eBay

EBay profit rises but shares fall 5 percent: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

EBay listings surged 19 percent from a year ago, after suffering declining growth much of last year. But growth in active users eluded the company, rising a mere 1 percent.

I'm not terribly surprised by the apparently plateau of eBay's userbase at all. It almost mirrors my own experience as a buyer and seller of used goods and trinkets through the auction site. I used to buy a lot and sell a little over the years since 1994 (I think). I've bought and sold Hot Wheels, electronics, software, games, ephemera, printer suppliers, and camera equipment.

But, I've decided to avoid buying anything there. Frankly, I've grown tired of:

• Auction Fees--too many fees for this service: listing fees; final value fees; fees to bold your auction; fees to use templates; fees to use an automated listing client; etc etc etc. There is no end to fee-age.



• PayPal Fees--as an eBay buyer/seller, you are virtually locked into their payment system, PayPal, which charges you an extra few percent for allowing others to pay you through the system. This on top of the auction fees.



• Fraudulent sellers--I bought a new cell phone on eBay and that was a BAD MISTAKE. The phone was marked by Sprint as stolen and the seller disappeared. "No matter", I thought, "there is the Buyer protection guarantee." HA! Little did I know what a farce that is. It took a month of going through all of eBay's steps to resolve the matter with the seller (no response) and filing the proper paperwork, to only have eBay deny my $200 claim. Luckily, I had used a credit card through PayPal and I filed a claim in 15 minutes over the phone with my credit card company and received a credit without a hitch. PayPal sucks and this incident was the beginning of the end for me on eBay. I no longer feel safe in ordering from any seller there.



• Pricing -- You have to know your prices on eBay, even for commodity goods. Just because it's on eBay, it's not always a good deal.



• Counterfeit or Misrepresented Goods -- It's well known that eBay is a thieve's den of counterfeit goods. How do you know what you're getting? I've ordered used stuff on eBay and they showed up as not quite the same thing as listed. And the seller? Nowhere to be found. Jerks. And if you want it resolved? Heaven forbid you'd want...



• Customer Service -- Since you're ordering from any number of people on eBay, you're beholden to varying levels of customer service. Some are good, some are great, but some are just lousy. It's difficult to gauge and frustrating to resolve if you need to return or resolve anything.

So, it is no surprise that I have relegated eBay to the back burner of my Internet shopping, unless I'm looking for something truly odd or weird. I am of the opinion any money I might have saved shopping on eBay is better spent on piece of mind and customer service from more reputable online dealers. "You get what you pay for," is not always the case at eBay--sometimes you get less.