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Massive Drop In Online Sales For Ebay, Amazon, Play


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HOLA441

A new amazon sellers thread has arisen. Classic quotes below, where the bedroom tax is dropping landlords income, so they have less money to spend .

Its worse than that really, was talking to a landlord the other day.

A young mum tenant in a house, so reduced housing benefit due to these changes. She insists on paying the landlord only what the housing benefit pay her regardless of the rent the landlord wants.

So the landlord after back and forth is now taking eviction proceedings (which cost a considerable sum). Lost rent due to her actions for the year on one out of three properties they have is being figured as around a third of the landlord's annual profit.

Plus of course there is usually some kind of delay after a tenant moves out before another moves in and decoration/repairs may be needed. So a landlord with 3 properties could end the year with no profit at all!

So government saves a little on the one hand and gets less tax on the other, along with landlord spending less in the economy.

So the argument is that the government would be financially better off if it handed over more money to landlords? The terrifying thing is that this is the level of financial intelligence of the average voter (and probably a significant proportion of MPs). One positive aspect of a long and deep economic depression is that it might force people to start using their brains for the first time.

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HOLA442
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HOLA443

So the argument is that the government would be financially better off if it handed over more money to landlords? The terrifying thing is that this is the level of financial intelligence of the average voter (and probably a significant proportion of MPs). One positive aspect of a long and deep economic depression is that it might force people to start using their brains for the first time.

I loved this quote from sfass's link... "Its worse than that really, was talking to a landlord the other day. A young mum tenant in a house, so reduced housing benefit due to these changes. She insists on paying the landlord only what the housing benefit pay her regardless of the rent the landlord wants. So the landlord after back and forth is now taking eviction proceedings (which cost a considerable sum). Lost rent due to her actions for the year on one out of three properties they have is being figured as around a third of the landlord's annual profit. Plus of course there is usually some kind of delay after a tenant moves out before another moves in and decoration/repairs may be needed. So a landlord with 3 properties could end the year with no profit at all!

So government saves a little on the one hand and gets less tax on the other, along with landlord spending less in the economy." :lol:

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HOLA444

Here is an example of something I bought on ebay that arrived today

A brand new packaged 6 gang surge protected extension lead

Price to me £3.99 including VAT (with a VAT receipt) and Royal Mail 1st class post

It arrived in a brand new sealed air mail lite gold ref K/7

Let's say that ebay fees are 31p (assume biggest discount and free listing)

Let's say that the paypal fees are 25p (assume biggest discount)

Let's say that, by averaging, the post price is £2.29 (lowest published 1st class packet price)

Let's say the mail bag and the two sticky labels on the bag for the address and the PPI cost 10p in total (the cheapest I have seen them is a bit more than that, but that is only on an order of 5,000)

So, in fees, the cost to complete the transaction is up to £2.95

Given that I have paid £3.33 + VAT, that means that the 6 gang surge protected extension lead has to have cost them less than 38p in order for the seller to be making any money at all.

Now, the listing I bought from does have 10,000 of these listed, but even so...

the self same 6 gang surge protected extension lead is on sale in Boyes for £3

so the bargain isn't all it might first seem to be

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HOLA445

There are a lot of people getting excited about these surge protecting socket strips.

I've seen some of these cheapy strips and they are of terrifyingly poor quality. I picked one up from one of those pound shops, for a couple of quid. It's a death trap - possibly, it's OK, if it's only used for phone chargers, and there are no children/wives in the house.

The one I bought had switched sockets. I used the switches to power an electronic energy saving light bulb - after about 1 month of use, the switch welded into the on position; it was of such poor quality, that the "surge" as the capacitors in the electronics charged up, led to the switch contacts overheating and melting together!

I took that one apart and found it wasn't just the switches that were junk - the metal forming the socket conductors themselves, was inaccurately shaped and didn't make good contact with the pins of the plug. Several were scorched presumably from where I'd plugged in a hoover. Had I plugged in something heavy duty like a fan heater or an iron, I could well imagine the thing catching fire.

I've had another one spew out a massive arc which singed the hairs off my hand when I plugged an iron into it.

