Is anyone still using eBay for casual selling?

[Muse]

I can sell stuff on ebay very quickly and for over 10% more than AT FS/FT, for example, making the final value fee a moot point. It's been great for me, but I only sell items that will fit in a USPS Flat Rate Box, always offer free shipping, and always use Buy it Now. That's the formula that works for me. I doubt I'd ever try to sell something large anymore, shipping is a pain in arse.

I used to but haven't sold anything on Ebay for a number of years. I tried to sell a ~$20 item a year or so ago but got no bidders. I agree that BIN is the way to go these days. I rarely bid anymore, those auctions aren't worth the trouble. I almost always buy BIN with free shipping items and they are almost always offered by ebay pros, that's my impression. They are professionally packaged. I order off ebay quite a bit. Bought a dozen AAA Eneloops just this evening in fact. Better price than Amazon and much better than Walmart.com. It's hit or miss. A lot of the time Amazon's pricing is a lot better than anything on ebay. But I often check and find that ebay has better pricing. If I'm not nervous about the item, Amazon's better return policies won't entice me from a cheaper offer from an ebay seller as long as it seems legit.

A couple of times recently what I got wasn't what was represented in the ebay listing and both times I was able to return the item for a full refund and was supplied a return shipping label. That's just as good as you'll get from Amazon.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

Haven't used it for a few years. but had an extra amp laying around the house, and thought I would go ahead and send it on to a new life.

First listing - no response for the winner. Sent two messages, still nothing. Sent a second-chance offer to the next-highest bidder, no response.

Relist - as soon as it ends, the winner (a different person, I checked) says, "how do I cancel? I was looking for another model."

What a joke. What are all the cool kids using now?

My wife sells a lot of artwork on eBay. I sold a David Gilmour replica black strat there and some old camera equipment I didn't want any more.

 

[Muse]

Hmm. Possibly that's my problem, and my friends and myself are the only desktop users left these days? I mean, we grew up with them, and they don't really like laptops. I use laptops daily, tablets occasionally, and desktops daily too. (4K UHD TVs rock as monitors. So much glorious real-estate. Can't easily or cheaply get those on a laptop or tablet.)

Can you recommend one? Even mention some specs?

 

[Alpha One Seven]

Lol that would probably get you shot walking around with that in the states. That's awesome though, is the trigger a wammy bar? 😀

Nah, I always carry at least one firearm personally.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

Can you recommend one? Even mention some specs?

I use a 55" Sony 930E as a monitor. Great for the purpose.

 

[Staples]

Days of the desktop are well over. Most people use iPads are just their smartphones. There are a few PC gamers out there but that is about all. School aged kids need them for writing reports and all but most people past school don't need them nor do they want them.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

I do a lot of content creation on my desktop that can't be done on a phone or tablet. Video, Music, Photo editing, 3D modeling and rendering, commercials, etc.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Days of the desktop are well over. Most people use iPads are just their smartphones. There are a few PC gamers out there but that is about all. School aged kids need them for writing reports and all but most people past school don't need them nor do they want them.

To me, I wonder WTF would you use otherwise. A phone is so dang small (screenwise), and a tablet, well, it's better than a phone, for browsing, but still a pita to type anything of substance.

Or is that why everyone "Twitters", it's too hard to type more than 140 characters on a phone or tablet...

 

[pcslookout]

To me, I wonder WTF would you use otherwise. A phone is so dang small (screenwise), and a tablet, well, it's better than a phone, for browsing, but still a pita to type anything of substance.

Or is that why everyone "Twitters", it's too hard to type more than 140 characters on a phone or tablet...

Exactly!

I love my tablet and phone but it is so much easier on a laptop or desktop pc!

 

[Thebobo]

Days of the desktop are well over. Most people use iPads are just their smartphones. There are a few PC gamers out there but that is about all. School aged kids need them for writing reports and all but most people past school don't need them nor do they want them.

Eh "The reports of desktops deaths have been greatly exaggerated." Mark Twain. I don't deny PCs are in decline yet Intel and AMD are still putting a lot of effort into new desktop chips. For me I'm into Comfortable Computing™. I like sitting at a desk, in a large comfortable chair, resting my arms and elbows on the desk, typing on a nice keyboard with a large screen, sipping on a cup of joe.

 

[crashtech]

It's not that the desktop is dead exactly, it's that it's become commoditized, making the niche for custom builders increasingly tiny and difficult to carve out.

 

[Muse]

I use a 55" Sony 930E as a monitor. Great for the purpose.

Is that 4K? Do you need a special video card to drive it? My current desktop's pretty legacy:

GIGABYTE GA-EP45-UD3R LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard
Q8200 (2.33Ghz 45nm Core2Quad), copper core stock heatsink/fan
PNY 9600 GSO dual DVI PCI-e GPU

 

[Muse]

Exactly!

I love my tablet and phone but it is so much easier on a laptop or desktop pc!

For a lot of purposes a laptop stands in very nicely for a desktop. When I can, I use an external display with my laptops. Some stuff I do requires a desktop, though, including my HDTV recordings. Not much else, though. I rarely do email on my smartphone and typing with my tablets, not into it.

