale prices, charging $10 to ship something that costs a couple of dollars postage. EBay says it is cracking down on such practices, but as yet I have seen no evidence of this.

My split with eBay is probably not permanent. I’ll still flirt with it, I suspect, if I come across something I need to turn around for a fast buck or find a listing for a comic or book or CD I really need for my collection. I’ve found another way to sell comics online, through a website devoted to the hobby that allows a seller to list issues for sale until someone comes along and buys them, and only then is a fee charged. I’ll be listing all the comics that didn’t sell on eBay, and then not spend a week worrying about whether I’ll get any bids. Shedding eBay anxiety can only make my life better.