Be very careful with cheap chinese electricals, they are often of very poor quality and usually omit important safety features.

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HOLA446

I don't have experience of these switches - but increasingly the very cheap stuff is object shaped rather than any use for the task in hand. I picked up a trowel and fork for the garden. The welds failed on the first usage. USB hub - an led comes on and it has all of the right ports - but nothing works with it. Bicycle lights where the plastic is so flimsy that putting the light on the supplied bracket breaks it.

This is just producing stuff for landfill - utterly worthless use of planetary resources, energy and people's time. Built in obsolescence taken to the extreme - make it cheap enough and it only has stay in one piece to get it home. The low price makes it not worth the effort to return.

My fear is that it'll this approach will move up to higher priced and safety critical goods. You can easily pay 2-3 times the price of something in a pound shop - and get the same quality from other stores.

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HOLA447

I don't have experience of these switches - but increasingly the very cheap stuff is object shaped rather than any use for the task in hand. I picked up a trowel and fork for the garden. The welds failed on the first usage. USB hub - an led comes on and it has all of the right ports - but nothing works with it. Bicycle lights where the plastic is so flimsy that putting the light on the supplied bracket breaks it.

This is just producing stuff for landfill - utterly worthless use of planetary resources, energy and people's time. Built in obsolescence taken to the extreme - make it cheap enough and it only has stay in one piece to get it home. The low price makes it not worth the effort to return.

My fear is that it'll this approach will move up to higher priced and safety critical goods. You can easily pay 2-3 times the price of something in a pound shop - and get the same quality from other stores.

Didn't Rooney do just that with his barnet transplant....and now he has to go back in and get it done properly in a 9 hour operation. Might as well just buy a cheap syrup from the pound shop like the bloke in Ripping Yarns who played for Barnstoneworth.

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HOLA448

Didn't Rooney do just that with his barnet transplant....and now he has to go back in and get it done properly in a 9 hour operation. Might as well just buy a cheap syrup from the pound shop like the bloke in Ripping Yarns who played for Barnstoneworth.

toupe.jpg

99p well spent!! Superb craftsmanship.

If, however, you want a more naturalistic look, Aldi are now stocking this model:-

763_1362671934.jpg

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HOLA449

So the argument is that the government would be financially better off if it handed over more money to landlords? The terrifying thing is that this is the level of financial intelligence of the average voter (and probably a significant proportion of MPs). One positive aspect of a long and deep economic depression is that it might force people to start using their brains for the first time.

Housing benefit is already essentially a benefit for landlords in expensive parts of the country. I wonder would rents in many parts of London be quite so high if there wasn't a seemingly bottomless pool of public money available to meet the landlords' asking prices?

Better to bundle a fixed amount for housing expenses into a standard benefit payment and make the tenant shop around. This would put downward prices on rents and free up some of the more desirable property to be available to people actually working for a living.

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HOLA4410

You think I would have learned my lesson by now, but I have had the following things fail on me

Car tape cassette adaptor for MP3 player - lasted 5 uses before packing in.

3-pack micro-usb cables - one arrived non-functional, one broke after 2 weeks, the other lasted just over a month.

USB cup warmer - worked, but the heat produced was so insignificant it was pointless.

USB hub - worked fine but was advertised as USB3 when it was USB2.

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HOLA4411

Had I plugged in something heavy duty like a fan heater or an iron, I could well imagine the thing catching fire.

Don't try an oil filled radiator.

Last winter my gran bought an extension lead to move the radiator closer to her chair.

By sheer luck the first time she used it we were there visiting, she switched on the radiator for us to be warmer, the mains lead to the block actually started melting and smoked into a flame before it was quickly unplugged.

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HOLA4412

Don't try an oil filled radiator.

Last winter my gran bought an extension lead to move the radiator closer to her chair.

By sheer luck the first time she used it we were there visiting, she switched on the radiator for us to be warmer, the mains lead to the block actually started melting and smoked into a flame before it was quickly unplugged.

Any electric heating device takes a bit of current! Some of these extension leads are ,as you say, of lamentable quality! :blink:

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HOLA4413

The ebay decline continues.