 

[hasu]

It is hard to sell small items on ebay owing to ebay fees and shipping. I have had under 1000 transactions (estimate based on my 700+ rating) in 18 years or so. Craigslist is not that much better either.

 

[Thebobo]

For a lot of purposes a laptop stands in very nicely for a desktop. When I can, I use an external display with my laptops. Some stuff I do requires a desktop, though, including my HDTV recordings. Not much else, though. I rarely do email on my smartphone and typing with my tablets, not into it.

At work we have dell laptops and docking bays with dual DVI monitor support. So everyone uses that and USB keyboards and mice. Don't think i've ever opened it heh. The idea is you take your laptop home for telework but that's a pita so I use Horizon on my home PCs and CISCO'S IP phone software so It's just like sitting at my desk in the office.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

@VirtualLarry , I used to really enjoy building and selling bespoke desktops, but haven't those days have pretty much come to an end? I can't give builds away anymore, but parts still sell...

Pretty much this. Craigslist is 95% stupid consumers. That means, they have moved on from Desktops altogether because if the device is able to browse Facebook it already does everything they want - and they are too stupid to understand the difference between gaming on a laptop vs. a desktop. It's hard to find that 5% on craigslist that are like other ATOT users.

So when it comes to computer hardware, I usually stick to tech forums and parse them out. I will always be a desktop user - but I have to admit, I don't buy upgrades anywhere near as often as I used to.

 

[sourceninja]

...

 

[Fritzo]

I am, but I'm using it less and less. With fees now, they're taking up to 20% of your sales. Screw that.

For musical stuff, I switched to Reverb.com. They're great to deal with and you can get top dollar for good items. Also started using the garage sale groups on Facebook. It's a bit of a hassle but things usually sell pretty quickly with no fees.

 

[crashtech]

If I could find a no-fee way to sell stuff that actually worked for me, I'd be on it. Been thinking about trying the Heatware marketplace.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Yeah, I still sell on ebay. Their fees are outrageous, but sometimes it's the only way to sell.

I usually try to sell locally on craigslist (need to try FB marketplace and offerup) to avoid fees, but some things are just too darn difficult to sell locally. The chances of someone local looking to buy some DDR3 RAM, or Z87 motherboard, or an i5/i7 CPU are just too low. I usually list local and if there are no biters after a few weeks it goes off to ebay. I typically don't bother with FS/FT forums, for the most part they look like ghost towns and most people expect to pay less than ebay so even with hefty ebay/paypal fees my bottom line is pretty much the same.

Bulky stuff that won't sell and costs too much to ship typically gets given away or donated. Trying to sell Dell 2405FPW and Auria QHD monitors on Craigslist but there are zero bites. Frustrating as I want them out of the house but it's hard to give away stuff that I paid a small fortune for.

Used to sell on Amazon marketplace, but some time ago they must have changed their policy so that small individual sellers can't sell anymore unless you create a store with monthly payment and/or unless you prove you're an authorized reseller essentially shutting down amazon marketplace for small private sellers. I liked them because for certain items like laptops their fees were half of ebay's, but unfortunately that is no longer an option for me.

 

[Red Squirrel]

To me, I wonder WTF would you use otherwise. A phone is so dang small (screenwise), and a tablet, well, it's better than a phone, for browsing, but still a pita to type anything of substance.

Or is that why everyone "Twitters", it's too hard to type more than 140 characters on a phone or tablet...

Yeah I hate that the industry is trying to push out the PC. I can't imagine trying to do any real work on a phone or tablet.

 

[KentState]

Only as a last resort. I will drop the price in the FS/FT section until it doesn't make sense anymore.

 

[Ketchup]

Appreciate all the input. The second chance offer of the relist sold. I should have known there would be an issue when I had 6 messages from the buyer the morning after it sold. He got it and said that there was a problem with this used 10-year-old amp. Ebay said he was ok to return it even though it was sold as is, and was going to refund him what it cost my to ship it with the selling price due to their 30-day return policy. I got to the right person and they just decided to let him keep the and and let him have the money back, but not take my money (so they ate it).

Wow, won't be doing eBay for electronics anymore.

 

[Alpha One Seven]

Yeah I hate that the industry is trying to push out the PC. I can't imagine trying to do any real work on a phone or tablet.

No one is trying to push out the PC, nor could they. The PC is being augmented as it is a bit cumbersome to haul it with you everywhere you go.
Could you imagine a doctor performing a surgery remotely on a phone screen? A photographer doing editing of a photo on a phone screen? Or a programmer trying to see 200 lines of code at a time on a phone screen? lol Not going to happen.

 

[Ketchup]

I think the retail industry just realizes that the home desktop was as fast and feature-packed as it needed to be a couple years ago. So, since most desktops are still getting away with mechanical hard drives, there won't be a big push in the desktop marked until the extended support ends for 7 in 2020.

Tablets and phones are where the money is at right now. Again, not that desktops are dying, it's just that they are at the level where replacements aren't needed nearly as often.