Below is a very good ebay forum thread, citing a lot of reason for ebays' sales decline

What has happened to all the little sellers?

http://community.ebay.co.uk/topic/Seller-Central/Happened-Little-Sellers/18000505208?start=0

Yet another free listing days is announced (13th), so for first time ever (IIRC) that is the first ever time that 3 free listing days are running at once on ebay.co.uk (1 business sellers @30 days & 2 private sellers @ 10 days)

Zero insertion fee for up to 100 listings on 13 June on eBay.co.ukZero insertion fee for 100 listings on 8 and 9 June on eBay.co.uk

my Hermes price rise, so following Royal mail increase, the cheapest couriers have greatly increased prices, making posting many items profitably now impossible.

http://www.myhermes.co.uk/wps/portal/PN_CTR/Home/information

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HOLA4414

The ebay decline continues.

Below is a very good ebay forum thread, citing a lot of reason for ebays' sales decline

Heem yes. I have just won an item without competition at all - normally there will be at least one or two other who are interested.

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HOLA4415
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HOLA4416
Sounds like that old 1960's favourite, the Long Firm Fraud.

Reading some of these stories, my first thought was that this would be a great way to render vast amounts of income (for instance profits from the drug, sex, or arms trade) into a more socially palatable form.

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HOLA4417

I have given up trying to sell on ebay, i am setting up a small business for small money, setup the page etc and had a few sales of what i make, loads of photos, reslly long and detailed description etc.....2 people went through ebay and got refunds 1 saying my product was a fake?!?!. There is no branded product like it, i am thr only seller selling it. Ebay upheld their clam and they got their money back. The other has actually used it, admitted that she will continue to use it, but she felt i decieved her and wanted her money back, ebay agreed.

I asked ebay on both accounts why they gave a refund, And they reffered me to their policy page. I also asked thrm how i could improvr my listing, to stop thiz from happening again, and i got no answer. So i am building my own website to sell my wares and i am going to use social media for advertising.

Also i was going to sell alot of my book, i had a rather large and heavy dictionary, royal mail estimated it would be £5+ To post, but ebay wont let you put higher than £3 as postage for a book, any book. Whats the point of that, with delivery costs rising, they need to realise its expensive to post things

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HOLA4418

Heem yes. I have just won an item without competition at all - normally there will be at least one or two other who are interested.

I went through a phrase around 2000-2002 of buying any amount of computing tat possible. If anyone had a stack of Sun Sparcs for sale, I'd buy it.

Seem to recall a lot of competition for any tat as well, which made me think a lot of the competition was "manufactured." Sellers bidding on their own stuff and so on.

Now hardly anything sells, and my guess with trying a few listings is that items from small sellers are just not showing up in Ebay's search algorithm.

I've listed CD's etc and searched for the exact title and could never find my own stuff! However I am by now means an expert on Ebay so don't know all the nuances are increasing my chances in search.

I think the small private sellers are being sifted on search, to benefit the store owners, but its the small auctions that gave the site such a buzz originally.

My guess is that your chances are dramatically increased if you open a store which requires a monthly subscription, though to be fair though the costs of entry are increasing, they are not massive by any means.

I know one firm who sells 10-15 sofa's on Ebay a day, and they are not even a "gold seller" but are trying as hard as possible to leverage Ebay to direct sales, they preferred payment method being COD. They operate their own delivery system as furniture delivery is more problematical given an appointment has to be booked with the customer so they are in.

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HOLA4419
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HOLA4420
I think the small private sellers are being sifted on search, to benefit the store owners, but its the small auctions that gave the site such a buzz originally.

Ebay wants to be Amazon and I think it intends to ditch the auction model entirely if it can and focus on being a retailer.

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HOLA4421

Ebay wants to be Amazon and I think it intends to ditch the auction model entirely if it can and focus on being a retailer.

I've had more success on Gumtree and their free adverts. You get a local audience that will come and pick up too and there is none of that negative feedback nonsense.

From my experience, Gumtree seems to attract the Asian buyers.. with cash (in my area anyway).

Gumtree is obviously more dodgier but you can always go look and view/try what is being advertised.

I have known Ebay resellers use Gumtree to sell damaged/returned stuff, such as marked furniture and so on and cash buyers and landlords snap it up.

Sell it on Ebay and you would get neg feedback, even though you had accurately described the condition.

The sad fact of the matter is that many firms offer two levels of service, with the Ebay buyers getting more attention due to the commercial damage getting any negative feedback can bring.

Many moons ago, I sold a commercial Firewall appliance privately on Ebay. I specifically stated on my advert that it required proprietary software which required a monthly subscription. Guy turns up and says no problem, and that he is very experienced in buying and configuring these products.

I thought good, at least I'm dealing with a pro that knows what he's buying.

No sooner had they guy got the firewall home, than he posts negative feedback saying the appliance needs commercial software. I give up with fckt*rds on Ebay! :lol:

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HOLA4422

Here is an example of something I bought on ebay that arrived today

A brand new packaged 6 gang surge protected extension lead

Price to me £3.99 including VAT (with a VAT receipt) and Royal Mail 1st class post

It arrived in a brand new sealed air mail lite gold ref K/7

Let's say that ebay fees are 31p (assume biggest discount and free listing)

Let's say that the paypal fees are 25p (assume biggest discount)

Let's say that, by averaging, the post price is £2.29 (lowest published 1st class packet price)

Let's say the mail bag and the two sticky labels on the bag for the address and the PPI cost 10p in total (the cheapest I have seen them is a bit more than that, but that is only on an order of 5,000)

So, in fees, the cost to complete the transaction is up to £2.95

Given that I have paid £3.33 + VAT, that means that the 6 gang surge protected extension lead has to have cost them less than 38p in order for the seller to be making any money at all.

Now, the listing I bought from does have 10,000 of these listed, but even so...

I bought something from eBay's biggest seller.

£1.99 Delivered (1st Class).

Product was sent in a jiffy bag far too big for Large Letter rate, so they are ripping Royal Mail off for a start.

How can I compete with such volume sellers when they have an advantage, that being, they get away with murder when it comes to declaring their weights, volumes and formats to Royal mail.

And when I mean murder, I mean Royal Mail will be loosing £1+ PER PARCEL that is presented as Large Letter instead of Packet.

For example, 5,000 Parcels per day mis declared = £5,000 PER DAY.

Revenue Protection won't touch these guys, they send too much for them to check.

Rev Prot could turn around to them and say we sampled 20 yorks (roll cages used to move mail) and you have not declared your weights/qtys/formats/classes correctly based on that sample.

Seller turns around and says but my other 80 yorks from would make it tally.

Rev Prot are in a predicament, because the seller could be right.

Only option is to sample ALL of the post, but they still need to deliver that 1st class post the next day regardless, therefore, they will never check their post. Too much work!

There are ways sellers can 'work' their paperwork too, so it is too confusing and time consuming for Rev Prot to check your mail.

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HOLA4423

Pretty sure that RM are actually fairly hot on checking the weight of post. I don't know but would guess they maybe either take the lorry over a weighbridge or weigh the individual york containers. I'm not totally convinced this RM theory is what's behind the many seemingly unsustainable business models on ebay - although I think it's more plausible that the commonly cited vat one, which I think would give an absolute maximum 10% edge on retail price.

RM's whole system does seem ill-conceived if packing staff at their customers, for instance, lost paperwork detailing how many packets were being shipped on it. I can guarantee most would take the lazy option and make something up rather than re-count it all. This isn't for the benefit of their employer it's just because they're lazy and it seems peculiar RM don't have a system that would take something like this into account.

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HOLA4424

the self same 6 gang surge protected extension lead is on sale in Boyes for £3

so the bargain isn't all it might first seem to be

Boyes are a discounter. I still don't see profit in selling the same product a bricks and mortar discounter does for £3 for £3.99 through ebay. I would have guessed a cost of about £1.75 for a low-end brand 6 gang extension. If they were getting a better price than Boyes, which I'd doubt, it would only be pennies.

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HOLA4425

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